Are "Work Ethics" & "American Dream" a way to keep people working hard?

[paxmao]

Some people say that working is good and that it makes people better themselves, not just by giving means of living, but because it prevents them from doing other things, becoming lazy and living of others. This entails a number of second corollaries such as:

- If you do not work you are not a good person.
- Since work is good, the more you do the better.
- Working is the natural order of life and what "God wants". If you do not work you are "a sinner". (see here "protestant work ethic").

in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.[4] Weber asserted that Protestant ethics and values along with the Calvinist doctrine of asceticism and predestination gave birth to capitalism.

For those that may remain unconvinced by the shame, there is another positive construct based on ambition (I won´t call it greed): "The American Dream" - not exclusive from the US at all, it is just that it is better know by that name. The basis is "If you are talented and work hard, you can do whatever you dream of", and by the way you have to dream of a family and a big house in case you had any doubts.

This are quite simple concepts, appeal to the masses and are the type of simple answers to complex questions that seem to get grip in certain social groups.

Are any of these dogmas valid in developed countries nowadays? Is it better to interpret it as working for yourself rather than making effort to advance other people´s agenda?

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[Ucy]

People/society should work according to the purpose they were created for. The ear cells should quit trying to be like eye cells,likewise other cells trying to emulate different cells.

You don't work for selfish purposes. We work for the common good of people and society.
And certain people think certain kind of job are bad or are unnecessary, the question is how do they know that? Everyone should do what they are talented/gifted in, honestly and morally... and GOD will be pleased. It's not always about becoming rich, it's about using your businesses/talents to make society and people better. There are businesses that are bad for people and society, yet people get rich off such businesses. It's not supposed to be so. Everything you do must be pleasing to GOD ALMIGHTY, and we are told to work hard for others.
If you could remove the bad/immoral parts of people's work, and people who do such work are talented/gifted in them, you will likely know their true purposes.

[Cnut237]

For those that may remain unconvinced by the shame, there is another positive construct based on ambition (I won´t call it greed): "The American Dream" - not exclusive from the US at all, it is just that it is better know by that name. The basis is "If you are talented and work hard, you can do whatever you dream of", and by the way you have to dream of a family and a big house in case you had any doubts.

Not exclusive to the US, but I think that the effectiveness of the aspirational element depends in large part on the degree to which people believe it is possible to succeed. The historical advantage of the US in this regard is that old Europe was perceived as already plundered, with the rich in perpetual control... whereas America was an untamed wilderness, with riches beyond measure available for the taking for anyone who had the courage to do so, and who dared to dream. See also Manifest Destiny.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

I'm familiar with this, and have read summaries although not the text itself. I'm from the UK, where active Christianity is very much a minority thing. A lot of people I think still put "Church of England" on the census, but church attendance as a % of the population is negligible. I'm aware that religion is a much bigger thing in the US. I'd like to say that the linking of work to respect and value and success is determined by government and media direction/propaganda as well as rampant consumerism, rather than religious imperative... but I can't speak for the US.

As for Weber's link to Protestantism, I'm not fully convinced of the correlation, especially given the context of early 20th C. Europe, and German nationalism. Weber's suggestion that religious asceticism leads to fiscal prudence is unpicked a bit in the study at the link below.

Figure 1 Protestants in Prussian counties, 1900


Figure 2 Savings per capita in Prussian counties, 1905

https://voxeu.org/article/weber-revisited-protestant-ethic-and-spirit-nationalism

[Charles-Tim]

Are any of these dogmas valid in developed countries nowadays? Is it better to interpret it as working for yourself rather than making effort to advance other people´s agenda?

This will just be a positive feedback mechanism, if you work for yourself and you become rich, there is no way you will not impact to people lives, and people will impact to your life. Even if you think to be rich, and you are rich, people will like you because you are benefiting them, you will just be useful to the community in many ways. So, it is not about what we think, if we think about interpreting it as working for ourselves will not make good sense because being rich is like a forest which can not be made up by a tree, in the process of helping others, others also helping you to progress (the rich people, they provide job while they workers provide the service needed, thereby impacting to themselves). If you work towards working for yourself, if there is progress and you are rich, you will advance many people as may people will depend on you, and although depending on them as work force will be surfacing out.

