0
0
Read Time:6 Minute, 2 Second
What is the Protestant work ethic?
A view of life that promotes hard work and self-discipline as a means to material prosperity. It is called Protestant because some Protestant groups believe that such prosperity is a sign of God’s grace.
PWE comprises of
- Hard work
- Use of time
- Saving
- Innovation
- Honesty
- Together following these beliefs will lead to ‘Divine Reward’ (wealth)
Maxims For Everyday Conduct
- Resolution: resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve
- Frugality: make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; that is, waste nothing
- Industry: lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions
- Sincerity: use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and if you speak, speak accordingly
- Be prudent, diligent and ever about your lawful business, do not be idle, for time is money
- Cultivate your credit-worthiness and put it to good use for credit is money
- Be punctual and just in the repayment of loans and debts, for to become a person of known credit-worthiness is to be a master of other people’s purses
- Be vigilant in keeping accounts
- Be frugal in consumption and do not waste money on inessentials
- And finally do not let money lie idle, for the smallest sum soundly invested can earn a profit, and the profits reinvested soon multiply in ever-increasing amounts
4 Typical PWE Doctrines
- Doctrine of calling: all work is good and ultimately for God’s glory
- Doctrine of predestination: sign of God’s grace can be seen in this life. The successful (rich) are the elect and therefore the poor are the damned (they are idle and have not earned their money in the eyes of God)
- Strong asceticism: wealth is to be amassed and invested, and not spent
- Doctrine of sanctification: stress on the rational and the use of personal control and moral decision-making.
- Rejection of the Catholic sacramental system.
Protestant Work Ethic Emphasises
- A commitment to work
- The careful use of time
- The reinvestment of one’s gains
- Innovation
- Personal Honesty
- The degree to which one adhered to these values was expected to be evident in God’s blessing (in the form of material success)
- These beliefs formed the ethical foundation for capitalism as a way of life common to large groups of people
The West and the Rest: Causes for the dominance of the West
- Competition
- Science
- Property rights
- Medicine
- The consumer society
- The WORK ETHIC: a moral framework and mode of activity derivable from (among other sources) Protestant Christianity, which provides a dynamic and potential filled society.
Background Factors
- Middle-class status
- Mesomorphic physique
- Child-rearing variables
- Warmth
- Low father dominance
- High achievement standards
- Cultural variations
- Absence of slavery
- Temparate climate
Patent index in the US
Mean frequency of achievement imagery in children’s readers correlated with the patent index in the US
- Story books for children: did a content analysis on the imagery in children’s books and correlated it against how many patents were made
- Showed there were more patents when there was more achievement imagery
- Teaching children in a certain way leads to the ethic – teaching them to be self-reliant etc
- Idea that Protestant children are socialised differently
- Importance of hard work, the delay of gratification, independence etc
The Measurement of PWE
- ‘If a man works hard enough, he is likely to make a good life for himself’
- ‘Most people spend too much time on unprofitable amusements’
- ‘Our society would have fewer problems if people had less leisure time’
- ‘Money acquired easily is spent unwisely’
- ‘People who fail at a job have usually not tried hard enough’
- ‘If one works hard enough, one is likely to make a good life for oneself’
Productivity and Reliability
- Self-reliance: striving for independence in one’s daily work
- Morality/Ethics: believing in a just and moral existence
- Leisure: pro-leisure attitudes and beliefs in the importance of non-work activities (neg. correlated)
- Hard-work: belief in the virtues of hard work
- Centrality of work: Belief in work for work’s sake and the importance of work
- Wasted time: attitudes and beliefs reflecting active and productive use of time
- Delay of gratification: orientation towards the future; postponement of rewards
Example items
- ‘Even if I inherited a great deal of money, I would continue to work somewhere’ (centrality of work)
- ‘I strive for self-reliance’ (self-reliance)
- ‘Self-reliance is the key to being successful’ (self-reliance)
- ‘If you work hard, you will succeed’ (hard work)
- ‘The job that provides the most leisure time is the job for me’ (leisure)
- ‘People should be fair in their dealings with others’ (morality/ethics)
- ‘The best things in life are those you have to wait for’ (delay of gratification)
- ‘Time should not be wasted, it should be used efficiently’ (wasted time)
- Do-it-yourself mentality
- Time-management
- Anti-hedonistic asceticism
- Protestantation of sports with values
- Sportsmanship
- Competition
- Success
- Universalism
- Diligence
- Self-discipline
- Teamwork
Max Weber
In his 1906 book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber, a German sociologist, wrote that capitalism in Northern Europe evolved when the Protestant (particularly Calvinist) work ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in work as if it was important to God.
Weber argues that the religious values of Protestantism—specifically Puritan values that emphasize hard work and speak against waste and leisure, contributed enormously to the rise economic success of Protestant nations. Protestants saw success in business as evidence of predestination, and thus put a heavy emphasis on entrepreneurial activity, as opposed to Catholics, who saw wealth as a sign of sin. Weber focused on the doctrine of Calvinism drawn from the Bible — which though did not hold that salvation must be earned, did see success in a calling eventually came to be regarded as a blessing form God.
Some Flashcards for Weber’s Model
Protestant Work Ethic
- Highly influential model
- The idea that religious values explain social and economic developments
- In his book, links the emergence of capitalism as a dominant economic system in Western Europe and N. America with the Protestant reformation centuries earlier
- The idea that Protestant values lie at the heart of capitalism
- Believed that the human desire for personal gain is universal
- But to live a way of life based on rational, legal acquisition through individual effort: regarded as unique
- ‘Ideal’ type: ‘ascetic’ – means generally ‘anyone who lives with strict self-discipline and abstinence’
- The belief that time should always be filled with doing something useful, shunning material pleasures or idle past-times
- Idea that money should be earned for the grace of God, and that any profits should be re-invested and saved
- Believed that people who follow this lifestyle had an earnestness of purpose that gives dignity to their economic activities
- Disciplined in quest for profit
- But not motivated to use their gains for the satisfaction of anything material
- Hard working and think in terms of potential consequences
- These definite ideas he thought were ‘the spirit of capitalism’
- Recognised that nonreligious elements played a part in the development of the PWE
- the importance of effective legal systems, availability of labour, rational book-keeping
- But generally believed could not be explained without reference to the specifically religious ethos- Personal asceticism and religious beliefs form together the Protestant Work Ethic
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
