ABSTRACT
Max Weber’s theories were initially introduced in the German; he was known best for his thesis that the rise of Protestantism in previously Catholic Europe provoked the development of capitalism (Weber 1930). In this view, the Protestant ethic said that God intended profitability, and blessed it also; that waste and failure to devote time to profitable labor was contrary to God’s will; that division of labor was to be desired since it contributed to the amount and quality of production; and that hard work was to be a large extent a duty to God, thus contributing to the accumulation of wealth. This tendency to rewrite history was perpetuated in Weber’s later writings on bureaucracy, which were introduced to the English-speaking world through a series of translations (Weber 1946, 1947, 1968). However, there was considerable delay before this occurred.
