THE SYSTEMATIZATION OF M. WEBER’S THEORY OF CAPITALISM: INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH (R. COLLINS) AND MOTIVATIONAL APPROACH (Yu. N. DAVYDOV)

Full text

THE SYSTEMATIZATION OF M. WEBER’S THEORY OF CAPITALISM:
INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH (R. COLLINS) AND MOTIVATIONAL
APPROACH (Yu. N. DAVYDOV)
_____________________________________________________________________________
Ilya Katerny, PhD
MGIMO-University (Moscow, Russia)
Paper published in and translated from:
Katerny I.V. Sistematizaciya teorii kapitalizma M.Vebera: institutional’ny (R.Collins) i motivacionny
(Yu.Davydov) podhody // Davydovskie chteniya: istoricheskiye gorizonty teoreticheskoy sociologii.
Collection of reports from the 1st Davydovskie chteniya, academic seminar in memory of Yuriy N.
Davydov, October 13-14th, 2011. [Text] / Ed. by Inna F. Deviatko, Natalya K. Orlova. Moscow IS RAS,
2011. Pp. 110-132.) - In Russian
In 1980 an article [1] and in 1986 two books [2, 3] of Randall Collins were published,
which contained the analysis and systematization of Max Weber’s theory of capitalism with
regard to his last lectures given in winter 1919 and in spring 1920 (Weber died in summer 1920)
and combined later in his work General Economic History. Collins believes that the General
Economic History (1923) together with The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilisations (1909)
gives a comprehensive view of what Weber thought was the “actual pattern of world history” [3,
p.82]. Such a reconstruction presented by Collins became well-known in the West (first of all in
Northern America) because of the person of Collins himself and owing to the fact that up to 1981
the General Economic History remained rather unfamiliar to Western scholars (as it had been
reprinted neither in English nor in German since 1927). As Collins himself wrote, it was
common for American sociologists that Weber’s principal work was The Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism and his major contribution could be perfectly grasped with the notion of
‘Weber thesis’ related to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination as the main trigger of modern
capitalism [1, p.925]. As a result, the researches of Weber’s works were mostly reduced either to
the reception or to the criticism of that simplified concept. But Collins essentially upturns such
apprehension of Weber and for the first time offers to consider Weber’s theory of capitalism as a
fairly coherent picture of the institutional-materialistic conception of history1. In the issue, that
article has been widely cited in various research papers as well as in handbooks of and readers in
economic sociology and social theory2. Due to a noted Polish sociologist P. Sztompka, the
comparative analysis of the traditional and modern society suggested by Collins, based on that
work, became known as Weber-Collins classification of societies [See: 6].
Collins emphasized the following three most important conceptual changes, which he
noticed in the works of late Weber: 1) the renunciation of early idealism in interpretation of the
‘spirit of capitalism’; 2) the state as a core object in the analysis of modernity genesis; 3) the
1 Collins himself goes in the footsteps of T.Parsons who pioneered the interpretation of Weber’s rationalization conception in a structural key
for his theory of social action and further the theory of modernization where Weber’s thesis was grasped ‘voluntaristically’ (i.e. in accordance
with a rational norm but without a self-relying agency of an actor) as a certain type of ritual (institutionalized) practice legitimizing the modern
societal community with its system of social stratification, citizenship and law [For details refer to: 4,5].
2 Later, ‘structural’ view to the Reformation was suggested in the most notable investigations such as: Foolbrook M. Piety and Politics.
Cambridge, 1983; Wuthnow R. Communities of Discourse. Cambridge, 1985; Chirot D. The Rise of the West // American Sociological Review.
1985, Vol. 50 (April). Pp. 181-195; Lachmann R. Capitalists in Spite of Themselves: Elite Conflict and Economic Transitions in Early Modern
Europe. Oxford, 2000.
1

enhancing ‘materialistic’ complementarity of M. Weber and K. Marx in the understanding of the
historical path of the West.
Let us consider the said conclusions more detailed.
First of all, Collins substantiated the thesis that the idea of the Protestant ethic influence
on the capitalism formation underwent a considerable if not fundamental evolution in Weber’s
views. Collins counted scrupulously the pages devoted to religion in Weber’s works: The
Protestant Ethic (1905) was Weber’s apology of cultural idealism. In the Economy and Society
(1921) two chapters dealt with religion and in General Economic History (1923) one (the last)
chapter was devoted thereto.
The idea of predestination herewith entirely lost its importance but the religious
motivation of an economic (capitalist) action as such took rather a (dialectically) negative than
positive character.
