“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,” said Jesus, “for where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Yet it is a widely
argued thesis that Protestantism is a pillar of the profit system, and
that piety and “treasures upon earth” can live comfortably together. German Economist Max Weber broached the theory in 1905 with The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Calvinism and the
Protestant sects, he maintained, lacking the absolution of sins
provided by the Roman Catholic Church, depend upon outward and visible
signs of salvation: diligence, sobriety and God's reward—success.
Thrift, he argued, was also a peculiarly Protestant virtue, and the
combination of these qualities naturally produced capital. Weber quoted
Methodism's founder, John Wesley: “Religion must necessarily produce
both industry and frugality, and these cannot but produce riches.''
British Economist Richard H. Tawney further developed Weber's ideas in
his well-known Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. Worshipping Mammon. . . Just published is a book that calls them all out
of tune. Protestantism and capitalism are not interdependent, writes
Swedish Economic Historian Kurt Samuelsson in Religion and Economic
Action . It is true, says Samuelsson that many U.S. industrialists and financiers
in the 19th and early 20th centuries were Calvinists or Protestant
sectarians, and it is “striking” how many of the clergymen in
industrial centers were eulogizers of laisses-faire capitalism. But, he
writes, “it was not the worship of God that led to the worship of
Mammon. It was rather that it was necessary to demonstrate that
devotion to wealth was not necessarily an impediment to true piety—and
the need to assert it was all the greater because so many of the
Puritan fathers had so intensely feared the harmfulness of riches.”
When old-style “robber barons” wrote about their faith, they usually
picked from a variety of philosophies “whatever contributed to the
defense of their own conduct, riches and power.'' On the other hand, the great Protestant teachers were wary of wealth and
worldliness. Diligence and thrift they enjoined, writes Samuelsson,
but so did Roman Catholics in the same mercantile age. And thrift did
not make capitalism; it was enterprise that founded the great fortunes
and industries. Even Horatio Alger, Samuelsson points out, always had
his pious little lads get into the big money by “a gigantic
inheritance, left to his hero by some previously unknown relative, or a
gift from a multimillionaire who felt the virtuous boy to be worthy of
a reward. Thrift and diligence were adequate instruments for winning
the favour of rich relatives or bosses or millionaires' daughters, but
not for achieving wealth singlehanded.”
