Protestant work ethic: what it is and how Max Weber explains it

The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany… all these countries are nations that are considered economically prosperous. Northern Europeans and the regions of the world colonized by them have in common that they are quite wealthy societies.

Max Weber, back in the early twentieth century, wanted to understand what it was that made these countries, culturally and geographically different, they were ideal places for the development of capitalism and, one day, the light bulb lit up: the Protestantism.

Can a religion influence how rich and prosperous a nation is? According to Weber yes, arguing that it was the Protestant work ethic that caused the nations we mentioned to have so much economic development. Let's see it next.

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What is the Protestant work ethic?

The Protestant work ethic, a term coined by the German philosopher Max Weber, is a concept used in sociology, economics, and history that is based on the notion that the Calvinist emphasis on the need to work hard

as an attractive component, it would explain why the Protestant majority countries have succeeded economically. According to Calvinism, hard work and personal success are signs of having received salvation and God's grace, an idea already present in the ideas of Martin Luther.

Before the emergence of Protestantism and its multiple currents, Western Europe was largely Catholic. The classic vision within Catholicism is that in order to obtain God's grace and obtain salvation it is necessary that we do good works in life. Whether helping the disadvantaged or not committing crimes or sins, we will be considered good people deserving of good divine treatment and thus we will enter the kingdom of Heaven when we die.

However, this view was superseded in various places in Europe when Protestantism appeared. In fact, his theses could be considered rather contrary to the catholic ones when talking about salvation. It is not that Protestantism, or at least most of it, is against good works but it does consider that it does not matter if we do them or no, since salvation and divine grace are aspects that God decides at the moment of birth or even before, not during our lives.

For Protestants, specifically Calvinism, the relationship between salvation and being a generous, caring, and successful person in life is reversed. It is not that salvation is the consequence of behaving well in life, but that it is the cause of our being good people. God predestines our salvation and, consequently, our way of being. That is, Protestant theologians, especially Calvinists and Lutherans, preached that we could only be saved if God so decided, not by the works we did.

It is not possible to know if a person has received this salvation but it is possible to discern if it has been granted to us or not based on how we behave in life. Protestants argued that it was possible to find out if a person had been chosen by God to be saved if she was attractive, she was successful in business, she was a hard worker, faithful devotee to the Lord, a good person... signs that They attracted the rest of the followers of Protestantism, since they wanted to rub shoulders with those who had been chosen by God.

The link between Protestant ethic and capitalism

The reason why Max Weber related Protestantism to economic development makes a lot of sense if you look at the global economic context of his time, in the early twentieth century. The Germanic and Anglo-Saxon world, especially the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany (Prussia) and Scandinavia, was experiencing immense development. In addition, its people were known to be very hard-working and productive, an aspect that undoubtedly had to have had a positive impact on the economies of those regions.

This working spirit was directly related to the Protestant work ethic, since in all these regions the majority of the population followed some Protestant trend, especially Calvinism and Lutheranism. So Max Weber expressed these ideas in his book "The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" (1905) which, once translated into English, It was considered almost an economic Bible in the United States, in addition to being used as an argument in favor of the supremacy of the Protestant religion over the catholic.

It is not surprising that this book has been so successful in North America, since more than half of its inhabitants identify with some Protestant cult. Although today there are rather few Americans who follow Calvinist currents yes, many of their Puritan ancestors did, considered the founders of the States United. English Calvinists settled in Massachusetts Bay in order to practice their creed, considered somewhat extreme in Europe. These people greatly influenced the economic and social development of North America.

As we said before, the current of John Calvin proposed that the destiny of men was already pre-established by God. Our actions are not what decide whether or not we go to heaven, but this has already been decided by God at the time of birth. Depending on your decision, we will behave in a way more or less associated with that of a person who has been granted salvation. If we are good, successful and we succeed in life it is because God has given it to us and, as a consequence of this, we are people of benefit.