Collins states that Protestantism gradually becomes for Weber just one of the (erosion)
factors in causal chains leading to the emergence of rational capitalism. The Reformation swept
(«denied») the last «dam» in the flow path of capitalism – monastic communities, which served
in the Middle Ages as stronghold of the spiritual righteousness and restrained proliferation of the
most developed forms of the economy structure introduced by monks. As a consequence, a
layman was equalized in religious service rights with a monk and the most advanced part of the
European economy might then become open and secular. Collins accentuates, following Weber,
that from the motivational («positive») point of view righteousness now means an organized
“production of capitalistic individuals that never existed in any other church or religion” [1,
p.934]. Moreover, in his work Weberian Sociological Theory (1986) Collins stresses that
specifically pro-Weberian point of view requires the shift from the consideration of religion as a
moral authority to that of religion as an economic organization [2, p.8], and basically to the
regarding the sources of capitalism as a set of especially institutional factors linked in well-
defined causal chains. The institutional model of capitalism comprises the complex of such
features as: (a) rationalized industrial technology (mechanization and calculation); (b) formally
and legally free labor (to move about to any work in response to conditions of demand); (c)
unrestricted markets for mass-produced products (with no irrational class monopolies upon
particular items of consumption, or upon ownership of work, and with no transportation
difficulties warfare and robbery – which make long-distance trading hazardous and unreliable);
(d) entrepreneurial organization of capital (private appropriation of all the means of production
that can be calculated with maximal efficiency and must be subject to sale as private goods on an
open market); and (e) calculable law, both in adjudication and public administration (which must
be couched in general terms applicable to all persons, and administered in such a way as to make
the enforcement of economic contracts and rights highly predictable) [2, pp. 23, 46]. And the
first demonstrations of institutionally organized capitalist enterprises can be found in the
medieval monasteries and orders within the Catholic Church3. In the Chapter The Weberian
Revolution of the High Middle Ages from the said monograph, Collins claims without any
hesitation that if Weber continued his comparative-historical investigations, he would see not
only preconditions but also the ‘developed characteristics’ of modern rationalized capitalism
already in 11-14th centuries in the Northern Europe. The absence of the Protestant-like non-
dualistic ethics did not at all prevent monks from creating “the first world-transforming
capitalism” based on their technical innovations, entrepreneurial, productive, and legal activities.
33In particular, Collins states that economic system of the Cistercian order (founded in 1098) were “the cutting edge
of medieval economic growth”. The Cistercians should be considered the first highly centralized enterprise in the
medieval Europe since they introduced a rationalized division between the fully ordained monks (which functioned
like managers) and a second class of monastic (manual) laborers. They prohibited adornment in dress and buildings,
but plowed back all income into buying up land to consolidate their estates. They typically operated factories
producing corn, iron, wool in different regions of Europe for domestic and foreign markets, and thereby pioneered in
machinery in order to find labor saving devices. In addition, they no doubt obeyed rigorous formal and legal rules of
Canon law and hierarchy within the Church. That was a sample of implementing principles of future bureaucratic
institutions and citizenship, i.e. the allocation of rights and obligations [2, pp. 46-57].
2

It testifies modern rationalized capitalism did not spring out after the Reformation but existed in
the High Middle Ages (A.D. 1050-1450) as the ‘capitalism of the Church’ [2, p.57].
Retrospectively institutionalism in Collins’ research means the reconstruction of Weber’s
factor model of capitalism capable of reavealing the causal interrelationship between
communities, organizations and the state in the medieval Europe. According to Collins, the state
rather than religion should be considered as a key to understanding capitalism. The state in that
respect was the very factor, which was most often neglected when analyzing Weber’s theory of
capitalism. It was, however, the state, which was paid the greatest attention by Weber both in his
Economy and Society (8 chapters) and in the General Economic History (2 chapters). Therefore,
it was important for Collins to single out in Weber’s theory an institutional core and to
substantiate based thereon the transition from feudalism and patrimonialism to capitalism. And
the state based on bureaucracy, laws and civic rights became such a core. It might be even
affirmed that a bureaucratic state arising in the epoch of enlightened absolutism of the late 17th
-18th centuries, was, according to Collins, an immediate cause of the rationalization process
resulted in emerging of all signs of modern society – free enterprise, free markets, free labour,
industrialism, formal law. Such a bureaucratic state formalized the unity of the internal and
external economy, and, respectively, of the internal (ecclesiastical) and external (secular) ethics
separated in the Middle Ages by church capitalism, thus, consolidating the rational way of
thinking and the mode of life of new citizens. At the same time, notwithstanding that history of
capitalism is for Collins, first of all, history of institutions rather than of culture, such approach
does not negate the intrinsic relation of the religious-ethical, church-institutional and state-legal
aspects in the formation of modernity. Collins just tries to integrate different factors into a
common pattern of consecutive and subdominant cause-and-effect relations. As a consequence
he derives two logical chains: one of them creates conditions for, the other one eliminates
obstacles to formation of capitalism [1, p.929]. The former leads to the establishment of a
rational state (bureaucratization), the latter breaks down boundaries between internal and
external economy, internal and external ethics (secularization). The said both lines someway
relate religion. First of all, the very organizational (managerial, educational, legal, economic,
accounting) achievements of monastic communities made possible the rise of a bureaucratic state
and following civilian formations underlying the business-oriented legal system of the West.
