The Protestant Work Ethic is a sociological concept developed by Max Weber in 1904-05.  It looks at the economic developments in certain areas of Europe and concludes that it is a result of their religious beliefs that lead them to succeed or fail.  He suggests that Protestantism fostered a way of life and code of everyday behaviour which made it advance ahead of Catholic countries.  Although this leads to the chicken and the egg conundrum- did Protestantism lead to the rise in economic activity or did increased economic activity lead to Protestantism.  Either way, there is an undeniable correlation between the Protestant faith and greater ownership of capital.  ”Weber’s point is that Protestantism produced a new kind of businessman, a different kind of person, one who aimed to live and work a certain way.  It was the way that mattered, and riches were at best a by-product” (Landes 175).

The obtainment and use of wealth is pointed out as a major difference between Catholics and Protestants.  This is an issue explored in great detail by David Landes in his book The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. Catholics accumulated great wealth through their empire, in particular the gold and silver bullion collected from South America.  Because they did nothing to earn this wealth, it was very easy for them to waste the wealth away on luxury and wars.  So although Catholic nations, especially Spain and Portugal, started out on top of the world with seemingly endless amounts of money, once the flow of bullion ended the countries became burdened with debt.  Since they had not invested the money, developed means of production, or saved it they ended up becoming bankrupt (the Spanish monarchy claimed bankruptcy in 1557, 1575 and 1597).  Landes points out, “one might draw a moral: Easy money is bad for you.  It represents short-run gain that will be paid for in immediate distortions and later regrets” (173).

Norther European countries, where Protestantism flourished, experienced a different kind of wealth; they obtained capital and wealth through hard work, investment and thriftiness.  They invested in developing means of production (it should be no surprise after reading this that the Industrial Revolution first took hold in Protestant nations).  Protestantism saw wealth as something potentially dangerous: “striving for riches becomes suspect only if carried out with the end in mind of leading a carefree and merry life once wealth is acquired” (Weber 146).  However, when wealth is obtained through hard work it is “not only morally permitted by expected” (ibid.).

This brings us to examine the purpose and position work took in a Protestant’s life.  Martin Luther, when he translated the Holy Bible into the German vernacular, used the term “beruf” which translates into English as “calling”.  Weber puts a great emphasis on this word, and suggests that it’s existence began with Luther and the rise of Protestantism.  ”If we now trace this word historically and across the languages of the great civilizations, it quickly becomes apparent that an expression denoting a calling (in the sense of endowing work, as a demarcated arena, with a positions in one’s life) is just as little known among the predominantly Catholic peoples as it was among the peoples of classical antiquity.  Such an expressions, however, does exist among all predominantly Protestant peoples” (Weber 89).  It is believed that the only way to please God is to fulfill one’s worldly duties and follow your calling.  This is the best way to ensure your entrance to heaven was by diligently working your whole life in an attempt to please God.

This leads to the concept of asceticism.  According to the OED, asceticism is “rigorous self-discipline, severe abstinence, austerity”.  This is where the characteristics of the Protestant Work Ethic become clear.  Protestantism encouraged an ascetic organization of life.  An individual must be ordered, thrifty, serious, diligent, productive, rational and self-controlled.  Asceticism “turned with all its force mainly against the spontaneous enjoyment of existence and all the pleasures life has to offer” (Weber 148).  It is through this work ethic, and through “asceticism’s compulsive saving” that Protestants started accumulating capital and moved upward on the social ladder (Weber 152).

A discussion of Weber could go on forever, as it is a highly influential, detailed and controversial theory.  I will leave my discussion of Weber with one final excerpt from his essay before I move onto Robinson Crusoe:

“Of course, the entire corpus of literature on asceticism, which is drawn from almost all religions [East and West], is permeated with the point of view that loyal work is highly pleasing to God, even if performed for low wages by people at a great disadvantage in life and with out other opportunities.  Here Protestant asceticism added nothing new as such.  It dramatically deepened, however, this point of view.  In addition, it created the norm on which its impact exclusively depended: the psychological motivation that arose out of the conception of work as a calling and as the means best suited (and in the end often as the sole means) for the devout to become certain of their state of salvation.  Furthermore, on the other hand, in interpreting the employer’s acquisition of money as a “calling,” Protestant asceticism formally ratified the exploitation of this particular willingness to work” (Weber 155-156).

