Dialogue and coherence as elements of a modern work ethic
Although the idea that Calvin was a kind of intellectual originator of capitalism is very popular, the absence in his writings of any mention of the importance of accumulating capital or the notion of ‘salvation through work’ is striking. As a general rule, the authors who portray Calvin as an ideological precursor of the modern economic paradigm do not quote him directly, but do so second-hand through sociological interpretations, especially that of Weber’s celebrated treatise (Weber 2001), who, similarly, also cited him through third parties. As Weber himself warned in his book (Weber 2001, 175),
For the following discussion I may here say definitely that we are not studying the personal views of Calvin, but Calvinism, and that in the form to which it had evolved by the end of the sixteenth and in the seventeenth centuries in the great areas where it had a decisive influence and which were at the same time the home of capitalistic culture.
Thus Weber, who was a sociologist and not a theologian, studied the culture of the countries where Calvinism was the dominant branch of Protestantism for two centuries after the Reformation, not specifically the way in which Calvin’s theology might have given rise to the work ethic characteristic of European capitalism. This subtle but important distinction, fortunately, is evident in the work of some authors such as López Oneto (2016). That Protestantism and Capitalism are correlated is practically undeniable (see, for example, Basten and Betz 2011), but the specific nature of this relationship is not easy to elucidate. Calvin, as well as Luther, Zwingli, Reina and all the other reformers were much more concerned with denouncing the excesses of Catholicism, printing bibles and laying the foundations for a new Christian morality with a view to the spiritual world than with promoting a new economic system. In this, it can be said that they were theologians, not economists or sociologists. Not even Pilgrim’s Progress (Bunyan 2014), considered a buttress of English Puritanism, wastes ink on the work ethic. The few lines it devotes to warning of the dangers of befriending Slothful, a character in the allegory, make clear that he represents not laziness in worldly labor, but negligence in seeking spiritual salvation.
The misinterpretation of religious cultures, including the work ethics with which they are associated, is also evident in post-deistic Marxism and in its dictum of religion as the ‘opium’ of the masses, as an emergency anaesthetic, as a means of escape from a dreadful reality produced by labour exploitation. Religion, in the caricature born of Marx’s inventiveness, would be a feeble invention of weak minds, which, if extirpated, no matter with what violence, would not cause great harm to individuals or to society, but rather ‘real happiness’.1 An idea later taken up by the Soviet and Chinese authoritarian regimes with the nuance that religion would be, in addition to a painful psychological need of the oppressed, a device of power invented by the oppressors.
Traditional economics presents an equally reductionist conception, expressed in the neoclassical idea of the human being, in this context the worker, as homo oeconomicus, by nature a maximiser of individual utility, rational, normally possessing perfect information in competitive environments of homogeneous agents (Borjas 2020, esp. chaps. 2, 4 and appendix; Brožová 2015; Phelps 1968; Vercherand 2014). Whereas in Marx the conceptual reduction lies in his understanding that self-realisation is almost exclusively a function of work2 (and this not from an individual but from a collective, urban, homogenising, despotic and class-based morality), in the case of the neoclassicals the reduction consists in that all human decisions, including moral ones, can be understood as scenarios of optimisation under constraints according to the rules of individualistic and utilitarian economic rationality, with the consequent denial of the social injustices that the blind application of this theory engenders (Bedoya Dorado and Peláez León 2021; Kaltenbrunner and Painceira 2018).
With religious discourse annulled by the Enlightenment in European academic circles, the search for non-moralistic intellectual horizons has gradually led to the omission, or at least the obscuring, of the moral considerations of individuals in the world of work and outside of it. It is implicitly assumed that people work either out of necessity, obligation, or greed, but, with the exception of some disciplines such as occupational psychology (see, for example, Dik and Duffy 2007), the ethical (and even religious) dimension that the act of working comprises for many people is not usually made visible. For example, the decision of which trade to choose is not exclusively based on a calculation of economic returns, however much these may have a role in weighing up the opportunity costs. Motivated by their personal convictions, and limited by their circumstances, a person may decide to become a police officer, or a doctor, or a musician, or a priest, or a scientist. Some people set out to become managers or entrepreneurs, and feel deeply that this is their professional calling in life. Beyond choosing a profession, individuals also make other work-related decisions guided by their moral considerations. Decisions about how many hours to devote to work versus personal development, how diligently to perform their tasks, and how humanely to treat subordinates are just a few examples. Although less skilled workers may have fewer options, they remain moral agents. To claim that their views on life do not influence their actions—because they are supposedly dictated entirely by scarcity—is to ignore a fundamental aspect of their humanity.
