The Protestant Ethic in Action

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.

The Model in Action I:
The Working Class

Such a cultural analysis can be applied to fractions of the working class in advanced modern societies. We can contrast two distinct types of the social usage of culture in the working class by using their specific work ethic as the central parameter. The empirical references are taken from survey research on value orientations toward work and from qualitative research on work culture.

The Skilled Worker. Industrial workers—in spite of their spending substantially more time outside work—are not impressed or influenced by what we call value change toward postmaterialism. They continue to see the workplace as the central life experience and still adhere to the traditional industrial culture. They are proud of their skills and invest their social energy in work. These skilled workers derive their self-image from traditional craftsmanship and thus manifest a specific version of the Protestant ethic. Although they accept the inner-worldly

(Lutheran) principle of achievement through hard work, they do not follow the ascetic practice, characteristic of the capitalist entrepreneur, of saving the money they earn. Members of this social class combine an ethic of hard work with a consumer attitude; they do not wait for future remuneration, they spend immediately. In this respect they maintain, alongside their Lutheranism, the strong Catholic tradition of identifying with the collectivity of the consumer.

The more the present developments in the sphere of work foster cognitive skills, the more the traditional ethic of the skilled worker is revitalized. The so-called Arbeiterstolz (being proud of being a worker) is extended to a Technikerstolz (being proud of manipulating new work technologies). Both are based on special experiences and qualifications accumulated in daily practice at the workplace (Rammert & Wehrsig 1988). But this type of the social usage of the Lutheran ethic is characteristic only for those who, thanks to their social location, can afford to defend this classical form of worker pride inherent in the German model of Facharbeit (skilled work) (Härtel, Matthiesen & Neuendorff 1985, 1986). They can be considered the beneficiaries of rationalization in the sphere of work. They have never de-coupled work from self-realization.

The Unskilled Worker. Unskilled or semi-skilled workers, on the contrary, adapt to the work situation without referring to either the Calvinist or the Lutheran aspect of the Protestant ethic. Their sociostructural location makes them the losers of the game. They know that they have to work where others can choose not to. They are forced into a type of work without motivation as such. The social groups making up this class include marginal industrial workers as well as workers in the low service jobs typically held by women. Even housework can be subsumed under this heading. What these "bad jobs" have in common is that they produce fatigue (Clausen 1981:27f.). This experience of work produces a work ethic that tries to avoid any moral significance. The Protestant ethic is not rejected as such but simply not accepted for the type of work that has to be done. The social usage of the Protestant ethic here is an attempt to neutralize its implications in the workplace.

These social groups are forced to instrumentalize work. Work becomes the means to another end, to a culture of consumption that emulates the principles of the Catholic ethic. Consumption becomes a collective activity that substitutes for the experience of a religious community. Work is seen as means to consumption, this heaven on earth.

Inasmuch as low income forces these groups to engage in intensive consumption work (looking for the cheapest goods, intensifying the do-it-yourself orientation), they are part of the "achieving society." But the achievement-oriented activities in the sphere of consumption remain separate from the sphere of work. These groups have succeeded not only in separating work from self-realization but also in ignoring the aspect of self-realization. The Protestant ethic has no relevance whatsoever. But this situation is not culture-free, as the instrumentalism hypothesis would imply. It is simply another culture derived from the Catholic tradition, that is used to give meaning to work. There is no need within this tradition for individual motivation like the achievement motivation in the sphere of work. Being part of a collectivity of workers suffices to produce the minimum of motivation. The strength of control, but not the internalized motivation, can change the investment in work.

An especially revealing group to observe within this subclass is the unemployed. In order to get state subsidies, these workers, excluded from work, are classified as "seeking work." This definition produces the image of somebody who upholds a normal work ethic. Such classification practices underscore the problem connected with living up to the Protestant ethic. The "Protestantism" of the unemployed is reduced to the proper bureaucratic behavior of showing up at administrative institutions that register those without work. The Protestant ethic is converted into rigid adherence to the requirements of state institutions. Here, enforced Protestantism loses all meaning, becoming a borrowed ethic that acts against all the life experiences of this group. The problems produced by this situation of having to simulate an occupational career and construct a consistent occupational biography are enormous.^[26]

These examples show again that the effects of the Protestant ethic do not necessarily conform rigidly to the pure model. The specific adaptations have to be explained sociologically. And only these practical adaptations can explain which cultural effects a given system of social classes is mediating.

The Model in Action II:
The Middle Class

The different fractions of the middle class have generally been considered the best representatives of the Protestant work ethic. This view is only partially correct. The reasons are found both in the

historical roots of the middle-class work ethic and in the internal differences within the middle class. The changes in the class structure of advanced modern societies will make the middle class and the cultural struggles within it the keys to an explanation of the crisis of modern work society and to an understanding of possible solutions.

