In an aged response to Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Michael Novak discusses how the powerful cultural influence Catholicism has had throughout the world is necessary in any vision of the future of capitalism. Drawing on the major works of modern Papal thought, The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism demonstrates how Catholic tradition has come to reflect a richer interpretation of capitalist culture.

Novak offers an original and penetrating conception of social justice and applies a newly formulated notion of social activism to the urgent worldwide problem of ethnicity, race, and poverty.

With this fresh rethinking of the Catholic ethic, Novak presents timely research that will challenge citizens in the West seeking a realistic, moral vision and those living in the two historically Catholic regions of the world–Eastern Europe and Latin America–as they take their first steps as market economies.