Sociologist Max Weber famously associated Protestantism with capitalism. Although widely accepted by many, that claim is theologically dubious, empirically disprovable, and largely incidental, says Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg:

Even when we consider modern capitalism’s emergence, a direct connection between this event and Protestantism is very open to question. The economic historian Jacques Delacroix, for instance, has highlighted many facts about this period that Weber’s theory simply cannot account for. “Amsterdam’s wealth,” Delacroix writes, “was centered on Catholic families; the economically advanced German Rhineland is more Catholic than Protestant; all-Catholic Belgium was the second country to industrialize, ahead of a good half-dozen Protestant entities.”

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