This leads to the question, how does the Protestant Work Ethic pertain to Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe? During his time on the island, Crusoe demonstrates a strong Protestant Work Ethic.  He demonstrates many of the above mentioned characteristics: ordered, hard-working, thrifty, rational, self-controlled, diligent and productive.  Thomas Kemple points out, “in spite of the boundlessness of nature, Crusoe budgets his time, rations his resources, and keeps a strict account of the tools he has been able to save from the shipwreck in a way that does not exemplify but only prefigures the logic of investment and savings which will later drive the expansion of capitalism” (249).

Crusoe proves himself to be extremely hard working once he is shipwrecked on the island.  One of his biggest concerns within the first twelve days is creating a calendar: “upon the sides of this square post I cut every day a notch with my knife, and every seventh notch was as long again as the rest, and every first day of the month as long again as that long one; and thus I kept my calendar, or weekly, monthly, and yearly reckoning of time” (59).  The particularly and methodical system that he sets up for his calendar demonstrates the orderliness of the Protestant Work Ethic.  He also is sure to order his daily routine, ordering his “times of work, of going out with [his] gun, time of sleep, and time of diversion, vis.” (65).  Having a timed scheduled was very characteristic of the Protestant Work Ethic (Landes points out that “even in Catholic areas such as France and Bavaria, most clockmakers were Protestant; and the use of these instruments of time measurement and their diffusion to rural areas was far more advanced in Britain and Holland than in Catholic countries” (178)).  Also regarding time, Crusoe takes note of the duration of the rainy and dry seasons in order to know when to plant and harvest his crops.  Even without formal time keeping devices, Crusoe demonstrates a desire and need to measure and order time while he is living on the island, which is typical of the Protestant Work Ethic.

Crusoe’s thriftiness and conservation of the corn is a classic example of the Protestant Work Ethic.  One day he discovers the growth of corn where he had emptied a bag containing the remnants of chicken feed.  Instead of promptly eating the corn, desiring a different food and basking in this new found ‘wealth’, Crusoe “carefully saved the ears of this corn [...] and laying up every corn, [he] resolved to sow them all again, hoping in time to have some quantity sufficient to supply me with bread” (71).  He proceeds to wait four years before he allows himself to eat even a single grain of corn.  This demonstrates self-restraint, rational behaviour and thriftiness, all which are typical of the Protestant Work Ethic.  Instead of using his ‘wealth’ immediately (as a Catholic might have done) and leaving himself without any corn to replant, he uses the corn to generate a greater crop which goes on to sustain him for the rest of his time on the island.  This demonstrates the Protestant tendency to reinvest and regenerate wealth instead of using the wealth and being left with nothing.

Crusoe’s use of gun powder shows another example of thriftiness and self control.  Unlike the corn which he can replant and generate a greater quantity of corn year after year until he has a satisfactory surplus, the gunpowder cannot be regenerated: “I began to perceive my powder abated considerably, and this was a want which it was impossibly for me to supply” (124).  The gunpowder in particular provided him a way to kill goats, a main source of food for him.  Showing orderly, rational thinking, Crusoe decided to trap some of the goats and build an enclosed pasture for them so they would be easier to locate and kill when he needed them and did not have gunpowder.  His plan had great success, “and in about a year and a half [he] had a flock of about twelve goats, kids and all; and in two years more [he] had three and forty, besides several that [he] took and killed for [his] food” (126).  He also realizes that by taming the goats he is able to milk them, and make cheese and butter.  Crusoe marvels, “what a table was here spread for me in a wilderness, where I saw nothing at first but to perish for hunger!” (127).  He also finds other uses for the goats, including using the tallow to make candles and the skins for clothing.  Through his hard work and rational behaviour Crusoe is able to find ample sustenance on the island when he originally had very little.

