When I was growing up, I noticed that the educated adults in my St. Louis suburb had strong faith in three big ideas—Darwinian evolution, Freudian psychology, and the Protestant ethic.
Since then, Darwinian evolution has held its own, but Freud has given way to other psychologies, and the Protestant ethic—the subject of this column—is rarely to be seen.
The German sociologist Max Weber developed the idea of the Protestant ethic, first in essays written in 1904 and 1905 and then in his 1920 book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.[1]
In a sense, “ascetic Puritans,” primarily Calvinists, transferred the mystical spiritual asceticism of Catholic saints to a less stringent but more productive real-world discipline, making possible a dynamic capitalistic world, according to Weber.
Puritans were supposed to work, even make money—but not for the sake of enjoying it. “[T]he pursuit of wealth as an end in itself [was] highly reprehensible; but the attainment of it as a fruit of labour in a calling was a sign of God’s blessing.” [2] Among other things, wealth would indicate that one was among the “elect,” that is, predestined to go to heaven.
Ascetic but Well-Off
This godly pursuit of wealth (along with a commitment to saving) spurred modern capitalism, said Weber. He defined capitalism as actions based “on the expectation of profit by the utilization of opportunities for [peaceful] exchange.” [3] While throughout history there has been the “capitalistic adventurer,” said Weber, never until the advent of ascetic Protestants in the 1600s was there a “rational capitalistic organization of labor.”[4]
Weber’s idea was debated in Europe, especially after Weber published his book. But the book was not even translated into English until 1930, when it was published only in England. An American edition did not appear until 1958. (Weber died in 1920.)
Yet the Protestant ethic immediately became part and parcel of the prevailing ideology of the educated Americans—at least, educated Protestants.
Pushback against the Protestant Ethic
Today, if anyone talks about the Protestant ethic at all, it is to dismiss it. Undoubtedly, that partly reflects the modern rejection of achievements of white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) as mere “white privilege.” Calvin was French, not Anglo-Saxon, but his impact on English Puritans was powerful.
Perhaps the most vivid criticism of the Protestant ethic, however, comes from the late sociologist Rodney Stark. In a brilliant and feisty 2016 book, Bearing False Witness, he argued against a wide variety of claims made against Catholics, such as charges that Catholicism was anti-Semitic and that it perpetuated the Dark Ages. [5]
As for the Protestant ethic, Stark rejected it entirely. He called it “nonsense,” and “obviously wrong.” In fact, he called the first sentence of Weber’s book “dead wrong.” [6]
Weber’s first sentence states that “business leaders and owners of capital, as well as the higher grades of skilled labour, and even more the higher technically and commercially trained personnel of modern enterprises, are overwhelmingly Protestant.” [7]
Stark disputed that by saying that 1) Catholics were just as likely to hold “high status positions” as Protestants; 2) economic development occurred in Catholic countries, not just Protestant ones; and 3) capitalistic achievement had occurred many times “before the Protestant reformation.”[8]
Shall We Stop Here? Not Quite
I recently looked over some essays tucked away in my computer and found this 2012 essay by the late Robert Nelson: “Is Max Weber Newly Relevant?” [9] You are unlikely to have seen it; while it is written in English, it was published in a Finnish journal of religious studies, Teologinen Aikakauskirja.
It is one of at least two detailed discussions of Weber’s thinking by Nelson . A respected economist, Nelson was also fascinated by religion. While he did not agree with all Weber said, he believed that religious ideas influenced the comparative economic success of Catholic and Protestant nations.
He explored that notion quantitatively, arguing that even today there are visible differences between mostly Protestant and mostly Catholic countries in Europe. Specifically, Nelson said: Today, credit ratings are better in Protestant countries than in Catholic countries; bond interest rates are lower; and per capita GDP is generally higher.
“The harsh realities of the bond market are in effect saying that the economic prospects of historically Protestant countries are significantly better than for historically Catholic countries over the second decade of the twenty-first century.” [10]
People in the Catholic countries work longer hours, in spite of having on average a lower per-capita GDP, he found. Gender equality is higher in Protestant countries and, according to the World Values Survey, people in Protestant countries are more trusting of others (a factor contributing to successful economic growth).
Of course, such measurements are fraught with difficulties (as an example, I criticized a weak economic study comparing European countries here). One would have to look very carefully at these numbers to come to a conclusion. For example, Nelson treated Germany as a Protestant country because it was historically more Protestant than Catholic—two-thirds Protestant in 1900. Today it is about half Protestant and half Catholic.
Nelson recognized the dangers and offered caveats. Yet, on balance, he saw the Protestant ethic as having resonance several hundred years since it (supposedly) appeared. That phenomenon might be worth exploring further.
Notes (comments follow the notes)
[1] Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Trans. by Talcott Parsons (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1930 [1920]).
[2] Weber, 172.
[3] Weber, 17.
[4] Weber, 20, 22.
[5] Rodney Stark, Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History (West Conshohocken PA: Templeton Press, 2016).
[6] Stark, 209, 213.
[7] Weber, 35. [The first page following the introduction.]
[8] Stark, 213.
[9] Robert H. Nelson, “Is Max Weber Newly Relevant?” Teologinen Aikakau Skirja 117, no. 5 (2012), 420–425, https://journal.fi/tatt/issue/view/10729.
[10] Nelson, 425.
Image of a late medieval marketplace (in the 1400s) is from the World History Encyclopedia and is in the public domain.
How can a country be half Protestant and half Catholic? Non believers are significant portion of most European countries even if many may participate in churches or synagogues for the community rather than the theology. And where does a country like Singapore fit in?
My experience in Latin America, Europe, and Central Asia, advising small businesses, doing extensive economic surveys, teaching in foreign aid business programs, suggests strongly that not religion but the amount of economic freedom, honest financial institutions, rational tax regimes, and the strength of the rights that support these forces are the determining factors. Human nature is the driving engine that prospers in these conditions.
It seems obvious that adopting a religion that promotes work, saving, and wealth accumulation will induce an economic rise. That’s pretty much what happened in northwest Europe in the centuries immediately following the Reformation.
Of course, there were other many other influences. Some were environmental, including northwest Europe’s cold climate–forcing people to plan ahead and work exceptionally hard at certain times of the year–and the location on the Atlantic Coast. Some are historic; northwest Europe is located in close proximity to the Mediterranean that was a center of civilization and therefore it possessed a high level of technology. Some may have been genetic: all of the Protestant countries of Europe were some combination of the Germanic and Celtic peoples, ranging from entirely Germanic Scandinavia to almost entirely Celtic Scotland.
National character is a result of the interplay between genetics, history, culture, and environment; it may have been that the people of northwest Europe had developed along certain lines so that all they needed to erupt into economic dominance was a spark to ignite their pre-existing drive. And the Protestant (largely Calvinist) philosophy provided that spark.
Why would celtic or germanic DNA be a factor in accelerated development?