Calvin, John (1509–64)

JOHN CALVIN CRITICIZED the French Catholic Church's interpretation of the Bible. He turned to Protestantism for fresh ideas, even though quite a number of so-called heretics were burned at the stake for their dissident ideas. Calvin moved around constantly, until he settled in Geneva, and when he died, his version of Protestantism, instead of the one propagated by Martin Luther, increased in popularity.

Even though Calvin insisted that church and state should be separate, he believed the state should be run according to Christian principles. The government had to be theocratic. After all, God was primary, and God's ideas were the foundation for the whole of society. Calvinism contained views on all aspects of life: politics, economics, and culture. Regrettably, Calvin believed man was essentially sinful and nothing but God's predestination for salvation in heaven could save a person. Other human beings were condemned to hell.

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) expressed that humans are alone, nasty, brutal, and aggressive in a more direct political meaning in his book Leviathan. Even if one led a perfect sinless life, one might still go to hell, as decided by God, but at least one died with inner peace. As an individual, one was to make certain decisions. You and nobody else could make the decision as to which way to go—even though, of course, in the very end God's word overruled everything.

Besides the centrality of God, Calvin also emphasized the importance of the individual rather than that of the organized church (the pope's followers in Rome). Max Weber, in his Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, encouraged the individual to work industriously and never wastefully on this earth, rather than seeing life on earth as passive preparation for the afterlife of hell, heaven, or purgatory. Rational capitalism needs ongoing investment. It needs an individual's ascetic lifestyle rather than wasting money made in business on personal luxury or indulgences such as the building of castles, gambling, or fanciful clothes, or in Thorsten Ve-blen's words, “conspicuous consumption.”

Personal wealth could be seen as a favor from God, maybe even as a sign of predestination. This, of course, meant that one would have to work as hard as possible to receive this sign. Material prosperity was now seen as positive, not as a sign of greed and exploitation. Max Weber sees this ascetic lifestyle as encouraging capitalist production and behavior; he links the Calvinist ethic of frugality and serving God to the “spirit of capitalism,” [Page 110]the “accumulation of wealth” in a continuous, rational manner, rather than that capitalism comes about through economic changes, as Karl Marx analyzed it. According to Weber, because of Calvinism, capitalism developed in northern Europe and not in China (Confucianism), India (Hinduism), or the Arab world (Islam).

Weber understands Calvinism as breaking through the feudal order and preparing the ground for the acceptance of private profits and capitalism. The feudal political, economic, and cultural order fell apart and Calvinism was one of the responses. However, Calvin never advocated capitalism; he lived a God-fearing life on earth, but he did emphasize the importance of the individual and his decision for leading a life as God had intended—and the individual is also the key decision-maker in capitalism.

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