Only there (in the West) the Church was an institutional model of the bureaucratically organized
management for the state. Further, it was religion that historically suppressed the structural
influence of systems of kinship and ethnic communities having opened a way to rational forms
of labor and trade and created conditions for social stratification system oriented at the
remuneration of rationalized economic success. Puritanism with its idea of calling appeared to be
in demand therein because of the most strongly expressed motivation to have such success. At
that, as Collins cited Weber, in Protestant communities “religious motivation was conditioned on
ethical fitness which was identified with business honor, while into the content of one’s faith no
one inquired” [1, p.934]. Such a notion of calling, on the one hand, salved the entrepreneur’s
conscience and on the other hand incited workers to labor. All that entailed the transformation of
the Puritans communites to one large (secular) cloister based on universal principles of
citizenship, legitimate power and economic motivation. Therefore, the Puritan non-dualistic
ethics is understood by Collins not in the sense of ‘disembodied ideas’, but, rather, in the sense
of beliefs or collective dispositions expressed in institutionalized behaviour, which historical role
was exactly played in the removal of barriers between the monastic and secular ethics [3, р.88].
In generalized view Collins presents the genesis of Weber’s capitalism as a diagram shown in
Fig.1 [1, p.931].
3

Fig. 1. Causal Relationship of Weber’s Capitalism according to R. Collins
As seen, the bureaucratic state, rational law and institutionally-expressed ethical
Methodism are direct factors of the capitalism development. And the state is the proximate cause
of the impulse to rationalization, as, according to Collins, without the state the West would not
become so advanced. Independent states emerging on the ashes of the Papal empire as unions of
(secular) citizens more than anywhere in the world became adapted for free labour and business
activity having provided them with such bureaucratic benefits as professional management,
international transportation, accounting, taxation and currency exchange regulation, legal
procedures and civil law. Why did it so occur? It was so because bureaucratic institutions
appeared to be the most efficient means for maintaining peace and order on large territories and
the safest structure against the internal disintegration by civil war and/or political coup. All that
formed the basis for a reliable system of banking, investment, trade and modern industrial
production4.
And therein Collins discovers the line for convergence of Weber and Marx. The idea of
the of bringing the both classics under common theoretical grounds has always been recidivous
to Collins. In his retrospective of sociology, both of classics stand side by side as originators of
one of four sociological traditions – the conflict one. And he considers therewith exactly Weber
but not Marx to be the founder of that tradition [See: 9]. But in our case institutional order of
capitalism but not its contradictions becomes the ground of complementarity. The only visible
difference between Marx and Weber in that context consisted therein that where Weber came to
an end Marx just made a start. Marxists described mainly the dynamics of (modern) capitalism
and Weber represented generally its background (pre-history). Besides, Weber had more
historical information available as compared to the 1840-1850s when Marx had been working.
Therefore, in the light of studying (pre)conditions of capitalism Collins inclines to the thought
that Weber did not negate Marx but rather re-interpreted and supplemented his postulates. The
classical Marxian analysis of capitalism covered the same institutional factors as Weberian one
did but only with a shifted emphasis. And it was explainable taking into account further
44 It is, however, obvious that Collins does not see to what extent the relations of national states and capitalism were
inhomogeneous at different historical times. While in the 16 th – 17th centuries England overpowered France on the
economic plane due to the loosening of state control over lands but later on all changed. The Speenhamland law was
adopted in England (effective in 1795-1834) aimed at the restraint of market relations, and in France the Le
Chapelier law (effective in 1791-1864) appeared abolishing any professional associations and agreements, “oriented
against free engagement in industrial labor” as, quite opposite, restraining factors of capitalist competition. Мichel
Albert, a contemporary French economist, while offering his model of the capitalism evolution draws the conclusion
that up to the late 19th century capitalism was being successfully developed only where it was opposed to the state
subordinating it to market forces and respective class interests [8. p.265-271].
4

historical data accumulated for half a century. Collins writes that “both of them stressed that
capitalism requires a pool of formally free but economically property-less labor; the sale of all
factors of production on the market; and the concentration of all factors in the hands of
capitalists entrepreneurs” [1, р.938]. Marx, certainly, spoke nowhere on calculability contained
in industrial technology in the way Weber did but now and then he either acknowledged the
importance of technology for economic changes or made it as a part of a more complicated
system of factors5. On the other hand, though Weber had almost nothing to say about the
primitive accumulation (it was more likely that capitalists did not have to rise from below, and
nobles typically became the first capitalists), he was more attentive to the idea of revolution as a
factor of the capitalism establishment. In his work The Religion of China (1916) Weber listed
“the five great revolutions that decided the destiny of the occident”. They include the Dutch
revolution of the 16th century, the English revolution of the 17th century, the American and
French revolutions of the 18th century. The fifth revolution was a number of plebeian revolts in
medieval Italy in the 14th century, when under the pressure from social rank and file aristocracy
adopted more rational and universal laws upon which so much of the institutional development
of capitalism was to depend. All the said revolutions created new political conditions for the
capitalistic institutionalization in the property system enabling market and finance get rid of
irrational and predatory policy of the former authorities [1, p.939].
