Industrial Revolution The Protestant Work Ethics

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Industrial RevolutionThe Protestant Work Ethics

• By Jackson Finley Lisa Kam

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Protestant Work Ethic

• Religious devotion generally includes rejection
  of "mundane" or "ordinary" affairs. Protestantism
  reversed this, and the Protestant work ethic was
  the idea of achieving salvation through hard
  work.

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• It emerged from the belief that hard work was
  necessary for the good of the community, and thus
  a spiritual incentive would benefit everybody.

• Some believed that the idea of the Protestant
  work ethic originated with Martin Luther at the
  same time as Protestantism (1517)

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Max Weber

• Max Weber, a German sociologist and political
  economist (lived 1864-1920), studied the
  Protestant work ethic in his book, "The
  Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" in
  1904

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• Weber's theory was that the Protestant work
  ethic (the idea of salvation through working)
  helped to shape Capitalism.

• Theoretically, the Protestant work ethic
  indirectly created the Industrial Revolution, by
  making people more willing to work, and work
  harder. If nobody had bothered, the Revolution
  would never have taken place.

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• Primary arguments against Weber's theory drew
  attention to eastern nations like Japan and
  China, which managed to industrialize without the
  so-called Protestant ethic.

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Classical Period

• Judeo-Christians believed that man was placed in
  the Garden of Eden to work and take care of it
• Hebrew belief system viewed work as a curse
  devised by God explicitly to punish the
  disobedience and ingratitude of Adam and Eve
• Greeks, like Hebrews, also regarded work as a
  curse
• Romans adopted much of their belief systems from
  the culture of the Greeks, and decided work was
  to be done by slaves
• Old Testament supported work for the needs to
  prevent poverty

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Medieval Period

• Work was still seen as punishment by God
• The positive outlook was the aspect of earnings,
  rather than relying on the charity of others
• Wealth was recognized as an opportunity to share
  among those less fortunate
• People who were wealthy were expected to meet
  their own needs, but to give the excess of their
  riches to charity
• The function of work was to meet the physical
  needs of ones family and community, and to avoid
  unemployment which would lead to sin
• Work was part of the economic structure of human
  society which was ordered by God

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Industrial Revolution

• Economists warned of poverty
• Moralists stressed the social duty of each person
  to be productive
• One of the central themes of the work ethic was
  that an individual could be the master of his own
  fate through hard work.
• Manual labor began to be replaced by machine
  manufacture.
• Around mid-1800s mass production of factories
  were built and manufactured by the new inventions
• Technology began to advance, but those areas that
  had not been manufactured by machines were done
  by low wage workers

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Workers
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Thus Ends the Protestant Work Ethics!