on Weber, Pynchon fave

[Mark Kohut]

H.r Trevor-Roper has an essay on Weber's Protestant Ethic &
The Rise of Capitalism in his "Crisis of the 17th Century".

Detailed and interesting. 1) He says Yes, the Catholic South---
Spain and Italy did not rise as did the North...pure Pynchon reality
behind his tropes...

2) Yes, the movers and shakers were Dutch Calvinists, and Swedish and Danish, 
etc.
 elsewhere---and he gives potted bios but, he finds important THEY WERE
BAD CALVINISTS which diminishes Weber's thesis, he sez....(I'm nobody but
I'm not so sure.Bad priest is still a priest)

3) As they used capital to mine ore and make things, armaments were
right there with peaceful goods as products, right from the beginning
of course, had I reflected before this essay.  He even calls one Swede
power-broker 'the Krupp of the 17th Century'. 

4) Historians and guys like Weber, Troeltsch who pushed this thesis 
called those who got rich earlier "adventure-capitalists' and argued that
only with the Reformation did structural, bureacratic capitalism create
new kinds of men. Trevor-Roper sez it wasn't so clear a demarcation. 


P.S. There is a short story--or a novel--in the cameo bio of one capitalist who 
financed growth
with creativity and authoritative will to final overextension, credit collapse 
and bankruptcy
 ---and self-drowning in his own well....