Abstract

The author points out that Weber’s analysis of the formation of the «spirit» of capitalism by Protestantism lacks the explanation of how capitalism, once established, «resolved» asceticism into an apology for economic utilitarianism. The author believes that this explanation can be derived from Weber himself and that it consists in the suppression of the freedom of the Lutheran Beruf by capitalism and therefore in the separation between Arbeit and Beruf, which Weber believes can only be answered, as he does in the two conferences of 1919, trying to find a personal sense of work in intellectual work.