Max weber

In an influential book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), Max Weber advocated that reformed christianity had been instrumental in the birth of modern economic life in Western Europe. The stern doctrines of lutherianism and calvinism had pushed to capital accumulation and economic development by breeding in believers a relentless commitment to one's earthly calling and an avoidance of trivial pleasures.
Weber's Lifeline
Weber was born in Erfurt, Germany, on 21 April 1864, to an authoritarian father and strongly Calvinist mother. He was educated at the universities of Heidelberg, Berlin, and Göttingen and served briefly in the army. In 1893, he got a temporary position at University of Berlin, bringing him his first income and allowing him to leave home and to marry. His hard work and brilliancy led him to be nominated only two years later, in 1895, professor of political economy at Freiburg. The next year he went to Heidelberg in the same post.

In 1898, following a family crisis the year before, Weber suffered a nervous collapse. He was institutionalized periodically until 1903 and had to give up his academic work. Coming back to normal life, he started work again as a co-editor of the journal Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, which became the leading German social science journal. He made a journey to the United States in 1904, where he could give lectures on what would become his famous The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905). In 1907, an inheritance freed him of all financial problems.

At the beginning of World War I, Max Weber supported enthusiastically the German aims and volunteered for the Army. In 1915, he changed his mind and became a pacifist. After the war Weber helped draft the constitution of the Weimar Republic and founded the German Democratic party. But he slowly took distance with the new republic, loathe of the the slowness and inefficiencies of political parties. In 1919, he was