In contemporary sociology Collins points out to post-Marxism of Immanuel Wallerstein6,
which, in fact, converges Weber with Marx in his interpretation of the capitalist world-system
evolution. On the one hand, Wallerstein elaborates his own pro-Marxist theory of the primitive
accumulation (based on the influx of precious metals to Europe from its colonies) but on the
other hand, he has accentuated pro-Weberian thesis on the relationship of economy and the state,
the significance thereof is that under conditions of medieval warfare and international
competition a ‘mobile capital’ had opportunities to choose where to be invested preferring most
favorable situation for entrepreneurship among different political climates7.
Yuriy N. Davydov, a renowned Russian leader of Weber Renaissance in the 1970-1980s,
also used to emphasize the relationship of religion and the state in Weber’s analysis of
capitalism. In the History and Rationality (1991) he wrote together with his wife Piama P.
Gaydenko that effectively “it was impossible to separate from each other those religious-ethical
and state-legal formations, which are always interrelated in history” [12, p.99]. And following
Weber he repeated that the rise of the West was “unique constellation of a number of very
miscellaneous factors of a spiritual and economic, legal and political nature” [13, p.278-279]. At
the same time being an adherent of the spirit of Weber Renaissance Davydov was always prone
to consider Weber’s sociology of history as elaboration of the basic ‘research agenda’ or
‘subject’ of Weber, which led the classic to the field of sociology of morals. As Davydov
assumes “…as in the long run the solution of all principal issues of morality…thrusts, according
to M. Weber, against the problem of faith…then the fundamental moral problematic appears in
his eyes to coincide with a religious one, and he is engaged in its study within his sociology of
religion” [14, p.612]. That is precisely why Davydov considers as a key to understanding the
peculiarity of modernity and Weber’s theory of capitalism “the intimate motivation of its
(capitalism – I.K.) messengers and creators having obviously ‘non-empiric’ – moral-religious –
55 Marx wrote that the process of the capital and wealth production was at the same time the technological process as
early as in the Grundrisse (1857-1858): «…As industry develops the creation of real wealth becomes less
dependent on working time and labor input… but it likely depends on the achieved level of science and
progress of technology…hence, the machinery acts as the most adequate form of the fixed assets, and the fixed
assets… as the most adequate form of the constant capital in general» [10, p.205-213].
66 It refers to I.Wallerstein’s tetralogy The Modern World-System. The first volume thereof was issued in 1974. See:
Wallerstein, Immanuel. The Modern World-System, I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European
World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York, 1974.
77 Wallerstein wrote: “A key fact (about formation of the capitalist ‘core’– I.K.) was that in North-West Europe the
initially set slight differences coincided with interests of different local groups resulting in the development of a
powerful governmental mechanism… The state machinery in countries of the core were enhanced to satisfy needs of
capitalist landlords and their allies – merchants” [11, p.38-41].
5

sources and impulses» [13, p.279]. It, however, did not mean that historically economy might be
reduced to religion and capitalism to ethics. As Weber wrote in the General Economic History,
economy for him as well as law, art, religion, were the domain of culture with a continuous
struggle therein between a substantive and formal type of rationality [7, p.23]. The same
principle is followed by Davydov – in his viewpoint, any purely economic phenomena do not
exist irrespective of non-economic forms, for economy is intertwined with culture, and the
output (behavior) is determined by the input meaning. Weber’s modern capitalism originates first
of all as a specific kind of motivationally grounded practice; and to be more exact, as a certain
substantive rationality. Davydov writes that “in other words, ‘construction material’ for a new
‘form of capitalism’ had still existed before the Reformation. It only lacked ‘a new spirit’, which
‘having invaded therein’ would call into being that form of a ‘capitalist activity’. And it was
brought by Christianity reformed in the Protestant manner” [15, p.167]. Thus, Davydov’s
approach to the systematization of Weber’s theory of capitalism might be sure called
microcultural and motivational. In the focus of analysis there was the concept of ‘spirit’ of
(modern) capitalism – a specific type of rationality embodied in the ‘world picture’, ‘way of
actions and manner of thinking’, ‘ethos’, ‘dispositions’, ‘ethical values’ of an economic man of
New time, which had, in Davydov’s opinion, (and, certainly, Weber’s one), “the decisive
influence on the life style and economic behavior” of a West-European entrepreneur [16, p.91].
And perhaps exactly in the interpretation of rationality there should be seen the main and
principal distinction of Davydov’s approach from Collins’ one.
The rationality of capitalism is taken by Collins, first of all, as the opposition to
traditionalism with its underdevelopment of economical, political, legal institutions and poor
technology. Therefore, the spirit of capitalism is explicitly expressed in calculability. He
underlines that for Weber capitalism appeared only where institutions of calculability were at
hand. These were industrial enterprise with capital accounting, as well as mechanization
implying the availability of strictly designed technology; an established law making any
economic deals and transaction predictable and estimated, and the bureaucracy as the most
rational form of organization [1, р.927-928].
