Many thanks to Hannah for her beautiful post on George Eliot’s Silas Marner and the evacuation of moral purpose from the Protestant work ethic. That resonates with Hijacked, my latest book, which traces the history of the work ethic from 17th century Puritan theologians, through the economic theory and policy debates of the 18th and 19th centuries, to today. I argue that the work ethic split into two versions during the Industrial Revolution. One–the version Max Weber analyzed–expressed the ideological perspective and interests of capitalists, and ultimately led to what we call neoliberalism–or, in a less institutionally articulated form, a version of libertarianism. The other mostly forgotten version expressed the perspective and interests of workers, and ultimately led to social democracy.
Americans inherited the UK’s capitalist work ethic in colonial times, and (not for the first time) put it on steroids from the mid-1970s to today. Scratch an American libertarian, and most likely you’ll find a believer in the capitalist work ethic underneath. However much libertarians talk about universal freedom, at heart they are advancing a deeply authoritarian doctrine tied to capitalist rule. To see this, it’s helpful to relate current policy proposals to 19th century ones, when capitalist proponents of the work ethic were more open about their aims.