The multi-faith ethic and the spirit of social business: Notes from an ethnography

Abstract

This paper is structured around an analogy with Max Weber’s famous book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, and argues that there are ‘elective affinities’ – to use Weber’s term – between the multi-faith ethic and the spirit of social business. It begins with a discussion of these concepts, and also draws on ethnographic data from a study of the Blood Foundation, a small multi-faith NGO based in Fang, northern Thailand, which has a social business ethos. Networking and cooperation are crucial to the work of social businesses and NGOs, so this paper includes discussion of NGO cooperation within the Fang Valley Development Network. It concludes with a discussion of the specific elective affinities that can be identified.