Protestantesimo ascetico, spirito del capitalismo, armonia degli interessi. Secolarizzazioni e immagini del mondo in Max Weber

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct Weber’s genealogy of the spirit of capitalism. Weber conceives the transition from the ethics of ascetic Protestantism to the spirit of capitalism as a process of secular-ization. The analysis of the origin of the spirit of capitalism will help illustrate the plurality of paths of secularization, highlighting their different orientation and their independent origin. The emancipation of the economic ethos from the religious fundaments can not be understood without recurring to a notion like that of rival subrogation: a notion irreducible and opposite to that of secularization.