Protestant Work Ethic = LAME

Water Cooler
#1

http://www.alternet.org/comments/labor/why-protestant-work-ethic-menace-society#disqus_thread

Two weeks ago Pew Research pinpointed an historic threshold: for the first time only 48% of Americans deemed themselves Protestant. Yes, the dominant majority since Puritan days has shrunk to minority status, alongside (one trusts) its perennial double: the White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant ruling class.

With the Protestant hegemony fading, let us project a similar demise for the simplistic, planet-threatening credo known as the “Protestant Ethic.” That triumphant code consecrates hard work, prosperity and control over nature, complacently measuring progress by net profit and GNP numbers. Here’s a conviction that unifies our two parties in love with the status quo, along with reactionaries and fundamentalists everywhere. For all proclaim the Divinity of Hard Work, that Hard Work Conquers All, even that Work is Salvation, as both sign and vehicle of “exceptionalism” and personal deliverance.

For the hard right, does not the magic of hard work resolve crime, poverty, racial inequality, family shortcomings, economic stagnation and phantom enemies far and wide? The solution to all hard knocks, these hard people say, is hard work, the anvil for human destiny – and beyond. Gee, what happened to one-time, theoretical promises of greater leisure time?

Certainly Yanks celebrate that savvy American, Benjamin Franklin, who elevated thrift, industry, and tenacity; or as he put it, “Energy and persistence alter all things.” But today’s ideological folly distorts the context of birthright, namely background, gender, education, and family assets. Thus schoolchildren still endure injunctions to “keep your nose to the grindstone” (ouch), “there is no substitute for hard work” (Thomas Edison), and my favorite, “hard work never killed anyone” (“but why take the chance,” quipped witty Edgar Bergen).

Or check out Bishop Mitt’s website: “Help Romney Get America Back to Work,” while refusing to affirm public education, retraining, or support for needy families. So much for the famed “bootstraps” by which the poor will pull themselves up.

No doubt, America’s affluence mirrors perseverance, especially by underpaid laborers, but consider more critical advantages: freedom from central authority, relative tolerance, thus ethnic diversity, matchless resources (farmland, forests, water, minerals), and truly fortuitous geography, poised between Europe and Asia. Military might, material goods, isolation, and good fortune, not simply workloads, clarify how 5% of the world’s population commandeers 20% of most goodies.

Our Religion of Work

What needs challenge isn’t work per se but the Protestant work credo and noxious linkages: 1) that worldly success signals heavenly election; 2) that will power alone (and the right Christian values) will overcome all uneven playing fields; and 3) that status (read: money) awards “winners” like Bishop Romney the moral right to rule the entire roost. In fact, hard work by itself leads to exhaustion, without often gaining a livable wage. And America’s celebrated draw of exceptional socio-economic mobility has migrated to Canada and much of Europe and Asia.

Diligence alone isn’t enough: Greeks average 2,017 work hours annually, the highest in Europe, with a two-week vacation. Germans put in 1,408 hours per year, with twice the vacation time, yet Greece is a wreck (20% jobless) while Germany a powerhouse. In fact, our New Deal’s 40-hour week base cut America’s average workload by 25% (from 1900 and 1950), yet that didn’t stop us from becoming the world’s richest economic power ever (not getting devastated by two wars helped).

By the way, the U.S. happens to be the only major western industrial nation that doesn’t mandate vacation time. Not only that, Time magazine reports: “The average American worker earns 14 days off per year, but only takes 12 of them, according to a 2011 survey by Expedia. About a quarter of Americans don’t have any vacation time at all.” Many beg off earned “free time” for fear of losing pay or their jobs plus dread the undone workload if they recreate.

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#2

Surprising. I guess that’s where productivity comes in.

#3

American productivity isn’t bad though, not like Greek productivity. There is a huge amount of capital invested per hour of American work. The US is third in the world in GDP (PPP) per hour worked (only Luxembourg and Norway are higher).

There may be numerous health, societial and moral reasons to reduce work. But the US isn’t hurting for productivity.

Some key countries (Conference Board, 2012):

Luxembourg = $74.95/hour USA = $63.27/hour Germany = $56.89/hour Sweden = $54.47/hour Canada = $50.25/hour Greece = $31.80/hour

Really, labour productivity is generally a function of invested capital. I’m not convinced that working less will make Americans more productive per hour when they are already leaders despite working more than most. That said there could be health and social benefits.

#4

In my opinion, there are plenty of countries to live in that value a simple life. America is not one of those, and that is the reason so many people have come here.

#5

lol have you ever been to Greece? I lived in Athens for 3 months. Greek people don’t do shit. Greece is the laziest country in Europe (I’ve been to most of them).

#6

Lol I’ve head so many people that visit there say this… at first I shrugged it off as unfounded but after this sentiment accumulates, now I wonder

#7

^ The Greeks “work” lots of hours, but really aren’t doing much during those hours. Hence why they produce only half of what an American does in economic value per hour. Contrast that to the Germans that don’t work much in terms of hours, but they burn it when on the clock. Different ways to get things done.

In my experience working with people from the US versus Germany, I really do think the Germans are more productive with their work time. I figure American productivity is higher because labour hours are under reported (I think studies assume lots of 40 hour weeks when the reality is 60+).

There is a mentality in lots of North America that hours in your chair represent hard work. I think I saw someone here post in another thread that they stay late at their job because their boss does, but they don’t really do anything for the last several hours. I think this to be fairly widespread as a mentality. I haven’t had the same impression from northern Europeans I’ve worked with… they tend to go to work to do what they need to do then they go. So more productive per hour.

Then there is the southern Europeans…

#8

What has this have to do with being Protestant? You could probably correlate so many other cultures with being more hardworking than white Protestants.

#9

+1

#10

The Protestant work ethic (or the Puritan work ethic ) is a concept in theology, sociology, economics and history which emphasizes hard work, frugality and diligence as a constant display of a person’s salvation in the Christian faith, in contrast to the focus upon religious attendance, confession, and ceremonial sacrament in the Catholic tradition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic

#11

Max Weber’s book “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” raised the hypothesis that protestant cultural traits (self-reliance, personal relationships with God, rather than mediated through priests) explained why the industrial revolution took root earlier, faster, and more successfully in protestant countries like England, Germany, and the United States, rather than other parts of the world.

It’s not a bad analysis (Weber’s), although one of the difficulties is that Anglicanism isn’t really all that different from Catholicism.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7fC0ec3AOU]

#12

Yes, but the article uses the decline of the Protestant Work Ethic to make predictions on the global work force. I do not believe most work forces are motivated by Christian Salvation. If the global labor force changes, this will likely have nothing to do with religion.

#13

This

#14

Yeah, the protestant connection is a stretch. Sure, I grew up in a protestant church full of incredibly hard working farmers. But that doesn’t mean the other farmers in our county weren’t equally as hard workers. Seems pretty dumb to me, I’d say it has more to do with old fashioned vs modernistic. Today’s generations all insist on living in cities, socializing all the time - something people from this “protestent” generation never prioritized at all over putting food on the table.

#15

I think you captured Weber’s argument well, though I prefer Deirdre McCloskey’s argument in Bourgeois Virtues.