The Cultural Model of the Protestant Work Ethic

The Three Sources of the Modern Work Ethic. To reinterpret the supposed decline of the work ethic as a change in the Protestant ethic, we first have to reconstruct the basic assumptions of this model, tailoring them to our analysis of the crisis of the work society. The standard model of the Protestant ethic consists of a series of values and the motivational forces that compel adherence to these values. This has been called the Calvinist model and contains values such as achievement for its own sake, the virtue of work over nonwork, and the quest for excellence. Its motivational forces are even more important. The belief in the culture of possessive individualism (the secular version of not being sure about one's own election by God) and the related permanent proof of one's own competitiveness in the market (the secular version of finding evidence of one's own election by God) are the motivational forces that have together so advanced the capitalist spirit that it has become (at least ideologically) the dominant (and dominating) model of the modern work ethic.

Within the German tradition another work ethic model can be identified, namely Lutheranism .^[24] This ethic can be seen as the inner-worldly variant of the Protestant ethic. It radicalizes the permanent self-observation necessary to decipher God's will. One has to examine one's day-to-day conduct to see whether one has really established a personal relation to God. The dread of failure becomes the motivational engine of one's life. Such a person is no longer part of a collectivity that gives security and warmth but is a highly individualized self-observing and self-controlling social being. In family life a system emerges in which

the persons living together observe themselves and each other. The family becomes a community of disciplined persons, a disciplining institution. Concentrating on the self makes work a secondary, devaluated concern. The primary concern is one's inner life, one's motives and intentions. This predominance of the inner-worldly forced Luther to distinguish sharply between the sphere of work and the sphere of inner conviction. Self-realization through struggling with one's own self is life's main activity. The outer world is nothing but a necessary background to this drama.

This explanation clarifies the difference between Calvinism and Lutheranism. A Calvinist cultivates success in the outside world as evidence of being elected by God. A Lutheran looks within at his or her faith to discover God's will and intentions. The Calvinists therefore have become virtuosi of outer-worldly activity; the Lutherans have become virtuosi of self-observation and self-interpretation. Both patterns have contributed to the modern work ethic. The first produced the work ethic based on rational motivation. The second produced a mere instrumentalist work ethic, in which work is treated as a sphere of mere necessity to which we are subject. Work is amoral. This demoralized work ethic, resting upon the acceptance of social necessities, is not an adequate means to self-realization. As soon as the religious foundations of inner-worldly orientation are eroded any motivation can enter. Such a substitution took place in the rise of the Prussian work ethic. The Prussian functionary works as hard as the world demands and seeks self-realization by identifying, not with God, but with the state. Historically this substitution allowed for the rationalization of the state. Thus within the German tradition both traditions contribute to the rationalization of modern society. The work ethic of the capitalist entrepreneurs is no different from that of their Calvinist counterparts. And the work ethic of the state officials representing the Prussian virtues is characteristic of modern German work culture as such.

The values that lie at the heart of an emerging work culture today point simultaneously to the possible end and the possible revival of the Protestant ethic. They signal the end of the Calvinist heritage and the renaissance of the Lutheran heritage. The new values, emphasizing self-realization outside work, can be traced to the corresponding Lutheran conception of work. This historical conjuncture might explain the German bias and intensity of the discussion about the change in modern work culture.

But there remains a problem generally overlooked in the discussion

of the Protestant ethic. Neither variant of the Protestant work ethic has ever become part of the work culture of plebeian and rural groups. Where then does their work ethic come from? What distinguishes it from the Protestant ethic that led highly motivated individuals to practice rational economic conduct? The answer lies in the general "Catholic" tradition that is oriented toward the collectivity, as opposed to the individual orientation of the Protestant tradition. This Catholic tradition, first embodied in the discipline of monastic life, is important in the development of a modern work ethic. Its specificity is found in a collectivistic ethic applied from the outset to productive manual labor. It has helped to "civilize" and "rationalize" the traditional "moral economy" of the lower classes. The collectivist model of disciplined labor characteristic of the monastery allowed for the inculcation of a disciplined work ethic into those groups forced into wage labor (Treiber & Steinert 1980). The rational timing of the working day and the rational control of bodily movements in modern industrial work emulates the model established in the monastery and then generalized in institutions such as hospitals, jails, and asylums.

