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Craig White's Literature Courses Terms & Critical Sources The Protestant Work Ethic a.k.a. The Puritan Work Ethic
with
notes from
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 "nose to the grindstone": traditional English idiom for steady hard work |
Theorized in the early 20th century by Max Weber (founder of modern Sociology), "the Protestant work ethic" became a popular critical concept for explaining the expansions of empires by Protestant nations like England, the Netherlands, Germany, and the USA. The concept does not imply that people of other religions cannot work as hard as Protestants, but only that Protestantism—particularly Reformed Protestantism as practiced by American, English, and other European Puritans—encouraged work habits compatible with modern capitalism, commerce, and industrial progress.
Since
Protestantism abolished sale and purchase of
"indulgences" by which the Catholic Church assured people of a happy afterlife,
Protestants needed a sign of grace and deliverance: wealth or prosperity resulting from hard work
and self-reliance was increasingly seen as
a sign of God's favor and an individual's likely salvation (in contrast to
"Blessed are the poor" from Christ's Sermon on the Mount).
Military recruiters seek recruits from
Scotch-Irish
Protestant
backgrounds. Comparably, global capitalism often locates industrial plants
in areas with strong Protestant
or conservative Catholic traditions.
(Protestants don't observe many religious holidays; conservative Christians
love hunting and fishing but think environmental regulations lose jobs.)
Emphasis on nuclear families and individualism reduces
distractions from work week. (Jews in Bible model a mobile society with
resulting emphasis on nuclear family over extended family.)
Observation of Sabbath as day of worship, quiet, and rest
(Sabbatarianism) reserves rest of week for work.
Profits are not wasted in feasting or celebration but
re-invested in business. (Protestant aversion to holidays.)
Most of Weber's examples are not merely
Protestant but particularly true to the Reformed version of Protestantism called
Puritanism.
"Model-Minority"
Asian-Americans may remain faithful to their home-country's religions or become secularized, but many become Protestants, e.g. Jeremy Lin
(formerly of Houston
Rocket) in documentary Linsanity.
Latinos
who convert from Catholicism to Evangelical Protestantism tend also to convert
politically from Democrats to Republicans.
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904-5). Trans. Talcott Parsons, 1930. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958.
21-22 The modern rational organization of the capitalistic
enterprise would not have been possible without two other important factors in
its development: the separation of business from the household, which completely
dominates modern economic life, and closely connected with it, rational
book-keeping.
35 A glance at the occupational
statistics of any country of mixed religious composition brings to light with
remarkable frequency a situation which has several times provoked discussion in
the Catholic press and literature, and in Catholic congresses in Germany,
namely, the fact that business leaders and owners of capital, as well as the
higher grades of skilled labor, and even more the higher technically and
commercially trained personnel of modern enterprises, are overwhelmingly
Protestant. . . .
The same thing is shown in the figures of religious
affiliation almost wherever capitalism, at the time of its great expansion, has
had a free hand to alter the social distribution of the population in accordance
with its needs, and to determine its occupational structure.
The more freedom it has had, the more clearly is
the effect shown.
55 without doubt, in the country of
Benjamin Franklin's birth (Massachusetts), the spirit of capitalism . . . was
present before the capitalistic order.
There were complaints of a peculiarly calculating
sort of profit-seeking in New England, as distinguished from other parts of
America, as early as 1632.
68 there was repeated what everywhere
and always is the result of such a process of rationalization: those who would
not follow suit had to go out of business.
The idyllic state collapsed under the pressure of a
bitter competitive struggle, respectable fortunes were made, and not lent out at
interest, but always reinvested in the business.
The old leisurely and comfortable attitude toward
life gave way to a hard frugality in which some participated and came to the
top, because they did not wish to consume but to earn, while others who wished
to keep on with the old ways were forced to curtail their consumption.
70 The ability to free oneself from the common tradition, a
sort of liberal enlightenment, seems likely to be the most suitable basis for
such a business man's success.
105 That great historic process in
the development of religions, the elimination of magic from the world which had
begun with the old Hebrew prophets and, in conjunction with Hellenistic
scientific thought, had repudiated all magical means to salvation as
superstition and sin, came here to its logical conclusion.
The genuine Puritan even rejected all signs of
religious ceremony at the grave and buried his nearest and dearest without song
or ritual in order that no superstition, no trust in the effects of magical and
sacramental forces on salvation, should creep in.