There are several outward signs that Calvinism considers to be proof of having received God's grace. If a person strives to have them, Protestant logic will say that it is because he really received salvation at birth and that sooner or later he had to manifest them. Although the Protestant person has strived to have a good body, a successful business or have a profitable life, she will interpret it that it has been God, and not she, who has made it so.

It is this idea that Weber used as an argument for the economic superiority of Protestantism over Catholicism. Protestant believers, with the idea of ​​showing that they have received divine grace, will try harder to do that their businesses are the most prosperous, since they do not want to accept the idea of ​​not having received the grace of God. Through their efforts they achieve glory and end up having the “certainty” that God has chosen them.

Another interesting aspect of Protestantism that Weber relates to the development of capitalism is his idea of ​​wealth. While in Catholicism it was frowned upon to have a lot of money, it is not so in Protestantism, yes, you can not waste money on superfluous luxuries. Protestants see working as an ethical value, something they must thank God for, unlike Catholicism which saw it as a heavenly punishment for original sin. Protestants see working and saving money as a form of devotion to God.

Also related to Calvinism is a rather murky idea and controversy about charity. Many Protestants, on the grounds that God predestined his grace, see beggars as unsaved people. As a consequence they live a miserable life and it must be so because God has decided so. Under the most radical Calvinist perspective, giving money to these beggars in a charitable way goes against God's designs, no matter how much money we have left over.

As Protestants cannot spend their money on whims for themselves nor should they give it to the weakest, Since it goes against God's designs, wealthier believers were forced to save and save money. to invest. It was through these two actions that his patrimonies were increasing, being able to create more powerful businesses and enjoy a more affluent lifestyle but always with abstinence and moderation.

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Criticisms of the ideas of Max Weber

Max Weber's ideas have been long debated even at the time when he made them known. To claim that it was the Protestant work ethic that had guaranteed the emergence of capitalism in countries where Protestantism was the majority religion was a fallacious claim. Without going much further, in the Europe of his time there were regions with a Catholic majority where the capitalism was thriving: Catalonia, the Basque Country, Padania, Bavaria, the Rhineland, most of France...

One might have thought that these regions were prospering because their entrepreneurs had adopted the Protestant ethic, with or without adopting their religion, but this also appeared to be false. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that capitalism could have started before the Protestant reforms during the Renaissance. The Renaissance Catholic states of Lombardy, Genoa, and Venice were rich and prosperous regions, with significant artisan production and unparalleled trade relationships.

Max Weber ignored an important detail that, being a German, he should know and that he ruined his entire theory. Her native Prussia, the forerunner of today's Germany, was a rich and prosperous region that he claimed was because she was a Protestant, but what about his sister? Austria was the sister nation and rival of Prussia during the Germanic unification. It was basically a southern Germany where German was also spoken and a rich and prosperous economy was developing. The only thing that differed was that it was a strongly Catholic nation.

Max Weber could have hypothesized that he is German as the other factor that guarantees that an economy be prosperous, ideas that were coined by various pro-Nazi philosophers and economists decades later. The problem with this is that another great nation, France, was also developing strongly and was neither German nor Protestant. In fact, when the Gallic country was still a kingdom, it became the richest nation in Europe. until Louis XIV ascended the throne and ruined the country spending the budget on all kinds of wars.

And finally we have the current panorama that if Max Weber had seen it he would have been stunned. Not only are there European Catholic countries whose economic development is extremely high, but there are also those that are neither white nor Christian. The Far East shows us that a country can be prosperous without having a philosophy or culture based on Christian values, as is the case of Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea, in addition to the People's Republic of China, which, although theoretically communist, its development is comparable to that of a large economy capitalist.

Bibliographic references:

• Weber, Max (1905). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Chas. Scribner 's sons.
• Green, Robert, (1973). The Weber Thesis Controversy. D.C. Heath
• Maestro Cano, Ignacio C. (2018). Weber's thesis on capitalism on the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Ilu. Journal of Religious Sciences 23: 149-174.