If God provides, we needn't bother
In a newspaper piece last week, Peter Serracino Inglott referred to the link between capitalism and divorce and wrote: “It should be remembered that the need to introduce divorce in those parts of Europe in which the capitalist system had not reached an advanced stage had not been compellingly felt until 40 years ago. Divorce was only introduced in 1970 in Italy, in 1981 in Spain, in 1987 in Portugal and only in 1997 in Ireland.” He stopped short of adding, “and not yet in Malta.”
This is no place for a discussion of the historic causes of divorce – though I will veer ever so briefly into the subject to remark that Fr Serracino Inglott misses the point. He fails to recognise that capitalism brought about an increase in divorce not so much because it pulled husband and wife away from each other, as he remarked. The fact that husband and wife both worked in the household before the Industrial Revolution does not mean that they were content to do so, but that they had to do so, because their economic survival depended on it. Capitalism made it possible, for the first time in history, for a woman to make enough money to leave an unsatisfactory husband, and for a man to divorce his wife without destroying his centre of production, given that it was no longer his home. Concurrently, the stigma on those who left their spouses began to lift, and with money in hand and no social opprobrium to worry about, things changed.
But that’s by the by. What really interests me is this. Fr Serracino Inglott mentioned that divorce and capitalism were both late in coming to Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, which were until recently among the most backward countries in Europe, but failed to draw his readers’ attention to what these four countries have in common: centuries of dominance by the Catholic Church. It was the presence of Catholicism, and not the absence of capitalism, that delayed the arrival of divorce. And it was the presence of Catholicism that delayed the arrival of capitalism in the first place. Poland and Ireland are not in the south, but they are probably the exceptions that prove the rule, given that they are undeniably Catholic and that Ireland was as economically retarded and sunk in poverty as Poland. Though you have to allow for the fact that Poland was behind the Iron Curtain for the duration of Europe’s post-war development, Ireland was not.
A couple of years ago, there was a titanic battle at a lunch party on this very subject, which reminded me of the dangers of assuming that what is taken for granted as a generally-recognised fact elsewhere is considered a contentious and dangerously new opinion in Malta. We were talking about the economic situation in various parts of Europe, and I remarked on how long it is taking the south to catch up with the north, and how the religious division had, over the years, led to an economic division which has left the Catholic south lagging far behind the Protestant north in every respect expect where the stomach is concerned. Immediately, I was jumped on by a wide variety of persons, ranging from the prayer group ladies whose general argument was ‘yuk Protestantism as if, it’s such a horrible religion’ – which had nothing to do with the price of eggs, to those with a pro-Italian and anti-British heritage who ranted on about how much better Italian culture is – yes, but it doesn’t pay the bills, to those who somehow believed it’s entirely a coincidence that there is an invisible line drawn across the width of the continent, beneath which the people are lazy, fatalistic and lack initiative, and above which people worked with puritanical zeal to acquire money and profit, build businesses and nurture entrepreneurship.
True, the invisible line is getting blurred now and excellent social services above the line have made the people who live there lazy and lackadaisical, while below the line, where few such luxuries exist, people have to do more to provide for themselves. But here’s the thing: people below the line think in terms of providing for themselves. They do not think in terms of building a business, of creating something out of nothing but investment and hard work, which will in turn create prosperity for the community and for others.
The economic division between the Protestant north and the Catholic south is not a coincidence. Nor is it a hypothesis. It is a fact. Whatever it was about Catholicism that held people back from economic advancement, hold them back it did. That’s undeniable. Catholicism engendered fatalism, passivity and an acceptance of one’s lot in life, and all of those are anathema to economic progress – indeed, to any sort of progress, which is why the Catholic south lags far behind the Protestant north even in civic life. The work and civic ethics of the north are even today wholly different from those of the south. This has not been our charm, but our undoing.
You can look at it another way, and this view to a certain point coincides with that of the people who say that it’s not religion which is to blame, but the general culture of southern Europe. Though I tend to be of the opinion that it was religious influence which shaped that culture, and not our culture that led us to accept that religion with all its impositions and threats to individual liberty and growth, I can see that there are some very strong reasons to suggest that it may also have been the other way round.
The people of the south may have accepted the dominance of Catholicism because it chimed with their culture, a culture rooted in the experience of oppression, in which it was necessary to do what one must in secret so as to undermine or outwit the oppressor, while accepting the oppression itself. We still see this modus operandi at play in the attitude of the Maltese towards Catholicism: calling ourselves Catholic while disobeying every rule in the Vatican’s book. The people of the north, who had a distinctly different heritage and very different social systems which valued independence, autonomy and liberty, may have broken away from Catholicism en masse not because of any religious schism with which they agreed so much as because the thinking that underlies Catholicism was not attuned with their culture. The people of the north took to Protestantism with an enthusiasm and alacrity they had never shown for Catholicism, but the people of the south resisted it. My suspicion is that the essential message of Protestantism – self-reliance, God helps those who help themselves – just did not appeal. Southern Europeans chose to believe instead in the promise of a provident God and of an after-life which would make up for all the shortcomings of life on earth.
