Weber, Max, Parsons, Talcott, and Tawney, R. H. (2003). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Dover Value Editions) Dover Publications.

 This brilliant study opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through the conflict of opposites. Instead, Weber relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan determination to work out anxiety over salvation or damnation by performing good deeds — an effort that ultimately encouraged capitalism.