Originally posted by montyfowler
A Historic Perspective
The "American Work Ethic" definitely has its roots in the Puritan movement of the late 16th century in Europe. As we all know, it was exported to the New World via the Puritan settlers of the Massachussetts colony in the early 17th century.
The American Work Ethic is a simple IF > THEN > ELSE proposition. IF you work hard, THEN you will reap the benefits of such work, ELSE you will go hungry and have an unhappy life. This was the foundation upon which the colonies were founded, and it was wildly successful, especially when slave labor entered the equation and allowed it to grow exponentially.
When the industrial revolution began workers had many more choices in where to spend their hours at labor. You did not necessarily have to be a farmer, a tradesman, or a merchant. Now you could work in a factory processing the raw materials from some other area of the economy, thus spurring even faster and greater economic potential for the individual.
Throughout the latter part of the 20th century, the American economy began another quantum shift. The Information Age has transformed the world economy and created further stratification, both depth and width, in the concentration of wealth throughout the world. The U.S still reigns supreme in every category of domestic production, whether it be agriculture, textiles, manufacturing, high technology, communications, or mining. But our historic death grip on some markets is being loosened by developing countries.
As the Third World becomes more and more democratic, their people will be better educated, their markets will develop, jobs will be created, and more wealth will be generated. This is all good.
The downside is that some industries will naturally gravitate toward those countries and their cheaper labor pools. But still, this can be a good thing if managed properly. Globalization is the term given to this natural shift in production and consumption. It is Keyensian economics at work!
Globalization has had a tremendous impact on the U.S. economy in the past 25 years. One would expect this as the greatest change would naturally be felt by the largest economy, since much of the initial shift in production has come from our economy. This has placed a new challenge before the American worker. Quite simply -- adapt or die.
Some areas of our economy have adapted brilliantly while others have lagged behind. A good example is argriculture. As the American farmer became more and more effecient in his methods for producing food, this caused the price of food (in general) to decline dramatically as a percentage of income. This meant the farmer produced more, but made less profit. Not good.
So instead of looking to the government to subsidize every sector of the agricultural economy, we began exporting the technology which allowed us to become so efficient. Now, what the agricultural economy lost in price on the world market for food, we gained on the world market in technology.
This analogy was applied to scores of industries over the past quarter century. Where before we were the biggest and best producer, now we are the biggest and best innovator.
The information age has also created entire new industries that employ millions of Americans -- computer hardware and software, telecommunications, and defense to name a few.
Over time manufacturing or processing of raw amterials into basic products or building blocks for products will eventually shift to the developing nations. Our economy will depend more and more on the innovation of technology, creation of new industries, new energy sources, and the financing of the developing countries.
Our workers will have to be the best educated and the smartest-working labor force on the planet for us to continue to be the dominant force in the global economy. So in summary, we will need to work smarter, not necessarily harder to meet the challenges of the future.
The Role of Religion
Religion and its place in our culture is a very complex topic. But with regard to this thread, I do not believe that any one faith perspective has a monopoly on the American Work Ethic. Clearly our work ethic is rooted in Puritanism, as mentioned earlier, but it has taken on a uniquely American cultural aspect over the intervening 400 years.
Likewise, a person's attitude toward "making money" or profiting has as much to do with his life experience as it does with his religious perspective, if any. Poor people who have always been poor and are likely to continue in that condition will generally have a negative attitude toward those who are perceived as rich or even comfortable. It is simply a function of a very basic human emotion -- envy. Envy has a very nasty cousin called greed that is many times assumed to be the mechanism by which the rich get richer.
Now any serious and thoughful person knows this to be completely without merit. But, it is the basic irrational battlefield upon which the Liberals conduct their class warfare. Year after year, the Libs decry the rich as being greedy as if all successful people somehow came to their wealth by unscrupulous means.
This belief rises almost to the status of doctrine in some populations in America. For example, most poor inner-city Blacks believe that a rich person must have cheated or been given some unfair advantage to reach his/her level of financial success. This poisonous doctrine has enslaved generations of African-Americans, and provided the Liberals with a built-in dependent class of voters. Sickening!
Most religious traditions are careful to separate the value of honest labor (in the spiritual sense) from the reward for labor (in the economic sense). There is nothing wrong with working hard and expecting to profit from that effort. But when the reward becomes the overarching reason for putting forth the effort (greed), most faith traditions would encourage one to carefully examine his motives.