However, Weber’s concept of rationality had no unambiguous interpretation. As known,
Weber himself used the concept of ‘rationality’ and ‘rationalism’ in different senses. But it was
important that in The Protestant Ethics he criticized directly a simplified view to matters, that
“the development of ‘the capitalist spirit’ might be easiest-understood under the general
development of rationalism” [17, p.42]. Rationalism was for Weber a historical notion
comprising the entire world of contrasts. Therefore, while following that logic the rationalization
is not to be reduced to calculability. In other words, it comprises the development not only
formal but also substantive rationality, and, thus, requires the regard of the value-normative
horizon of events, i.e. so as Davydov does it. Capitalism arises as a new ethos of noble people
having certain and quite high-moral values and ideals embodied in the concept of ‘calling’
(Beruf). And without such a ‘substantive’ ethos capitalism would not become the synonym of
modernity. In this context Davydov systematizes all types of capitalism occurring in Weber’s
works and suggests to single out archaic (‘trade-speculative’ or ‘usurious-adventurous’), modern
(‘industrial and high-productive’) and with a certain share of conventionality intermediate
traditional (Weber’s ‘traditionalism’) types of capitalism8. Institutionally modern capitalism is
distinguished by its industrialism, i.e. orientation at the planned, calculated industrial production.
However, as Davydov claims, industry itself has been shown by Weber not only and not so much
as technical but as social-economic and broader as socio-cultural phenomenon. Therefore, the
capitalist modernity is interpreted by Davydov not as a specific production method but, first of
all, as a new method of production of values or otherwise as “a new socio-cultural ‘formation’
with its own productive-creative principle – the principle of God-pleasing industrial labor,
88 One of the first articles devoted to this issue: Davydov Yu. N. Kto ty, Homo Economicus (Who Are You, Homo
Economicus)? In Nauka i Zhizn (Science and Life Journal). 1990, № 10. P. 106-111.
6

professional duty and responsible initiative” [18, p.273]. Therefrom there was a universalistic,
civilizing potential of capitalism.
That Davydov’s ideas found enthusiastic comment in Russia in the 1990s, when the
governmental economic policy faced fierce public criticism. His claim that there was no the only
one possible capitalism and that conducted reforms had nothing common with ‘actually modern’
capitalism gingered up discussions in the learned body of Russia and was shared by many
scholars in those years. [For details refer to: 19, p.3-20].
That ‘sentence’ to the Russian economic liberalism was the illustration of the quite
important conclusion made by Davydov during the analysis of Weber's works. While for Collins
the era of irrational ‘partial’ capitalism is ended with the emergence of the rational state and
rational economy, which is required therefrom by logic of institutional determinism inclined
unintentionally to Sombart’s interpretation of capitalism evolution, then Davydov’s micro-
sociological analysis in the ‘conventional’ Weberian way explicits not genetically-evolutional
but structural-typological view of the matters, “which implies the appropriate, namely collision-
like way of relationship between them (i.e. of modern and archaic types of capitalism - I.K.)
when they happen to meet within the same ‘chronotope’” [18, р. 275]. In other words, archaic
capitalism is not eliminated by modern one, but endlessly resists it, or, as Davydov has said, it
‘parasitizes’ thereon taking one or another (institutional) incarnation – of an adventurous,
trading, usurious, monopolian or financial capitalism. Weber himself concluded in the final part
of the General Economic History that Puritan capitalism, initially joined entrepreneurs and
working class in their adherence to the righteousness of honest labor, had come to an end by the
19th century. The idea of calling had given place to conflict of interests, the ethical fitness was
changed by power of vices. According to the expression of an American sociologist Ira J. Cohen,
Weber’s disappointment in modern European culture as the result of ‘disenchantment’
(rationalization) of itself became ‘the fundamental tragedy’ to him and the point of breach with
all theories of modernization from A.Comte and K.Marx to T.Parsons and J.Habermas [20, р.
XXVII].
However, if viewed deeper, exactly here is outlined a perspective for convergence of (or
‘selective affinities’ between) Weberianism and Marxism, designated by Davydov in the 1990s.
As Collins is assisted therein by the figure of Wallenstein, then for Davydov such role is played
by Fernand Braudel, in whose ideas, by the way, the World-system approach is rooted too9. He
appraised positively Braudel’s thesis on distinction between market economy and capitalism
already in the History of Theoretical Sociology (2000). The central point of Braudel’s trilogy
Civilisation matérielle, économie et capitalisme, XV-XVIII siècle (1967-1979), as known, was
defining three layers of human activity in economic sphere, wherein the term ‘market economy’
designated the only one of them, exactly the middle layer, below which ‘material life’ or
traditional routine activities of production and consumption went on, and above there was a layer
of ‘capitalism’. Market economy is a regular self-regulated competitive area. Examples thereof
are daily market exchange, local trade or exchange to short distances. Its distinctive features are
exchange equivalence, locality, anti-profiteering, openness, routine, predictability. But Braudel’s
capitalism is characterized by a higher exchange level and it is controlled by quite different
mechanisms and by other people. Its basic features are high profitability, riskiness,
expansionism, adventure, political nature and the main thing – tendency to be monopolistic.
