The “Work Ethic” Hoax
The “Work Ethic” Hoax
The story has been told that Martin Luther invented the doctrine of the “calling” and that John Calvin (“my friends call me Jean”) intensified it with his doctrine of predestination. Subsequent pastoral literature softened the predestination blow with the Protestant ethic that working hard and succeeding would show that you were one of the elect. Max Weber told that story.
It was, of course, a fable. But that is beside the point. Max Weber’s fable wallowed in relative academic obscurity and sports clichés until… [wait for it]… 1971 when Dick Nixon dusted it off as a cudgel to bludgeon those folks driving around in their Welfare Cadillacs — we all know who they are — and the nattering nabobs of negativism enabling them. Pure backlash dog whistle.
“Keep religion out of it,” Nixon told a speechwriter who labeled it “the Protestant ethic” for a Labor Day address in 1971, “Let’s just call it the work ethic.”
I would like you to join me in exploring one of the basic elements that gives character to a people and which will make it possible for the American people to earn a generation of prosperity in peace.
Central to that character is the competitive spirit. That is the inner drive that for two centuries has made the American workingman unique in the world, that has enabled him to make this land the citadel of individual freedom and of opportunity.
The competitive spirit goes by many names. Most simply and directly, it is called the work ethic.
As the name implies, the work ethic holds that labor is good in itself; that a man or woman at work not only makes a contribution to his fellow man but becomes a better person by virtue of the act of working.
That work ethic is ingrained in the American character. That is why most of us consider it immoral to be lazy or slothful-even if a person is well off enough not to have to work or deliberately avoids work by going on welfare.
That work ethic is why Americans are considered an industrious, purposeful people, and why a poor nation of 3 million people, over a course of two centuries, lifted itself into the position of the most powerful and respected leader of the free world today.
Recently we have seen that work ethic come under attack. We hear voices saying that it is immoral or materialistic to strive for an ever-higher standard of living. We are told that the desire to get ahead must be curbed because it will leave others behind. We are told that it doesn’t matter whether America continues to be number one in the world economically and that we should resign ourselves to being number two or number three or even number four. We see some members of disadvantaged groups being told to take the welfare road rather than the road of hard work, self-reliance, and self-respect.
The New York Times was on to the hustle:
But the chattering classes couldn’t resist the work ethic mantra — pro or con.
Yet Dick was reelected by a yuge margin. I guess that DIck was popular back then.
Those supposed authors of the work ethic were just echoing a long held premise. The work ethic did not come from some philosophizing fool, but rather was inherent in a simpler time when if one did not work, then they would starve unless under the protection of a working family. Perhaps that makes the enemy family instead of work. Good luck with that, either way.
Fools will say what they will and even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then.
I suggest you go over the comments at Econospeak for more on this post.
Baizhang Huaihai – Wikipedia
….As the Zen monks farmed, it helped them to survive the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution more than other sects which relied more on donations. These rules are still used today in many Zen monasteries. From this text comes the well-known saying “A day without work is a day without food” (一日不做一日不食 “One day not work, one day not eat”).[17]
[So, we might surmise that Martin Luther traveled to Chine to teach Chinese Zen Buddhism, but we already know that it was Dick Nixon that went to China :<) ]
The artist invents neither color nor form, yet how the artist applies color and form to their artwork tells a story all their own. Despite the objective truth of the colors and forms, then artwork is always subjected to the interpretations of the artist, always more subjective lie than objective truth.
@Dan,
Did so, but the conversation there was stuck in the high weeds as well. Long before “I think, therefore I am,” then the work ethic was intrinsically existential. Some tribes would care for and revere the old and infirm, while others would banish them to die. There was no philosophical underpinnings to those distinctions. It was mostly environmental, although not necessarily the current environment. Habit and tradition were in play long before history was written according to archaeological evidence. Prehistoric lake dwellers in present day Switzerland were peaceful and cooperative judging from the mixture of ages and lack of injury evidence in their bones. This leads to the idea that people are nice when and where living is easier, but it is an incomplete depiction of environmental influences on social conduct. Polynesians all had easy lives gathering food, yet they were divided between peaceful cooperative groups and harsh martial disciplines, symbolized by luaus and shrunken heads, if you will, as evidenced by early encounters with white folk including the Maori tribes of the North and South Islands, respectively.