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A central element of the Protestant ethic—and this one was indeed fervently promoted by Calvin and Luther, and by the English-speaking traditions, from the Quakers in England to the black revivalists of Azusa Street—is the emphasis on argumentation as the basis of social understanding. If in the Middle Ages belief in papal dogmas was a prerequisite for taking part in any conversation, in the era of the Reformation, religious belief was a consequence of the careful examination of biblical texts and of rational argumentation, an exercise that aimed to unveil truths without the intrusion of forced or arbitrary creeds (sola scriptura). Additionally, coherence was expected between what was preached and what was practised (the evidence of sola fide was good works, not the mere formalism of penance3). Protestant proselytism, from its very theological basis, sought to convince the unconverted through preaching and exemplary behaviour, which placed it a world away from the ideology of Catholicism. It is no coincidence that Kant, the great proponent of the use of practical reason (complemented, of course, by pure reason), was raised in a Lutheran household. Even the Frankfurt School, so distant from the Reformation in time and temper, is not detached from this conception that has been part of the German intellectual spirit since Luther put forward his theses at the University of Wittenberg and at the Diet of Worms (Luther 1957).
It is worth pausing to reflect on these two features of the temperament of the Protestant ethic (that is, argumentation and coherence). Based on their own personal experience, someone might conclude, à la Marx, that the social relationship between the employee and the business owner is inherently and inevitably conflictive. Another person, with leanings towards neoclassical economics, might simply argue that the relationship is not conflictive because it does not exist, since employment would not be a social activity but a by-product of market forces and human needs (see Bedoya Dorado and Peláez León 2021, who address this notion from the point of view of the gig economy). Contrary to what the libertarian right would say, it is evident that employment is in fact a social relationship, but, at the same time, contrary to the opinions of the left, it is not inherently or inevitably conflictive (which, it should be clarified, does not imply denying the existence, so crassly ubiquitous, of exploitation and evil). The hope that agreements can be reached through dialogue and negotiation is not so remote if one turns to the two pillars of argumentation and coherence.
To believe that human beings can talk to one another, listen to one another, and earn each other’s trust by fulfilling their duties does not require unfounded optimism. Good employers exist, just as good employees do—and not only in large, prestigious companies but also in the small establishments typical of less advantaged sectors. The well-being of both employees and employers in a given area depends, then, on the number of good employers as a percentage of the total number of employers, and on the number of good employees as a percentage of the total number of employees. Places where a large proportion of bosses and employees do not fulfil their duty (lacking in coherence) and do not resolve their differences peacefully through dialogue (lacking in argumentation) will be places where there will be discontent, oppression and hardship. The places where the opposite is true will also enjoy higher levels of psychological, and potentially economic, well-being, due in part to the positive effect of trust in reducing transaction costs at the societal level.
An experience that is relevant here is that described by Staley and Morse (1965, 76ff) in their reflection on home-based work in France, the United States and Switzerland in the mid-20th century. The industrialisation of the then-developed countries had historically included a stage in which industries worked in a decentralised manner, sending service orders to families (possibly along with raw materials), who used more or less modern machinery to manufacture parts and pieces in their homes, elements that were later sent to the main factory for assembly, finishing and commercialisation. As the same authors state, although the system allowed for greater productive efficiency compared to the more artisanal arrangements of the past, it also gave rise to aberrant abuses by the factories and the suppliers of raw materials. The widespread outcry against the satellite system led these countries to begin to rethink the role of home-based work in their economies. For the French (Staley and Morse 1965, 77), the balance seemed to be tipped towards conserving satellite work, but counterbalanced with soft regulations that would allow efficiency gains to be maintained while at the same time reducing the worst injustices. For American public opinion (Staley and Morse 1965, 77–78), the system was so bad that it had to be eliminated completely. Staley and Morse, on the other hand, offered the alternative of the Swiss model, which included strong regulations to protect the worker, but at the same time, equally strong incentives to promote the best forms of work in the satellite mode. The key point of the policies adopted between 1930 and 1940 was, however, the incorporation of the figure of the ‘benevolent intermediary’, who acted as a mediator of goodwill between the workers and the employers. The federal government, with a determined commitment, helped to ensure that the rules were complied with, and the employees and employers themselves assumed the rules voluntarily as part of a civic commitment. The benevolent intermediary (the Schweizerische Zentralstelle für Heimarbeit or Swiss Central Office for Home Work), a private entity but with government support, was in charge of helping the different parties to come to an agreement peacefully and respectfully, while at the same time strengthening, hand in hand with the Swiss Home Work organisation (Schweizerische Heimatwerk), the job skills of the employees, a large part of whom were rural. The new paradigm brought excellent results in the years following its implementation, both in terms of prosperity and respect for the rights of the workers.
