The Protestant Ethic

Who would probably get the six hours of leisure, a Protestant or a Catholic? The Protestant group is mostly made up of the Northern European descent. The Catholic group comes mostly from the Southern European descent. Supposedly The Northern group was a little more advanced than the Southern group. The Catholics created less industrialized products, while the Protestants created highly advanced things which allowed their industrial lives to prosper. To me this sounds a lot like who is better the light skinned whites are the darker skinned whites. I mean I understand the facts as to what advancements actually came from a certain place but I think that no one Protestant was actually better than another Catholic. One could argue that maybe the Protestant group is a more advanced group because perhaps they have a personal relationship with God and the Catholic group doesn't. Is that why the Catholic group isn't as "blessed" as the Protestants? I mean you could really make up a lot of arguments as to why that is the way that it is. I mean today it is still like this in the world. Guess what the North Americans are a lot more advanced than the Southern Americans. Hmm?

"Status is something people aspire to, even if they don't have the means to achieve it", (Fancy). Could this mean that the Northern Europeans didn't have the means to achieve things such as the Protestant did? Why did the Protestants have the means and where did they get them from, was it from God? "People saw that social mobility was possible for themselves."(Fancy). "Hard work was an acceptable means to achieve it" (Fancy). Did the Southern Europeans really work as hard as the Protestants? Maybe the Protestants worked 50 hours more than the Catholics and maybe that is why they seem to have created more of a industrialized nation. I have just listed at least three reasons as to why the Northerners where so much more "better off", than the Southerners. I know that Weber also kind of felt the way that I do about this having to really boil down to what spiritual beliefs played a role in who was to be more successful. "Spirit", which had its roots from the Protestantism could not have grown in the modern capitalistic world. Weber believed that Europe was already acquainted with capitalism before the Protestant revolt. For a good century or so capitalism had been a growing monster. It not only isolated its individuals, but it also isolated its social groups. The individuals and the social groups became inspired with the new spirit and they had some conflicts with the society who wasn't filled with the spirit. So was capitalism encouraged or opposed by the Protestantism? I believe that is was encouraged by the Protestants.

Marx believed that an economic system would create exchanges of equal value for equal value, where value is determined only by the amount of work put into whatever is being made. A profit motive is capitalism, which is a desire to produce and uneven exchange of lesser value for something of much greater value. Profit comes from the surplus value that is made by the workers who work in factories. Someone who works in the factories might really be there for like twelve hours but he might produce enough in two hours in order to feed his family. Those extra hours that the worker produces creates a surplus value. The owner of the factory is basically hogging up those extras hours that the worker has spent at the owner's factory.