In any case, realizing the existential value of work as endemic to the social contract, then the aware sociologist would deal with the problem of incorporating outgroups into the dominant mainstream group in a manner that respects that value system.
Religion is hardly more sanctimonious than any other philosophy.
Ron
Excellent. glad you looked into the pre-history of the work ethic so i didn’t have to. I would only have added to the hate and discontent.
I think Samich was not talking about religion here but politics. Nixon appropriated the work ethic and conflated it with “the spirit of competition” in order to feed the lie of the “welfare ethic” and the rationalization for pfree market low taxes and low wages. That said politicians and “religion” have always used each other for their own ends. Making it hard for anyone to think straight about either.
related, but not very much: ignorance and bias are not the same thing, but they also use each other for their own ends.
I don’t know much about Calvin or Luther. Certainly they did not invent the work ethic, though they may have (may have) used it for their own ends… or did I already say that?
The “welfare ethic,” if there is one, is a condition of learned helplessness, no doubt brought about by slavery and jim crow and general racism in the north as well as south, but also exploited at times by professional victims and their sympathizers. I am as lazy as the next guy, or more so (when it comes to working for the boss, but I can be amazingly energetic and efficient when it comes to working for my friends), but I don’t think welfare for all would work out well for any society, and I know it would be bad for me. Too many starving artists in my family.
I can’t let that stand: I will work as hard and as efficiently, and well, for the boss…as much as he will let me. I don’t suppose I am very different from most people in that regard. Maybe a little stupider when it comes to telling the boss he is wrong.
Coberly,
Yes sir. The New Deal was far more durable than the Great Society. Great accomplishments in policy cannot persist without the support of the wage class, at least without the force of arms. The Great Society had a “kick me” sign on its butt. Nixon had big boots. One does not always get what they work for, but almost anyone can get screwed if they ask for it real nice.
Coberly,
“…Maybe a little stupider when it comes to telling the boss he is wrong.”
[That probably does not belong in the smart or stupid category, more like disgusted or amused instead. I did a great job of telling the boss when they were wrong, then later when time had proven me to be correct I would just have a good laugh at their expense. They hated the “I told you so” that came later, but that never lessened their resolve. I always obediently did as told because that was what I was paid to do. After years of disgust, then I chose to just be amused. After that work was a bunch of laughs.]
Coberly,
My first loves were paleontology and the archaeological study of anthropology. My patron saint became Desmond Morris, after many years of being a big fan of Roy Chapman Andrews.
It occurs to me that understanding the history of “work ethic” might require investigating whether it replaced something else. Not that I know how to look it up. The adjacency to “God helps those who help themselves” seems pertinent.
In any event, one can only learn to subscribe to either version if one lives in a society where it is effective.
First any reality must be lived to become a pertinent reality to humanity. When enough humans live the same reality, then it becomes a common reality. When a common reality becomes broadly accepted, then talking heads emerge to pontificate over that common reality that appears profitable to stake a claim on. This is how minds are mined by the self-indulgent folk that are incapable of producing anything of real value.
The problem with the work ethic is that if everyone were really given an opportunity to work to better themselves, then who would need the charity of self-righteous liberal pseudointellectuals? This is where the the interests of white supremacists and liberal intellectuals overlap. Both seem to prefer to leave people in desperation, either dependent upon their betters or just killing each other with guns over crime turf. Do not teach them to fish, since we might then run out of fish. Give them just enough fish to keep them coming back for more.
@Arne,
Yes, you are correct. In that respect then capitalism as an economic system has possibilities, but the concentrated wealth of big business has long been a problem that the power structure was remiss in solving. Big government is essentially no better, but not because there is something inherently wrong with government. Instead there is something inherently wrong with people that control too much power (i.e., Acton’s “power corrupts”). The pendulum swing of electoral republicanism pitting the haves against the have-not voters is not very consistent, but it does seem to work as well as mankind has yet availed itself. However, the better angels of humanity really need to stop insulting the sensibilities of voting majorities and get over themselves with the presumption of their selves being better than the others.
Sandwichman
This post of yours was picked up by Mike’s Blog Round Up at Crooks and Liars. I actively try to get posts and AB more coverage.
Excellent! Thanks.
Sandwichman:
If I had not worked in manufacturing and was an accountant, your words might lack meaning to me. I will try to get the 2nd version picked up also.