On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Max Weber's seminal theory of how the values of ascetic Protestantism played a major role in the development of the spirit of capitalism in western Europe, the Center for the Study of Economy and Society (CSES) at Cornell University will host a two-day conference, Oct. 8-9. It will bring together some of the leading scholars and thinkers in the growing interdisciplinary study of economy and society.

"The Norms, Beliefs and Institutions of Capitalism: Celebrating Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism Conference," which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Statler Hotel Amphitheater on campus.

After Cornell President Jeffrey Lehman opens the conference at 9 a.m., Oct. 8, Francis Fukuyama, a 1974 Cornell alumnus and author of The End of History and the Last Man and Our Post-Human Future , will deliver his keynote address, "Good Governance and Normative Behavior." Other prominent scholars presenting include Mark Granovetter, the Joan Butler Ford Professor of Sociology at Stanford University, speaking on "The Social Construction of Corruption," and Robert Barro, the Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics at Harvard University and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, speaking on religion and economy across countries.

"While sociologists and economists have examined the general workings of markets and the roles that political and social institutions play in capitalism, less attention has been paid to the values that underpin modern capitalism, such as honesty, character, sticking to one's promises and the commitment to be forthright and transparent in interactions with other economic actors," says Victor Nee, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Sociology and director of the Center for the Study of Economy and Society at Cornell. Nee and Richard Swedberg, professor of sociology at Cornell and associate director of the center, are co-chairs of the event, which is funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

Attention to these values is important, Nee and Swedberg emphasize, not only because of the various corporate scandals that have occurred recently but also because these values are crucial to a vigorous and well-working capitalism. "Their absence, we feel, may lead to corruption, economic slowdown and more generally to a corrupt form of capitalism, closer in spirit to what Max Weber called political capitalism than to his famous rational capitalism," adds Swedberg.

The conference will, in part, highlight a central question raised by Weber's work - the relationships among values, economic institutions and performance - critical to understanding the institutional framework and the motivation for economic gain that gave rise to capitalism, the co-chairs explain. The scholars will reexamine Weber's seminal arguments regarding the moral,

spiritual and aesthetic dimensions of the capitalist ethos as they relate to the beliefs, practices and institutions associated with 21st century global capitalism as well, the co-chairs explain.

In 1904-05, Weber published his theory that the ethical beliefs in Protestantism, with its norms of frugality and hard work, were critical to the rise of Western capitalism and played important roles in determining the quality of financial institutions (banks and capital markets) and the incentives for capital accumulation, investments and entrepreneurship, Nee explains.

Now that "central planning" models have collapsed in the past few decades, capitalism has expanded its global scope and dominance over economic activity. "The contemporary era of global capitalism is characterized by far-reaching institutional change, not only in former socialist states undergoing transitions to market economies, but also in advanced capitalist societies where globalization is challenging the role of the welfare state and the very constitution of society," adds Swedberg. "The current landscape is ripe with the opportunity to reexamine the inner workings of modern capitalism as an institutional order, directing attention to a comparative analysis of the norms, beliefs and institutions that provided the foundation and scaffolding for modern capitalism."

Named after Max Weber's influential book Economy and Society , the mission of Cornell's CSES is to study and expand the core ideas and themes pioneered by Weber in a new economic sociology. By bringing together leading thinkers from across academic disciplines, the conference intends to create a convergence of ideas that will set the stage for a better understanding of the psychological, social and institutional mechanisms that underpin 21st-century global capitalism.

The full agenda is available at http://www.economyandsociety.org/index.shtml . For more information or to register for meals, contact Diane E. Masters at (607) 255-1506 or cses@cornell.edu .