[Coyster]

In our contemporary society, the importance of working hard cannot be overemphasized, and one need not another to tell him or her that if you do not work, you'll resort to begging and other irksome social vices, I know there's the one or two percent of people living of inherited wealth and prolly do not have to work as hard as others before they can earn a living, but that sect is in the minority.

Having said that "work ethics" has quite a lot of advantages imo, not just for the individuals themselves, but for the general society at large, "work ethics" helps to shape an individual positively into putting maximum effort into their work without seeking shortcuts, for example if every individual actually has the desire to work hard following the principles of "work ethics", then there prolly won't be scammers and thieves out there, cause "work ethics" doesn't only forster hardwork, it also builds an individuals morals.

On the other hand, the "American dream" or rather dreaming big has an advantage on people's desire to work hard, and I think it's inextricable from "work ethics", why I say so is cause, it'll be futile to dream without actually working to make such dreams come to fruition, thus an individual through introspection first of all envisions what they want to achieve and what their talent is, and then the major step is working to achieve it, and work ethics is a good guide to making dreams possible.

[Poker Player]

Some people say that working is good and that it makes people better themselves, not just by giving means of living, but because it prevents them from doing other things, becoming lazy and living of others.

What I have realized is that this type of conception is usually linked to political ideology. Those who are more capitalist/republican/right wing, believe that "work dignifies". Those who are more social communist/democrat/left wing tend to be more of the "work enslaves" conception. What is clear to me is that if the world has advanced, it has been more because of the first conception than the second. The point is to find something you like to do.

[bekti3]

too complicated to simplify that I don't have enough knowledge to understand how the concept works hard in theory. because the more I theorized the more awkward I was at doing something. with that, I often do what can be done today.

oh I just remembered that usually this phenomenon can be found in developed and developing countries, people in developed countries are people who have high investment. and do not forget that Evsey Domar and Roy Harrod said "economic growth is determined by high savings and investment. If people's savings and investment are low, then the economic growth of the community or the country is also low"

[Fesatmas]

For those that may remain unconvinced by the shame, there is another positive construct based on ambition (I won´t call it greed): "The American Dream" - not exclusive from the US at all, it is just that it is better know by that name. The basis is "If you are talented and work hard, you can do whatever you dream of", and by the way you have to dream of a family and a big house in case you had any doubts.

For me, there is an important lesson that needs to be understood about the failure of capitalism, namely the developing supercapitalism, namely the emergence of the recent global financial crisis phenomenon.
Supercapitalism is characterized by the dominance of the financial system in driving the world financial system and economic system. hence the supercapitalism system is also marked by the loss of social relations between governments. When viewed from the indicators of economic development, what makes other countries successful is by adopting a welfare state model.

[Theb]

For me it doesn't really matter on what you call it as long as you have a goal in mind and have a plan for it I think that will keep you in track on what you want. American dream and work ethic for me is something you can associate more for your motivation which you are correct when people use it to work hard for the goal they want to reach but if we are talking about mostly a corporate setting this could be different as the ones above you will always try to say the lines "if you want to go up you must work hard" is something that they will always use for the benefit of the company but not you which is truly disappointing, they will use what you want but the progress or career you are looking for will always be dependent on the company you are in.

[el kaka22]

I do agree that "hard work" doesn't bring anything close to wealth, I have seen a lot of people work harder than you can imagine, and none of them are rich. One of them is my father, he was a person who came to work earlier than anyone else and got everyone's job ready for that day, and he left the latest, once every two weeks he went to work on Friday and came back home on Saturday morning, we have gone to him to give him home cooked meal time to time, thankfully on later years there was facetime so we could see him and give him a cheers up because it was so hard. And he retired with my mom at some distant place with his own house, that is not too bad, that is better than many people who are starving on the streets, but that is nowhere close to wealthy, this guy worked 100 hours a week for 32 years and he got a house to show for it, not an expensive house neither.

