Degraded Work, Declining Community, Rising Inequality, and the Transformation of the Protestant Ethic inAmerica: 1870–1930

Abstract

The Protestant ethic has been depicted as declining in America between 1870 and 1930, due to new consumer durables and less rewarding work. This study finds that the Protestant ethic did not so much decline as become transformed. The work ethic remained in force, while frugality weakened. This transformation is traced to three dynamic social forces: degradation in the quality of work due to industrialization, the decline of community with urbanization, and a dramatic increase in inequality. Consequently, social respect and social standing came increasingly to be sought through consumption, which became a proxy for hard work, entailing a weakening of asceticism.

The Darwinian dynamic of sexual selection that Thorstein Veblen missed and its relevance to institutional economics

“…In more recent history, the importance of conspicuous consumption in signaling status was further enhanced as the degradation of work accompanying industrialization and the decline of community accompanying urbanization greatly weakened important alternative ways in which people could acquire social approval and esteem. Workers would have to rely increasingly on high levels of consumption to signal how skilled and hardworking they are, and thus what good mates they would make (Wisman and Davis, 2013).…”

The Financial Crisis of 1929 Reexamined: The Role of Soaring Inequality

“…Thus the Protestant work ethic survived, but not the ascetic ethic(Wisman & Davis, 2013).19 This argument is the opposite of that ofKeynes (1936, pp. 372-375), for whom increased in inequality would be expected to increase saving since wealthier households have higher marginal propensities to save than those less-well off.…”

Psychological empowerment among virtual-based professionals in the pharmaceutical industry: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

“…Prior to the industrial revolution, over 50% of all adults were self-employed and had sole command over their work (Wisman & Davis, 2013). These work conditions of the past provided landowning entrepreneurs a deep relationship with their work and its ties within their community, as acceptance and appreciation from those they served informed their sense of self-determination, competence, role impact, and role meaning, key cognitions of psychological empowerment (Wisman & Davis, 2013;Spreitzer, 1995). In contrast, for the non-landowners, the enslaved or indentured laborers, empowerment was an unattainable dream.…”

“…By the 1930s the results of the industrial revolution had taken hold throughout America. The number of those self-employed declined to below 30%, as less rewarding assembly-line work took hold across the United States (Wisman & Davis, 2013). The once common entrepreneurial way of work from centuries past gave way to blue-collar work with routine redundant tasks defined by strict supervisory oversight, which ensured each employee met high efficiency performance standards (Wisman & Davis, 2013).…”

“…The number of those self-employed declined to below 30%, as less rewarding assembly-line work took hold across the United States (Wisman & Davis, 2013). The once common entrepreneurial way of work from centuries past gave way to blue-collar work with routine redundant tasks defined by strict supervisory oversight, which ensured each employee met high efficiency performance standards (Wisman & Davis, 2013). Reward and recognition for work performed ̶ two key constructs that would later be recognized by Kanter (1977) as key components of organizational empowerment ̶ were less tangible, as pride in a day's work fell victim, for many workers, to the mundane and meaningless (Wisman & Davis, 2013).…”