The Old Middle Class. The old middle class, comprising small craftsmen and small shopkeepers (Haupt 1985), has become the symbol of a rigid and ascetic work ethic. The groups within this culture are viewed as representing the virtues of industry and parsimony par excellence. Their work ethic is considered an expression of a petit-bourgeois mentality.

This mentality can be seen as a specific adaptation of the Protestant ethic, sharing its emphasis on ascetic virtues. It differs with respect to the substantive values tied to this ethic. For it lacks the specific rationalization that distances these virtues from their religious background and remains instead bound to a substantive religious feeling. The old petit bourgeois still works out of a belief in God, whereas the modern work ethic motivates work without recourse to God. The petit bourgeoisie still needs God, is conservative, and retains the old virtues. This gives to their work ethic the social rigidity typical of traditional life-forms and life-styles. The traditional petit bourgeoisie leads an ambivalent life, with an outlook both materialistic and moralistic. Not having really internalized the Protestant ethic, they are prone to a moral crusade; they think that others should behave as they do. Their work ethic thus constitutes a culture that adapts the model of the Protestant ethic to the life experiences of petit-bourgeois existence (Münch 1984).

The central social experience of this old middle class was being threatened by industrialization and capitalist development. Unable to compete with big industry, yet dependent upon big money, craftsmen and shopkeepers were in permanent danger of slipping into the proletariat class. Fear might explain why they preferred to defend the old world, for it guaranteed their social (and emotional) security. They were for the state as long as it defended them against big industry and big money (as the fascists promised them after a decade of turmoil in the early twentieth century).

The petit bourgeoisie is not dying out. On the contrary, it is coming to life in those economies that have encountered problems with big industry and large labor forces. Recourse to the old virtues increases as such problems pervade advanced industrial societies. Independence has

become fashionable. New craftspeople and new shopkeepers have emerged to join the ranks of the old ones. To what extent these new groups will change the outlook of the classic groups making up the old middle class is an open question. These new groups combine the idea of independence with a rigid ideology concerning the type of work that can satisfy strong moral standards. The "alternative" entrepreneurs (Vonderach 1980)—most of them small shopkeepers or craftspeople—seem unable to escape the structural constraints typical of this social location. They tend to become a new petit bourgeoisie living at the edge of the formal economy (Schlegelmilch 1983). Some even say that they are the constitutive part of an informal economy. This claim can be misunderstood because the new small entrepreneurs have to behave as members, though minor ones, of the formal economy if they want to survive (Tacke 1988). What distinguishes them from the traditional petit bourgeois, the old small entrepreneur, is their moral style. They are postmaterialists looking for psychological well-being. But this may be a minor difference, compared to the similarities in structural location and moral rigidity. Both invest in use-value, as against exchange-value, and this common interest is the decisive marker of their work culture (Eder 1989a, 1989c).

The New Middle Class. A new type of middle class has also emerged since the beginning of the century (Kocka 1981a, 1989b). This class comprises the new white-collar workers required by the expansion of the service sector. Their increase during the 1960s, especially in social service occupations (teachers, journalists, medical professionals, etc.) was fostered by an expansion of the public sector (Gershuny 1983). The members of the new middle class are not independent. On the contrary, they are often state functionaries (Staatsbeamter ).

This class embodies the Lutheran version of the Protestant ethic par excellence. The social usage of this ethic emphasizes an individual's concern with the world and translates it into a social concern. For members of this class no problem exists that cannot be psychologized. Psychological work even becomes the organizational principle of the work ethic. "Working on myself" is the key—and this seems very close to the logic of the Lutheran variant of the Protestant work ethic. The concern with self constitutes a new form of the social usage of this Lutheran tradition. The concern with self is transformed—contrary to the logic of the Calvinist model ethic—into the duty to work upon oneself. At the same time this new class integrates into its work ethic an

element formerly alien to it. An internalized duty to work is accompanied by an internalized duty to enjoy it (Bourdieu 1984). The upshot is a hedonistic attitude toward work.

The members of this class therefore become prone to conspicuous consumption as a means of realizing their individuality—that is, becoming socially distinct from their fellows—and this is precisely what cultural industry needs to expand and boom. An unstable work history among these groups reinforces this self-tinkering. It generates a work ethic of contingency that could produce the strongest obstacles in further accommodating the Lutheran (although less the Calvinist!) element of the Protestant ethic to its existence as a class. Whether the model itself will be queried is open to doubt.

The new middle class seems increasingly to dominate the cultural mood of advanced industrial societies. Its relative distance from the Protestant ethic, as it is customarily understood, makes it a possible carrier for changes in the work ethic, an agent for the construction of a new work culture. The structural change favoring the emergence of new groups (the extension of the service sector) has probably ended. But the continuing effect of this change will act as a starting point for cultural struggles. The new middle class is probably at the center of the cultural struggles that we are facing today. Its evolution will decisively shape the outcome of the crisis of the work society.