So nobody tell me that hard work would bring money, that's a lie.

[avikz]

- If you do not work you are not a good person.
- Since work is good, the more you do the better.
- Working is the natural order of life and what "God wants". If you do not work you are "a sinner". (see here "protestant work ethic").

Unfortunately that's how the current thought process of the society works. I am a victim of such thought process of my family. Back in 2007 - 2009, I used to have 3 websites in my local languages. At that time the market penetration of my native languages was not good I used to enjoy a huge amount of organic traffic in all 3 of my websites. I was able to monetize my traffic in a great way because the usage of ad-blocker was not very common. So I literally used to earn a good amount of money every single month sitting at my home at the same time when I was studying for the post graduation.

I had to join a job just because of my family's pressure because they could not understand the nature of the work I was doing and the job was paying 1/3rd of what I used to earn through my websites. As a result, I had to give up two of my websites and I was able to continue with only one which eventually died a slow death because I couldn't manage time after a hectic banking job schedule.

So it is a man made structure and social taboo which eventually forced me to do a job instead of getting creative. So the so called "work ethics" and "Dream of a good life" is what ruined my finances for the rest of my life. I am still doing a corporate job and living mostly on my salaries apart from my signature and trading income. All thanks to the social taboos called "work ethics" and "Dream of a good life".

[wxa7115]

All my life I thought ideal about men working for common good was appealing to me. But I realized after I started working, it's definitely wrong. Working doesn't truly help you make money at all, incomes are always marginally decreasing. As Working Class you don't have much time to develop yourself. You are forced to work, consume, rest. There are no alternatives. That's why I think its slavery with extra steps. American dream is a lie.

One of the most fearful tools that has been invented to keep people working for the rest of their lives is debt, truth to be told a person should be able to leave decently if they earn a good amount of money, but what keeps most people from achieving this dream is the fact that they can obtain credit so easily, just a few generations ago if you wanted to obtain a credit you needed to demonstrate that you were going to use that credit for something productive, today you can even buy your groceries with credit.

This means that people live way beyond their means thinking that they can always repay back their debts but they forget that they have to do so with interest and they do not use their money to their full potential, someone that is able to understand this can achieve financial freedom relatively quickly especially if that person invests in bitcoin.

[Hydrogen]

Would it be fair to say, throughout history there were hustlers who were motivated and ambitious. They worked hard and enjoyed glory, success and riches as a result. Over thousands of years, human societal values and tradition came to reflect these trends. There was pressure on parents to raise healthy & successful children. And pressure on children to meet the expectations of their ancestors.

In the modern era we've witnessed fracturing of culture and tradition. Many wish to breakaway from culturally normalized values and ideology. To blaze their own trails. Environmentally this may be one of the best times in human history for working class individuals to survive and live well without being mutually dependant upon a community or family unit for survival.

In past eras parents might be more prone towards caring for their children. Knowing that their children would care for them when they became old. Parents today are more prone towards being indifferent towards their offspring believing that the state or government will provide for them when they become elderly. Recent shifts in societal values could be environmentally driven moreso than a result of other variables.

I think the following quotation by Patrick Geddes could highlight segments of the debate. Although it could be a bit of an oversimplification.

Conditions of degeneration in the organic world are approximately known. These conditions are often of two distinct kinds, deprivation of food, light, etc. so leading to imperfect nutrition and enervation; the other, a life of repose, with abundant supply of food and decreased exposure to the dangers of the environment. It is noteworthy that while the former only depresses, or at most distinguishes the specific type, the latter, through the disuse of the nervous and other structures etc. which such a simplification of life involves, brings about that far more insidious and through degeneration seen in the life history of myriads of parasites.