Crusoe spends his days with never ending work, therefore he is never idle demonstrating another aspect of the Protestant Work Ethic.  Idleness and “the wasting of time” was seen as the most serious sin (Weber 142).  Crusoe easily avoid this sin by keeping himself busy with many activities and work on the island: “in this time I fond much employment (and very suitable also to the time), for I found great occasion of many things which I had no way to furnish myself with but by hard labour and constant application” (93).  He makes frequent references to his hard work in his journal: October 26th-30th – “I worked very hard” (64); January 3-April 14″all this time I worked very hard” and he reiterates it later, “I worked excessive hard these three or four months, to get my wall done” (68, 71).  As his journal becomes less detailed he reassures the read, “though I have not given the reader the trouble of so particular an account of my work this year as in the first, yet in general it may be observed that I was very seldom idle” (100).  The majority of his account on the island is a description of his labours, therefore it is impossible to deny that he was hard working and had a strong work ethic.

Crusoe’s religiosity wavers through the book, as he sometimes diligently reads his bible “thrice every day” and other times makes little or no references to God (100).  However, it is through his hard work and his devotion to his calling on the island that Crusoe is demonstrating his faith.  There are times that he finds himself conflicted, wondering ” why has God done this to me?” (82).  However, he often finds himself resigning to the will of God and accepting his position and his occupation on the island.  It is this acceptance and embracing your calling that is important to Protestantism.

We discussed in class yesterday that Crusoe seemed reluctant to accept his calling, as he was first unwilling to listen to his father, and then once he established himself in Brazil he was still unwilling to remain there.  Perhaps Defoe is offering a word of caution with his novel, that one should not resist their calling, otherwise they will end up in a less than idea situation.  In retrospect Crusoe realizes his mistake in ignoring his father’s advice and calls it his “original sin” (164).  He further recognizes his folly in leaving Brazil where, if he had remained he might now be “one of the most considerable planters in Brazil” (165).  He sees his life as “a memento to those who are touched with the general plague of mankind, whence, for aught I know, one half of their miseries flow; I mean that of now being satisfied with the station wherein God and Nature had placed them” (164).  It is due to Crusoe’s resistance to his previous callings that he is now in a position that he cannot “satisfy [him]self in [his] station” on the island (165).  Through the story of Robinson Crusoe, a Protestant reader is reminded and advised that they should adhere to their calling in life and not resist it otherwise they will find themselves unsatisfied and risking their salvation.  Although Crusoe demonstrates elements of the Protestant Work Ethic through his behaviour on the island, the degree to which he has fulfilled his life’s calling is questionable and has left his unsatisfied.

By examining Weber’s theory of the Protestant Work Ethic, and applying it to Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe it can be seen how one can prosper from the Work Ethic but offers a reminded that one must adhere to their calling and not resist it otherwise they may end up in a less than ideal station in life.

USEFUL LINKS:

Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism full text.

Dr. Roger B. Hill, Uni. of Georgia offers a useful and reader friendly site on the History of Work Ethic, including a number of sections of the Protestant Ethic.

Peter Ghosh’s article, “‘Robinson Crusoe’, the Isolated Economic Man: Max Weber, Marginal Utility Theory, and the ‘Spirit’ of Capitalism”, published in Max Weber Studies. (Quite a lot of theory in this article, more useful if you want a deeper look at Weber than Robinson Crusoe.)

Ruth Danon’s book Work in the English Novel: The Myth of Vocation. (Thanks to Google Books you can read most of the chapter on Robinson Crusoe online; UNBF has a copy of the book which I will be returning shortly if anyone wanted to look at it further they can order it on inter-library loan.  However, she does not look so much at Weber, instead she looks at “the myth of vocation; she feel that “we live in a work-centered culture and that this culture cannot be described simply in Weberian terms.  The Protestant work ethic does not explain the expectation people have that they be made happy by their work. [...] The emphasis on finding happiness through work run counter to the asceticism described by Weber as intrinsic to the formation and functioning of Protestant societies” (2).  Therefore I used this book very little as I wanted to focus on Weber’s theory.  However, if you wanted to get another point of view on work and Robinson Crusoe that does not involve Weber this would offer that.)

WORKS CITED:

Defoe, Daniel.  Robinson Crusoe. New York: Airmont Books, 1963.

Kemple, Thomas M. Reading Marx writing: melodrama, the market, and the “Grundrisse.” Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995.

Landes, David S.  The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. New York: Norton, 1999.

Weber, Max.  The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism with Other Writings on the Rise of the West. Trans. Stephen Kalberg.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

The Protestant Work Ethic and Robinson Crusoe!

tick-tock… tick-tock… the clock is counting…

Let’s take a moment to admire this beautiful cover art work… Polly want a cracker?