The Protestant Work Ethic

  

THE PROTESTANT WORK ETHIC  After the Development of Protestantism Going To Heavan Was No Longer Just A Catholic Church Guarantee; Instead Now You Needed to Be  Capitalist To Please God! 

 ...Capitalism in Northern Europe evolved when the Protestant (particularly Calvinist) ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in work in the secular world, developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment. In other words, the Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that influenced the development of capitalism. This idea is also known as the "Protestant Ethic thesis." 

The interaction between various religious ideas and economics allowed Puritan ethics and ideas to influence the development of capitalism. Though religious devotion is usually accompanied by a rejection of worldly affairs, including the pursuit of wealth and possessions, the Reformation profoundly affected the view of work, dignifying even the most mundane professions as adding to the common good and thus blessed by God, as much as any "sacred" calling. 

The Roman Catholic Church assured salvation to individuals who accepted the church's sacraments and submitted to the clerical authority. However, the Reformation had effectively removed such assurances. From a psychological viewpoint, the average person had difficulty adjusting to this new worldview, and only the most devout believers or "religious geniuses" within Protestantism, such as Martin Luther, were able to make this adjustment.

In the absence of such assurances from religious authority, Protestants began to look for other "signs" that they were saved. Since in Calvinism a lack of self-confidence was evidence of insufficient faith and a sign of damnation, self-confidence took the place of priestly assurance of God's grace.

Worldly success became one measure of that self-confidence. Luther made an early endorsement of Europe's emerging divisions. A "vocation" from God was no longer limited to the clergy or church, but applied to any occupation or trade. 

However the fulfillment of the Protestant ethic was not in Lutheranism, which was too concerned with the reception of divine spirit in the soul, but in Calvinistic forms of Christianity. The trend was carried further still in Pietism. The Baptists diluted the concept of the calling relative to Calvinists, but other aspects made its congregants fertile soil for the development of capitalism - namely, a lack of paralyzing ascetism, the refusal to accept state office and thereby develop unpolitically, and the doctrine of control by conscience which caused rigorous honesty...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism