Global Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Weber and Luhmann: Connecting Threads between Work Faith and Systemic Trust

Pier Paolo Bellini

The purpose of this article is to highlight a common thread between the reflections of Max Weber about the relationship between work and faith and those of Niklas Luhmann, dedicated to the issue of the trust: there is, in my opinion (in an obvious discontinuity linked to the different contexts) a link between the process that led the human structure to shift the focus on “transcendent transcendence” to the “immanent transcendence”. Stated more simply, the slippage “from heaven to earth”, identified by Max Weber and marked by the birth of capitalism, could not erase the religious instance dwelling in the human spirit and simply “hallowed the ground, sacrificing the sky”. This is the context in which Durkheim’s hypothesis fulfills itself: the “inevitable” god coincides (today) ultimately with the social system, creating new, unresolved “vulnerabilities”.