The most important part of the anecdote is that what made the scheme work was largely the ethical commitment of all those involved, that is, their coherence, as well as the diligence shown in reaching mutually satisfactory consensuses through dialogue. In the authors’ words (Staley and Morse 1965, 79):
It must be stressed, however, that three conditions which are present in Switzerland and have helped to make the policy workable are unlikely to be present in many newly industrializing countries. The three conditions are (1) a generally prosperous economy with comparatively high incomes and a high standard of education, which means that workers have alternative opportunities and are not easily exploitable; (2) public administration which is generally efficient and honest, so regulations are enforced; and (3) many citizens who have a high sense of civic spirit and civic obligation, which makes it possible for private associations to take on social tasks and perform them responsibly. This last is particularly important in relation to the most novel element in Swiss policy, which we shall refer to as the role of the benevolent intermediary.
These cultural traits were, without a doubt, a legacy of the Calvinist past of the Swiss (Basten and Betz 2011), including the first one, which comes from the Protestant cultural tradition of educating the population without class distinction.
Of course, it is not the purpose of this essay to propose that the only way to achieve social dialogue is through a particular religion, since religious freedom as a human right must be defended with unwavering determination in any modern democracy. Rather, it is to draw attention to the fact that it is indeed possible to have both prosperous companies and satisfied employees without having to adopt the positions of the poles of the contemporary ideological spectrum. Individuals must be educated from an early age in a work ethic based on dialogue and coherence, in responsibility and respectful coexistence, and the State must guarantee the conditions for these social virtues to flourish, while punishing those people and institutions who oppose dialogue and foment violence, or who fail to comply with labour agreements (whether in their role as employees or as employers). To a large extent, labour policies in Latin America show laudable progress in terms of improving workers’ conditions (Neffa et al. 2014; Neffa 2011), but an overemphasis on the conflictive dimension carries the risk of overlooking the real solution to the problem, namely, the search for understanding through reasoned communication and the fulfilment of duties towards others. Only through the ethical commitment of many people is it possible to generate real changes in a country’s conditions. This is daunting, certainly, as bringing about major cultural changes in the world is extremely difficult. But at the same time, it is the reality, and as such it should not be ignored.
References
Footnotes
«Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness» (Marx 1992, 244).↩︎
As Gorz explains: «Unlike the utopians, whose visions of the future society express ideals derived from ethical demands, Marx wants to demonstrate that communism does not need to pre-exist in the consciousness of the proletarians to be realised: it is the “movement of the real” itself […] Each individual will be “as an individual”, with the mediation of voluntary collaboration, master of the totality of the productive forces, his “work” will become his “autonomous activity” (Selbsttätigkeit) of the “total individual”» (Gorz 1997, 42–43).↩︎
Luther expressed it thus: «Nevertheless, I shall prove the thesis for the sake of those who are misinformed, first from the Greek word metanoeite itself, which means “repent”: and could be translated more exactly by the Latin trasmentamini, which means “assume another mind and feeling, recover one’s senses, make transition from one state of mind to another, have a change of spirit”; so that those who hitherto have been aware of earthly matters may now know the spiritual, as the Apostle (Paul) says in Romans 12:2, “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” By this recovery of one’s senses it happens that the sinner has a change of heart and hates his sin» (Luther 1957).↩︎