--Patrick Geddes

[Findingnemo]

People who succeeded worked really hard to achieve their goals in life which is what shown in the media but every people who is working hard become rich? No and never as long as they are living in a society. Only people who realized the need of working hard in the sector where people wanted to become consumer became rich for example Apple and Google.

[hatshepsut93]

- If you do not work you are not a good person.
- Since work is good, the more you do the better.
- Working is the natural order of life and what "God wants". If you do not work you are "a sinner". (see here "protestant work ethic").

These things aren't very relevant today and haven't been relevant for quite some time already, as the influence of religion is waning, especially in the Western world.

These days, people value themselves and their time more, so they won't allow their bosses to overload them with work without proper compensation. Also, demanding from your workers to work hard can be quite counterproductive, because the quality of their work will drop. Look, for example, at game development, where companies often demand to finish the game in unrealistically short spans, and the product comes out buggy and lacking in promised features and generally disappointing.

[dothebeats]

The same narrative that our government is trying to push into the minds of its citizens as to why there are a lot of people living below the poverty line. Why work hard if the pay grade is not even worth half of the job that is being given? But even though that's the case, those who are living by making ends meet have no other choice but to get those jobs until some opportunity comes up. It's really cruel but we made a world where capitalism reigns supreme. It is what it is, but people can still succeed if great opportunities come in their way and they do not hesitate to seize it and make the most out of it.

[Cnut237]

What I have realized is that this type of conception is usually linked to political ideology. Those who are more capitalist/republican/right wing, believe that "work dignifies". Those who are more social communist/democrat/left wing tend to be more of the "work enslaves" conception. What is clear to me is that if the world has advanced, it has been more because of the first conception than the second. The point is to find something you like to do.

I'd disagree. My politics are some way left of centre, but I'd say that the question of whether work 'dignifies' or 'enslaves' depends entirely on the nature and conditions of the work, and the associated reward... and has nothing to do with the concept of work itself. Let's take the example of Amazon drivers who are paid a pittance, and have to work so frenetically that they can't even get toilet breaks, and are reduced to defecating into bags in their vehicles... and then chastised for doing so. The work is "delivery driver". In this instance, it does not dignify the worker, it's enslaves/shames/humiliates them. This has nothing to do with being a delivery driver, and everything to do with the exploitative and inhumane practices of the employer. It's perfectly possible to pay people a decent wage and give them decent working conditions (especially when you're the richest person in the world), it's just that many companies and the governments who enable them have no wish to do so.

communist

Stop using my trigger word!

[iamsheikhadil]

I don't necessarily believe that it's a divine revelation that "work is good, else it's a sin" but what I believe is working is necessary. There are many lazy ways to make money today on the internet as well, there are people who has inherited a large amount of money from their parents and become a sloth and eat from what they have, there are people who steals money from others etc, and frankly, these people are nothing but a burden to the world. Now, don't get me wrong, work isn't limited to physical work, it expands to mental work as well, like a doctor treating patients etc. Work means you are providing some productivity to the world and its progress, and in return the world gives you value in form of money/respect etc. Even if I throw all the ethical value, the human body is a machine, we are animals of flesh and blood and today if we all become lazy sloth, our life span would decrease, we would die early, there will be new diseases which never we saw! To make this machine efficient, we gotta use it no? Plus, not all works are a form of punishment, if you love what you are doing and making money off it, it's like a win-win journey for you and you are an example of success  

[Haunebu]

I heard this particular dialogue from one of my favourite shows recently.

'Everyone knows the secret to success : Work hard like crazy'.

The female lead said these words and I felt that she was absolutely right. This is basically the 'American Dream' as you mentioned op. It's not an 100% effective solution, but it is the best solution out there since it works majority of the time.

[Kong Hey Pakboy]

The American Dream is just a lie that is created by big corporations to make the workers think that if they work with loyalty to the company and work themselves to the point of exhaustion, that they might be able to achieve the dream. Work ethics on the other hand is a set of rules for workers to not be unruly and be a liability to the company, in my opinion, work ethics is a good thing in a work environment.