Work 14

Work never killed anybody, but through idleness people loose life and limb, because man was born to work like a bird was born to fly.

Quote: Heinz-Josef Bontrup (2009): Arbeit und Kapital. Wirtschaftspolitische Bestandsaufnahme und Alternativen. In: Johannes Rehm / Hans G. Ulrich (Hrsg.): Menschenrecht auf Arbeit? Sozialethische Perspektiven, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, p. 164. Picture: Wikimedia.

Martin Luther (1483-1546) was a German monk and professor of theology. He was the most important figure in the Reformation which challenged the power of the Catholic Church.

Luther saw work as a form of service, stressing that both secular and spiritual professions were of equal value. Over the following centuries, the Protestant conception of work served as one of the ideological arguments for justifying the imprisonment in workhouses of those not considered hardworking. In Calvinism in particular, property and wealth were viewed as signs of divine pleasure. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904/1905), the sociologist Max Weber described the close connection between the Protestant work ethic and capitalism.

*BBC (27.03.2014): In Our Time. Weber’s The Protestant Ethic.

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