Braudel states that “if no distinction is usually made between capitalism and the market
economy, it is because they both moved ahead at the same rate, from the Middle Ages to present,
and because capitalism has often been presented as the motivating force or the flowering of
economic progress. In reality, everything rested upon the very broad back of material life; when
99 When developing, as he thought, the Marxist view to capitalism, alien to any ‘idealistic’ interpretations, Braudel,
nevertheless, was far from assumption that in capitalism “all is materialistic or socialized or all is reduced to the
social relations of production”. Paying respect to Schumpeter, Sombart and Weber, Braudel wisely noted that
capitalism could not originate from alone (limited) source: “Some work has been produced therein by economy;
some work - by policy; some work - by society; and finally some work has been also produced by culture and
civilization as well as by history…” [21, p.400].
7

material life expanded, everything moved ahead and market economy also expanded rapidly.
Now, capitalism always benefits from such expansion. I persist in my belief that the determining
factor was the movement as a whole and that the extensiveness of any capitalism is in direct
proportion to the underlying economy” [22, p.63].
In the issue, as Davydov has summarized, the history of capitalism was seen by Braudel
like “the fraudulent utilization of fruits born by spontaneous development of market economy,
which is their imperialistic monopolization” [23, p.296]. Such monopolization is generally
implemented by large capitalists simultaneously in the sphere of production, trade and finance.
And that is exactly what we witness today in the world including Russia. Weber’s archaic
capitalism turns to modern Marxist-Leninist imperialism, which Braudel directly refered to. At a
panel discussion in the 1990s Davydov spoke already in Braudel’s way on the modern global
capitalism as ‘a parasitic excrescence’ on primordial exchange relations and suggested to
differentiate between the layer of ‘honest traders’ and the pool of ‘fraudulent capitalistic
utilizers’. Though Weber himself would hardly agree with the opposition of market to
capitalism, nevertheless he also had to acknowledge the influence of such ‘archaic’ figures of
monopolism as “Pierpont Morgan and Rockefeller” [24, p.102]. And the Fable of the Bees of
Bernard Mandeville, which Weber referred to [7, p.332] by painting the dark picture of his actual
capitalism at all appeared in the early 17th century. Greed, selfishness, acquisitiveness, craving to
luxury and other vices already at that time were recognized as the only psychological impetus for
economic progress and were justified therewith within the conception of ‘private vices – public
goods’. Thus, Braudel’s analysis enables Davydov to see that the capitalism development is not
characterized by the total and progressive rationalization but comprises progressive
irrationalization as well. It affects, among others, operation of social institutions, in particular,
the state, which has to play simultaneously the part of the two-faced Janus, now by protecting
interests of small and medium business in the spirit of free competition and equality, then by
acting as an advocate of major monopolies, then by carrying out a deliberate social security and
protectionist policy, then by self-restraining (through de-regulation and privatization) in its
striving to have large-scale investments. As M. Albert, a well-known contemporary French
economist, shows in his book Capitalism against Capitalism (1991) this inherent conflict
between the state and the market has initially not institutional but ideological, nearly religious
origins. In other words, the question is not on the maturity/underdevelopment of ones or other
institutions in modern (Western) capitalism but on the inconsistent values that are permanently
strained within capitalism taken as ‘socio-cultural establishment’10.
Therefore, the institutional structure of capitalism is to a great extent a manifest or latent
function (in R.Merton’s sense) of non-economic, non-institutional and irrational constraints.
Indeed, the role of Protestant ethics in Weber's theory of capitalism, as we see, should be
appraised on a short-term basis, while institutional factors have a longer history. It does not,
however, mean that the Reformation has become an effect path-dependent on the institutional
development accumulated before to play the role of a logical ‘link in one of the chains of factors
leading to rational capitalism’, as it is seen in Collins’ works. On the contrary, the Reformation
became a turning point in the European history and the most irrational event of the Middle Ages,
1010 Albert distinguishes two economic orders in contemporary industrial capitalism. The first ‘Neo-American’
model is based on personal success, short-term financial profit and the market priority over the state; the second
‘Rhine’ model appreciates joint achievement, consent, takes care of long-term outcomes and conducts deliberate
social security policy and thus outperforms the neo-American order in output, productivity, price stability, social
security and even returns to investors. In Albert’s opinion the relations between the said two models of capitalism
are not less strained than the former ideological struggle between capitalism and communism: “…this time it will
not be socialism or communism against capitalism; this time, the combat will pit neo-American capitalism against
Rhine capitalism…The confrontation we are about to witness will be cruel and implacable, of course, but it will take
place largely under the surface of things, insidiously, and with more than a hint of hypocrisy…Each of these models
belongs to the liberal, capitalist family by right, yet each carries an inner logic which contradicts the other. The
battle may ultimately come down to a confrontation between whole value-systems, and on its outcome will be
decided the answers to such issues as the individuals place within the company, the function of the market place in
society, and the role of law and authority in international economic affairs” [8, p.27].
8

the revolution of a life style and a personality of a European man. According to Davydov’s
conviction therein is the principal feature of Weber’s interpretation of Protestantism. New-
European capitalism has opposed to archaic irrationality with its mammon cult, first of all, not an
established rational state but а newly understood (religious) calling11. After Weber Davydov
pointed at deeply irrational nature of Puritan capitalism, which laid grounds for classical
(Lockean) liberalism with its value primacy of free labor, property and liberty. That was
precisely why an alternative to Russian archaic criminal-bureaucratic capitalism of the 1990s
was seen to Davydov not in the further rationalization and legitimation of “cult of crime,
debauch and total impudence” within the established regime but solely in the materialization of
moral-religious ideal of market economy grounded, among others, on principles of the arising
Russian religious reformation of late 19th – early 20th centuries [25, p. 127].
These ideas are still urgent today in the context of the Russian modernization project. But
the modernization in the 21st century requires as in Europe of the 16th century the abandonment
of the old (humanitarian) ideology and the adoption of a new system of values. As some Russian
scholars state, still since the period of late ‘Brezhnevism’ (i.e. period of late Leonid Brezhnev, a
ruler of the USSR from 1964 to1982) consumption rather than labor has become the main
axiological guideline for the Russian society having provided the fundamental succession of
socialist stagnation and capitalist archaism [26]. And in this meaning the epoch of the Russian
(cultural) regress and demodernization has not finished but continues successfully (in the
institutional aspect). Therefore, “without the recovery of ethics of honest, intensive creative work
and quantum meruit, without respect for a man of labor no modernization will succeed” [Ibid.,
p.88]. But this is an issue of a new Reformation derived from the folk spirit within the life-world,
which spontaneity and ‘irreducible primordiality’ is uncontrollable to plain political declarations.
Conclusion
It should be noted that the question of whether a structural or cultural approach to analyze
the capitalism genesis should be considered more appropriate is necessary to separate from the
question of whether a structural or cultural point of view to Weber is more reasonable, i.e. more
authentic. An answer to the first question should not at all depend on answer to the second one,
and vice-versa. And herein lies, in our opinion, the methodological difference between the
Weberian systematizations of Collins and Davydov. While Collins strived rather to represent his
own position through Weber, Davydov was always concerned by conceptualization of Weber’s
authenticity. Richard Lachmann, an American sociologist, in the presentation of his own version
for the structural analysis of the early modern era’s capitalism intentionally separates Collins and
Weber from each other and sequentially criticizes them singly and on different grounds [27]. But
following Weber’s concept of scientific ideas as of ones just waiting for their negation due to
perpetual (scientific) progress, the selection of the best explanation of capitalism nature will
never be final and the search for Weber’s authenticity will for sure go on further. Therefore, it is
more effective to compare Davydov and Collins not to specify contradictions between them but
to form a more comprehensive pattern of Weber’s works and probably (at a certain stage), a
more holistic conception of modernity and how capitalism contributes it. The main conclusion to
be made from such analysis is that modern capitalism arises both from a new types of institutions
and from a new type of human being and their relationship is kept through culture appeared in
social agency. Wolfgang Schluchter expressed precisely this thought by stating that “ ‘the spirit’
of modern capitalism had originally a value-rational (but not goal-oriented rational – I.K.)
micro-substantiation” [28, p.40]. And it follows that modern European capitalism is
inconceivable without values of the Reformation. Thus, the present-day late modernity may not
1111 Even T.Parsons recognized that the Reformation should not be understood as the weakening of a religious
irrationality in favor of a secular rationality. On the contrary, it was “a movement for lifting mundane society to the
ultimate religious level” and the further institutionalization of this notion led to a never-yet-seen practice and degree of
the political integration and the establishment of corporate states [5, p.70].
9

be derived by any self-evident way from medieval catholic tradition and the ‘Church capitalism’
may not be by itself a ground of modernity. To initiate modernization process, it was necessary
that a medieval man would segregate from the Church and create a new life environment more
valuable than world of regnum and world of sacerdotium12. And exactly that personal
establishment of one’s position to world is the core of Weber’s research program13.
References
1. Collins, Randall. Weber's Last Theory of Capitalism: A Systematization // American Sociological
Review. 1980, № 45 (December). Рр. 925-942.
2. Collins, Randall. Weberian Sociological Theory. Cambridge University Press, 1986.
3. Collins, Randall. Max Weber: A Skeleton Key. Beverly Hills, 1986.
4. Parsons, Tallcott. The Structure of Social Action. Moscow, 2000 (Russian edition)
5. Parsons, Tallcott. The System of Modern Societies. Moscow, 1998 (Russian edition)
6. Sztompka P. The Sociology of Social Change. Moscow, 1996 (Russian edition)
7. Weber, Max. General Economic History. Moscow, 2001 (Russian edition)
8. Albert, Michel. Capitalism Against Capitalism. Saint-Petersburg, 1998 (Russian edition)
9. Collins, Randall. Four Sociological Traditions. Moscow, 2009 (Russian edition)
10. Marx, Carl and Engels, Friedrich. Works. Vol. 46.Part 2. Moscow, 1969 (Russian edition)
11. Wallerstein, Immanuel. World-Systems Analysis and Situation in the Modern World (Collection of
selected works). Saint-Petersburg, 2001 (Russian edition)
12. Gaydenko, Piama P. and Davydov Yuriy N. Istoriya i racionalnost: Sociologiya M.Vebera b
veberovskiy renessans (History and Rationality: Sociology of Max Weber and Weberian
