{"id":16975,"date":"2018-03-08T19:20:08","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T03:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=16975"},"modified":"2018-03-08T19:20:20","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T03:20:20","slug":"16975-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/16975-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Truth Hurts"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s an easy stretch to apply Weber\u2019s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism <\/em>to the world refugee crisis.\u00a0 It is another piece of the leadership and global perspectives learning puzzle which is heavily focused on globalism and capitalism this semester (with a good dose of sociology throughout).\u00a0 As noted in Heath and Potter\u2019s The Rebel Sell, <\/em>and in Exceptional People: how migration shaped our world and will define our future<\/em> by Iain Goldin, Geoffrey Cameron and Meera Balarajan, \u201chistorically, the capitalist world market developed in a contradictory fashion, from the nation state. At some stages, the importance for capitalism of \u2018freedom of trade\u2019 was to the fore. At others, the importance of national barriers. Today the productive forces have long outgrown nation states, and yet still remain partially constrained by them. Capitalism\u2019s attitude to migration reflects this contradiction.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Because the current circulation of commodities globally is not a democratic system (where consistent rules apply to all) it represents a network of \u201cpolitical impositions and violations of workers\u2019 rights.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

According to Santiago Zabala, these (impositions and violations) are “accompanied by growing social divisions” that create tensions that often lead to military interventions with drastic consequences. The “true threat to our common way of life,” Zizek explains, “does not come in the shape of refugees but lies in the dynamic of global capitalism,” which can be overcome only through a “radical economic change that abolishes the conditions that create refugees”.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

The link between attitudes toward refugees and Max Weber\u2019s text The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism\u00a0<\/em>(one of the world’s most famous studies in social science) is simply this \u2013protestant\u2019s value hard work, accomplishment, and profit-making.\u00a0 Accepting and providing for displaced refugees complicates libertarianism (an extreme laissez-faire political philosophy advocating only minimal state intervention in the lives of citizens)\u2026[4]<\/a>\u00a0 \u201cA philosophical descendant of Max Weber, Fifield married Christian thought with a new era of economic development, and spread the gospel through his organization, Spiritual Mobilization. Its mission was simple: to stamp out Christian support for a generous welfare state\u2014which paired naturally with New Deal concern for the poor, elderly, and vulnerable\u2014and to advance a new theory of Christian libertarianism.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

There is a startling assertion in Weber\u2019s work – religion helped to create modern capitalism. The story of how the link between religion and capitalism came into being is also constructed in a very dramatic way, with the earnest Protestant believer looking for \u201csigns to please God\u201d, and discovering that \u201chard work and profit-making\u201d are such signs.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 While this concept is challenging to wrap your thoughts around, even more disturbing is the idea that \u201cthe result was a tremendous social force that made it possible for modern rational capitalism to ideologically emerge as the most important institution in the West, displacing the Church once and for all.\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 Sects of Calvinists, Pietists, Methodists and Baptists played a key role in helping this new “spirit of modern, rational capitalism” come into being.\u00a0 Their beliefs were similar to Lutheranism, Weber says, in that they all saw man’s work on earth as a religious task, something that began with the Reformation and had its roots in Luther’s famous translation of the Bible.[8]<\/a>\u00a0 The result of capitalist growth, when a \u201ccreature of the state\u201d is oppression of people rather than freedom.[9]<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 Why is this so?\u00a0 Protestants showed \u201ca special tendency to develop economic rationalism\u201d, that is, a particular approach to creating wealth that was less focused on the gain of comfort than on the pursuit of profit itself. The satisfaction was not in the money to buy things (which had always driven money-making in the past), but in \u2018wealth creation\u2019 based on increased productivity and better use of resources. Even after needs had been met, the capitalist did not rest, \u201cforever seeking greater profit for its own sake and as the symbol of more profound ends.\u201d[10]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 I imagine this revelation is significant to our own Mark Peterson\u2019s research on Philanthropy. The Protestant ethic simply involved living with your eyes on God but fully in the world.\u00a0[11]<\/a><\/p>\n

While it\u2019s unsettling to think Protestants have been the creators of capitalism (which led to a disconnect in caring for people) Weber is quick to point out the following positive attributes of Protestant workers:<\/p>\n