We have identified at least three different traditions that have influenced and shaped the modern work ethic. Now we must differentiate between the contradictory elements contained in the model of the Protestant ethic and take the Catholic element into account. Then we must identify the groups that are carriers of these elements. While some groups may be acting out a disaffection with their Calvinist roots, other occupational groups might be acting out an intensification of the Calvinist element of the Protestant ethic. The same duality holds for the Lutheran version of the Protestant ethic.

We are still unable to interpret the aggregate data of survey research analyzing changes in attitudes toward work. Survey data show only the net result of contradictory changes of the work ethic in different social groups. We have to consider that the average net result may mask a trend toward wide social and cultural differentiation and even stratification. Without a precise idea of the differentiation and stratification of the work conditions and the work ethic, we risk producing nothing but fantasies.

From the Model Work Ethic to Its Practical Use. Weber himself is ambivalent about the general validity of the Protestant ethic.^[25] On one hand he thinks that this ethic will be generalized throughout modern society. The Puritan, he says, wanted to be Berufs-

mensch , and we have to be Berufsmenschen (Weber 1965:188). On the other hand Weber states that the Protestant ethic has become part of the bourgeois life-style. This implies a different social interpretation of the modern work ethic. It assumes that it can be seen as an exclusive work ethic, typical only for some strata or classes in modern society. One can even claim that this work ethic establishes a cultural distinction between the ascetic elites and the joyous masses. From this perspective the work ethic symbolizes the cultural authority of one class over others. We who have to be Berufsmenschen , according to Weber, are not the people. We in fact are a specific social group, contrary to the supposed universalism of the Berufsmenschen .

On the theoretical level the difference between the two interpretations can be resolved by distinguishing between a model and its social usage. The Calvinist variant of the Protestant ethic is a model of a modern work ethic that has been adapted by specific social groups. But we have to go further because the Calvinist tradition can also be blended with other traditions. The blend of the Catholic ethic with Lutheranism, of a collectivist ethos of discipline with the Lutheran ethos of self-realization in and by work, the work ethic is sometimes said to constitute a specifically German work ethic. But this supposed ethic is—as we shall see—the work ethic of the skilled worker (the Facharbeiterethos ), developed by a very specific group of workers in nineteenth-century Germany. Because the practices using and reproducing these different models are ongoing, the work culture of a society is necessarily in flux. Thus our theoretical application of the model of the Protestant ethic has to take into account changes in its usage to keep the model theoretically useful.

On the empirical level I would like to suggest that there is a close relationship between the pure model of Calvinism and its social use by the dominant class in modern societies. The class of capitalist entrepreneurs and managers is a social group that uses the Calvinist model of the Protestant ethic to reproduce its symbolic power over other social classes. The symbolic power built into this ethic is based on the fact that it serves as a touchstone to higher positions. It becomes cultural capital in the hands of these social groups inasmuch as it becomes the selective mechanism in all those social institutions that regulate access to social status and power. Research analyzing the "informal" criteria of access to higher educational institutions and to employment in better jobs shows that this work ethic is the touchstone conferring better chances (Windolf 1984; Windolf & Hohn 1984). But this selective mechanism

works differentially in different sectors of the economy: banking, the steel industry, or different hierarchical levels in these branches. Informal qualifications that indicate a "Protestant" life-style (for example, dress and choice of discipline) have also become increasingly instrumental in the selection for higher social status in the sphere of work.

There have been some attempts at classifying class-specific adaptations of the Protestant ethic. Hinrichs and Wiesenthal (1982) distinguish among several groups: (1) workers with a traditional consciousness based upon an unquestioned achievement orientation, (2) overall maximizers (those in privileged positions who push the achievement principle), (3) opportunistic hedonists who work only as much as necessary to live a joyous life, and (4) those who abandon totally or partially the normal working day in order to organize their life-world in another form. Another classification by Kern and Schumann (1984:157) distinguishes among the following: (1) winners of rationalization, (2) losers of rationalization, (3) workers in unstable branches, and (4) the unemployed. These classifications differ in the perspective they adopt to grasp the increasing differentiation of work culture. The former takes the perspective of the middle classes, the latter that of the working classes. They do have one element in common: they point to a differentiation of work cultures that cuts across traditional class differences.