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Originally Posted by trevorjohnson  And of course there is Max Weber's classic, Calvinism and Capitalism (or something like Capitalism and the Protestant work ethic) that traced those distinctly American triats of hard work, honesty and frugality as originating with Calvin. |
A good read in response is an article by W S Reid, Calvin as a critic of capitalism (can't recall the journal), which helps to balance the scales somewhat. Capitalism owes more to the evolutionary idea of survival of the fittest (or in economic terms, the prosperity of the unscrupulous) than to Calvin, in my honest opinion. But I would be thinking of a specific form of economic policy which may not be what others mean by the term "capitalism."