158 [Puritan minister William] Baxter's principal work is
dominated
by the continually repeated, often almost passionate
preaching of hard, continuous bodily or mental labor.
159 Unwillingness to work is symptomatic of the lack of
grace.
166 the Puritan idea of the calling
and the premium it placed upon ascetic conduct was bound directly to influence
the development of a capitalistic way of life.
As we have seen, this asceticism turned with all
its force against one thing: the spontaneous enjoyment of life and all it had to
offer.
169 in favor of sober utility as
against any artistic tendencies.
This was especially true in the case of decoration
of the person, for instance clothing. That powerful tendency toward uniformity of life,
which today so immensely aids the capitalistic interest in the standardization
of production, had its ideal foundations in the repudiation of all idolatry of
the flesh.
172 the religious valuation of restless, continuous,
systematic work in a worldly calling, as the highest means to asceticism, and at
the same time the surest and most evident proof of rebirth and genuine faith,
must have been the most powerful conceivable lever for the expansion of that
attitude toward life which we have here called the spirit of capitalism.
182 In the field of its highest development, in the United
States, the pursuit of wealth, stripped of its religious and ethical meaning,
tends to become associated with purely mundane passions, which often actually
give it the character of sport.
Luthy, Herbert.
"Once Again: Calvinism and Capitalism."
Encounter
22.1 (January 1964): 26-38.
In S. N. Eisenstadt, ed.
The Protestant Ethic and Modernization: A
Comparative View.
NY: Basic Books, 1968.
87-108.
89
in this context his [Weber's] words
capitalism
or spirit of
capitalism are used in a very particular sense:
they mean no less than the entire inner structure governing Western society's
attitudes--not only its economy but also its legal system, its political
structure, its institutionalized sciences and technology, its mathematically
based music and architecture.
89
This rationality, driven by its own internal
dynamic, has overthrown (or tamed) every form of resistance offered by
prerational human nature, magic and tradition, instinct and spontaneity.
Finally, with the Reformation, it has forced its
way into the innermost temple wherein the motives behind human behavior are
generated, into the very heart of religious belief, there to destroy all the
dark, magical, mystical tabernacles--image, cult, and tradition--for which it
substitutes the Bible as the authentic truth, supposedly unshakable, accessible
to critical examination, and susceptible of proof.
91 . . . that the Reformation marks a profound spiritual
breach between the Middle Ages and the modern world, bringing a ferment into
Western history which has changed its course irreversibly, far beyond the domain
of the Protestant churches and communities, to imprint its mark
upon the whole Western world; that without Calvin
we could not imagine Cromwell, or Rousseau, or the Founding Fathers; that the
modern industrial society, as well as creative science, the rule of law,
constitutionalism, in brief the free society, first appeared (and have
flourished best) in those countries which were modeled by Calvinism; and that an
indissoluble internal bond links all these aspects of our Western society.
. . .
.
all the splendor and chaos, worldly triumph and
metaphysical despair engendered in a world that would be henceforth boundless
but that had lost all security and all familiarity.
92
In all these versions of modern history, satisfactorily reconstructed on the
great lines of the rise to power of the bourgeoisie and the decline of
feudalism, the Reformation takes its place as "the first bourgeois revolution."
By analyzing the English Puritan Revolution of the seventeenth century as the
second bourgeois revolution, Tawney skillfully constructed a bridge to the third
and greatest, the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century.
100
The social teachings of Zwingly and Calvin, as well as the revolutionary stance
of the Huguenots, the Dutch, and the Puritans, are permeated through and through
with the spirit of the Old Testament.
103
[Calvin] forged the Calvinist-Puritan type of man, answerable only to God and to
his conscience, that is to say, free and responsible . . . .
103-4 the liberation of man from spiritual submission and fear of man, lies the
true and deep connection between Calvinism and the modern industrial society.
105 The whole discussion about Calvinism and capitalism
means (and always meant) little else than this: the word
capitalism
is our modern substitute for chrematistics [acquisition or study of wealth] and
the unmentioned, idealized counter-image is the patriarchal, "natural" land
economy with its "natural" hierarchical order of master and servant, landlord
and serf, monarch and subject—in sum, the image of medieval society—the
relationship of which is not defined in terms of money, or of give-and-take, but
in terms of personal subordination.
108 The apparent factual research into problems of economic and social history has often been an expression of our uneasiness in modern society, and to some of the scholars engaged in this controversy Calvinism as provided a fascinating scapegoat for the evils of progress.
