It began as a series of essays, the original German text was composed in 1904 and '05, and was translated into English for the first time by American sociologist Talcott Parsons in 1930.

[4] Although not a detailed study of Protestantism but rather an introduction to Weber's later studies of interaction between various religious ideas and economics (The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism 1915, The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism 1916, and Ancient Judaism 1917), The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism argues that Puritan ethics and ideas influenced the development of capitalism.

[6]: 9–12 The Reformation profoundly affected the view of work, dignifying even the most mundane professions as adding to the common good and thus blessed by God, as much as any "sacred" calling (German: Ruf).

[8] Weber shows that certain branches of Protestantism had supported worldly activities dedicated to economic gain, seeing them as endowed with moral and spiritual significance.

[7]: 57 Weber traced the origins of the Protestant ethic to the Reformation, though he acknowledged some respect for secular everyday labor as early as the Middle Ages.

Weber identifies the applicability of Luther's conclusions, noting that a "vocation" from God was no longer limited to the clergy or church, but applied to any occupation or trade.

In his conclusion to the book, Weber lamented that the loss of religious underpinning to capitalism's spirit has led to a kind of involuntary servitude to mechanized industry.

For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order.

)Weber maintained that while Puritan religious ideas had significantly impacted the development of economic systems in Europe and United States, there were other factors in play, as well.

They included a closer relationship between mathematics and observation, the enhanced value of scholarship, rational systematization of government administration, and an increase in entrepreneurship ventures.

In the end, the study of Protestant ethic, according to Weber, investigated a part of the detachment from magic, that disenchantment of the world that could be seen as a unique characteristic of Western culture.

[7]: 60 In the final endnotes Weber states that he abandoned research into Protestantism because his colleague Ernst Troeltsch, a professional theologian, had begun work on The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches and Sects.

Another reason for Weber's decision was that Troeltsch's work already achieved what he desired in that area, which is laying groundwork for comparative analysis of religion and society.

While Marx's historical materialism held that all human institutions – including religion – were based on economic foundations, many have seen The Protestant Ethic as turning this theory on its head by implying that a religious movement fostered capitalism, not the other way around.

[12] It remains possible that the "Protestant work ethic" socially legitimized or otherwise reinforced the legal measures that Grossman details, within a larger cultural context.

In a 2015 study, Davide Cantoni tested Weber's Protestant hypothesis on German cities over the period 1300–1900, finding no effects of Protestantism on economic growth.

Here, a theoretical model confirms that a small change in the subjective cost of cooperating with strangers can generate a profound transformation in trading networks.

[16]Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson in their book Why Nations Fail reject the relationship between economic progress and Protestantism writing: What about Max Weber’s Protestant ethic?

France, a predominantly Catholic country, quickly mimicked the economic performance of the Dutch and English in the nineteenth century, and Italy is as prosperous as any of these nations today.

[18] It has recently been suggested that Protestantism has indeed influenced positively the capitalist development of respective social systems not so much through the "Protestant ethics" but rather through the promotion of literacy.

[19] Sascha Becker and Ludger Wossmann of the University of Munich[20] showed that literacy levels differing in religious areas can sufficiently explain the economic gaps cited by Weber.

Weber focused on religion, but ignored the fact that Germany contained a large Polish minority (due to the partitions of Poland); and Poles were primarily Catholic and Germans, Protestant.

As such, scholars have suggested that what Weber observed was in fact "anti-Polish discrimination" visible in the different levels of income, savings and literacy between Germans and Poles.

[22]In 1958, American sociologist Gerhard Lenski conducted an empirical inquiry into "religion's impact on politics, economics, and family life" in the Detroit, Mich., area.

"In an early era, Protestant asceticism and dedication to work, as noted both by Wesley and Weber, seem to have been important patterns of action contributing to economic progress.

"[23] German theologian Friedrich Wilhelm Graf notes: "Sociologists of religion like Peter L. Berger and David Martin have interpreted the Protestant revolution in Latin America as implicit support of basic elements of Weber's thesis.

[...] At any rate, many pious persons there interpret their transition from the Roman Catholic church to Protestant Pentecostal congregations in terms of a moral idea that promises long-term economic gains through strong innerworldly asceticism.