Renaissance). Moscow, 1991
13. Istoriya teoreticheskoy sociologii. Nachalo XX veka. Perviy obscheteoreticheskiy krisis sociologii.
(History of Theoretical Sociology: Early XX century. Ed. by Inna Deviatko et al.). Moscow, 2010
14. Davydov, Yuriy N. «Kartiny mira» i tipy racionalnosti (Novye podhody k izucheniyu
sociologicheskogo naslediya M.Vebera) // Veber М. Izbrannoe: Protestantskaya etika i duh
kapitalizma (World-view and Types of Rationality: New Approaches to the Study of Max Weber’s
intellectual heritage. In Weber, Max. Selected writings: Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of
Capitalism.) 2nd ed. Moscow, 2006 (Russian edition)
15. Davydov, Yuriy N. Veberovskaya siciologiya kapitalisma (Weberian Sociology of Capitalism). In
Socic. 1994, № 10.
16. Davydov, Yuriy N. Maks Veber I sovremennaya teoreticheskaya sociologiya: aktualnye problemy
veberovskogo sociologicheskogo ucheniya (Max Weber and Contemporary Sociological theories:
Topical Issues of Weberian Sociological Heritage). Moscow, 1998.
17. Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. 2nd ed. Moscow, 2006 (Russian
edition).
18. Davydov, Yuriy N. Sovremennaya rossiyskaya situaciya v svete veberovskoy tipologii kapitalizma //
Kuda idiyot Rossiya? Alternativy obschestvennogo razvitiya (Current Russian Affairs in the Light of
Weberian typology of Capitalism. In Which path is Russia on? Alternatives for Society Progress.)
Мoscow, 1994.
19. Kapitalism kak problema teoreticheskoy sociologii (Capitalism as an Issue for Sociological
Theory). In Socis. 1998, №2.
12 The medieval Christian world had two dimensions: regnum (Lat. kingdom) – the king’s environment and
sacerdotium (Lat. priesthood) – the Church world. But jointly it was a single value universum, which had no place
for something secular and something religious as everything in the world was within a worship. And only after the
Reformation the third world dimension (civil society) emerged, which value content has experienced different large-
scale changes, but still has been the only foundation for modern capitalism to develop. For details refer to: Uzlaner
D. Discourse Uncharming: «Religious» and «Secular» in Early Modern Time Language // Logos. 2008, № 4. P.
140-159.
13 When emphasizing an anthropological (‘life-practical’) constituent of Weber’s sociology Schluchter pays
attention to Weber’s article Objectivity of Social Science and SocialPolicy (1904) with the following words therein:
“The transcendental presupposition of every cultural science lies not in our finding a certain culture or any ‘culture’
in general to be valuable but rather in the fact that we are cultural beings, endowed with the capacity and the will to
take a deliberate attitude towards the world and to lend it significance” [29, p.295].
10

20. Cohen I.J. Max Weber on Modern Western Capitalism. (Introductory Essay) // Weber M. General
Economic History. New Brunswick, 2009.
21. Braudel, Fernand. Les jeux de l'échange. Мoscow, 1988. (Russian edition).
22. Braudel, Fernand. Afterthoughts on Material Civilization and Capitalism. Smolensk, 1993 (Russian
edition).
23. Istoriya teoreticheskoy sociologii. Sociologiya vtoroy poloviny ХХ – nachala ХХI veka. (History of
Theoretical Sociology: Sociology in the late XX century and in the early XXI century. Ed. by Inna
Deviatko et al.). Moscow, 2010
24. Davydov, Yuriy N. Kuda prishla Rossiya? (Article 1st) (Where has Russia arrived?). In Journal of
sociology and social anthropology. 1999. Vol. II. Issue № 1.
25. Davydov, Yuriy N. Kuda prishla Rossiya? (Article 2nd) (Where has Russia arrived?). In Journal of
sociology and social anthropology. 1999. Vol. II. Issue № 4.
26. Yanitskiy, Oleg N. Modernizaciya Rossii: gumanitarnye problemy (Modernisation in Russia:
Humanitarian Issues). In Sociologicheskiy ezhegodnik. Мoscow, 2010
27. Lachmann, Richard. Capitalists in Spite of Themselves: Elite Conflict and Economic Transitions in
Early Modern Europe. Мoscow, 2010 (Russian edition).
28. Shluchter, Wolfgang. Handlung, Ordnung, Kultur. Studien zu einem Forschungsprogramm im
Anschluss an Max Weber (Excerpts) (In Russian). In Journal of sociology and social
anthropology. 2004. Том VII. №2. (Translated from: Shluchter, Wolfgang. Handlung, Ordnung,
Kultur. Studien zu einem Forschungsprogramm im Anschluss an Max Weber. Tübingen,
2005)
29. Weber, Max. Objectivity of Social Science and Social Policy. In Weber, Max. Selected writings:
Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism.2nd ed. Moscow, 2006 (Russian edition)
11