The Protestant Work Ethic
Or "Puritan Work Ethic"

The Ten Commandments and Capitalism

The ten commandments as a unified whole offer mankind the moral basis of a progressive society. I am not arguing that it is only the eighth commandment, with its prohibition against theft, which sets forth such a view of private ownership. All ten commandments have provided mankind with the faith which has produced Western prosperity:

• God as the sovereign owner of the creation
• Faith in the healing power of God’s law
• Personal stewardship before God and other men
• Legal responsibility for one’s actions
• Faith in predictable, permanent laws
• Faith in economic cause and effect
• Faith in ethical power over magical power
• Faith in work rather than luck
• Faith in the productiveness of rest
• Faith in the covenantal family (family name)
• Optimism concerning the future (linear history)
• The possibility of compound economic growth
• Defense of the private ownership of both the means of production and the fruits of production
• The sanctity of covenants and the analogous and derivative legitimacy of contracts
• Social co-operation through private contracts
• Contentedness as a way of life
• The illegitimacy of covetousness and envy
• The legitimacy of civil government as a monopolistic agent of law enforcement, but not wealth redistribution
• Penalties against violence and verbal assault
• Penalties against slander and theft
• Salvation by grace, not law (or legislation)

We compare these premises with the underlying premises of backward societies, and we find almost a perfect reverse image. The society of Satan also has first principles. A list of the major “tenets of backwardness” is provided by P. T. Bauer, a specialist in developmental economics, and a devout Roman Catholic:

“Examples of significant attitude: beliefs and modes of conduct unfavorable to material progress include

• lack of interest in material advance, combined with resignation in the face of poverty;

• lack of initiative, self-reliance and a sense of personal responsibility for the economic future of oneself and one’s family;

• high leisure preference, together with a lassitude often found in tropical climates;

• relatively high prestige of passive or contemplative life compared to active life;

• the prestige of mysticism and of renunciation of the world compared to acquisition and achievement;

• acceptance of a preordained, unchanging and unchangeable universe;

• emphasis on performance of duties and acceptance of obligations, rather than on achievement of results, or assertion or even a recognition of personal rights;

• lack of sustained curiosity, experimentation and interest in change;

• belief in the efficacy of supernatural and occult forces and of their influence over one’s destiny;

• insistence on the unity of the organic universe, and on the need to live with nature rather than conquer it or harness it to man’s needs, an attitude of which reluctance to take animal life is a corollary;

• belief in personal reincarnation, which reduces the significance of effort in the course of the present life;

• recognized status of beggary, together with a lack of stigma in the acceptance of charity;

• opposition to women’s work outside the household .“4

Here is what the Protestant work ethic is not:

Magic, Envy, and Economic Underdevelopment

The ideology of pagan countries is ably summarized by P. T. Bauer as:

• “lack of interest in material advance, combined with

• resignation in the face of poverty;

• lack of initiative, self-reliance and of a sense of personal responsibility for the economic fortune of oneself and one’s family;

• high leisure preference, together with a lassitude often found in tropical climates;

• relatively high prestige of passive or contemplative life compared to active life;

• the prestige of mysticism and of renunciation of the world compared to acquisition and achievement;

• acceptance of a preordained, unchanging and unchangeable universe;

• emphasis on performance of duties and acceptance of obligation, rather than on achievement of results, or assertion or even a recognition of personal rights;

• lack of sustained curiosity, experimentation and interest in change;

• belief in the efficacy of supernatural and occult forces and of their influence over one’s destiny;

• insistence on the unity of the organic universe, and on the need to live with nature rather than conquer it or harness it to man’s needs, an attitude of which reluctance to take animal life is a corollary;

• belief in perpetual reincarnation, which reduces the significance of effort in the course of the present life;

• recognised status of beggary, together with a lack of stigma in the acceptance of charity;

• opposition to women’s work outside the household."

Bauer goes on to emphasize that these attitudes “are not surface phenomena,” but are “an integral part of the spiritual and emotional life” of hundreds of millions of people.

5. P. T. Bauer, Dissent on Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971, 1976), pp. 78f. Gary North quotes this same list of anti-development attitudes in his essay “Free Market Capitalism” published in Robert G. Clouse, Wealth and Poverty: Four Christian Views of Economics (Downers Grove, IN: InterVarsity Press, 1984), p. 50. In his response, Art Gish (one of the socialist contributors to the volume) comments that North “seems unaware of the extent to which Jesus and the biblical prophets stand condemned by that list” (p. 78)!

Work Ethic, Protestant - Everyday Christianity - Whole Life Stewardship - God's World - Urbana.org