However it happened, the fact remains that over the centuries Catholicism ended up as the religion of Europe’s economic losers, while Protestantism became the religion of the continent’s economic drivers. The Industrial Revolution started in a Protestant country. Whether Catholicism made southern Europeans passive or whether they embraced Catholicism because of their culturally inherent passivity is now irrelevant. What matters is that Catholic hegemony only served to make matters worse by encouraging poor and desperate southerners, living on the edge, in their sense of helplessness and fatalism. True, the Catholic faith, correctly interpreted, encourages no such thing – it is fiercely opposed to fatalism and its real message is that we are masters of our own destiny, through free will – but the reality of the preaching and teaching of centuries was very different to what we expect and know today.
The other day I interviewed a Maltese entrepreneur who is in his early 20s. He came up with a good idea when still at school, and brought it to fruition. Nobody in his family has ever been either entrepreneurial or in business. His parents thought he was reckless to give up his full-time job to concentrate on developing his project. He is mystified as to how he turned out like that. And he is even more mystified by the attitude of acquaintances his own age who, while still in their early 20s are resigned to their dull predicament in life, and to their mind-numbing jobs. They see it as their lot, which they must accept. They tell him, when he tries to encourage them to do something else, that this is their place in life (“M’hemmx taghmel, hu, heqq.”). This young man wanted to know what I thought, because he’d noticed that the attitude is not the same north of that invisible dividing line. “It’s because Catholicism taught people to be content with their lot in life, not to struggle against God’s will, and that God would provide. If you are given a cross to bear, you are expected to carry it, instead of casting it aside and saying, ‘Like hell will I do this.’ Meanwhile, the Protestants were busy inculcating a culture of work as prayer and of thrift and simplicity as essential virtues, hence the bare churches compared to Catholicism’s opulent ones,” I said. “The stage was set long ago for a dramatic divergence in wealth and in economic and social advancement.”
He had suspected that religion had something to do with it, but he wasn’t quite sure how. These things are not taught at school and they’re not likely to come up in discussion with friends. Living in Malta, you run the risk of missing them altogether, hence all those people who pounced on me because they thought my words were something I’d pulled out of the top of my head to be provocative and annoying, rather than a hackneyed truism.
Yet even the most fervent prayer-group-goer-cum-old-Nationalist-family doubting Thomas can’t deny that Europe’s vast economic/religious divergence is mirrored across the pond in the Americas. The USA, built on the hard work and thrift of those who left Britain because it wasn’t Protestant enough, and brought to previously unimaginable prosperity in the late 19th century by the people who later came to be called WASPs, or white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, is now the richest and most powerful country on earth. Meanwhile, the Catholic south, colonised by Spain and Portugal and with unimaginably vast and hugely valuable natural resources, is a sink-pit of economic and social chaos.
A hundred years ago, the German sociologist Max Weber described what he called the Protestant ethic. This was a religious imperative to work hard, spend little, and find a calling so as to achieve spiritual assurance that one is among the saved. Weber claimed that this ethic could be found in its most highly evolved form in the United States of America, where it was embodied by aphorisms like Benjamin Franklin’s declaration that “Industry gives comfort and plenty and respect.” The Protestant ethic is so deeply ingrained in the culture of the USA that you don’t need to be Protestant to embody it. You don’t even need to be religious.
The same can be said of southern Europe. We’ve pretty much ditched Catholicism, but the Catholic ethic of accepting whatever life deals out as your lot, of making minimal or no effort to change it, of expecting divine providence to do what its name says it should instead of doing it yourself, of resenting those who make economic headway instead of admiring them, is so deeply ingrained in our culture that it will take a miracle to change it now.
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You should take your case study( most of which is true) to its logical conclusion:that the catholic church administration is guilty of many sins which need to be faced by the church before it can be trusted again.It must however be realised that Christianity and other benign religions are the only salvation of the world,since most of the common people need to believe in a body of beliefs(religion?)which has to embody what christians call the natural law.
Daphne, while there could be some underlying influence relating religion to accepting one lot, I believe you are genaeralising here. Take Bavaria for example, catholic and the powerhouse of Germany, the seat of companies such as Siemens and BMW. Another example is the north of Italy, Turin, Milan, Veneto, catholic , and very successful.
Perhaps Islam would be a better example for your argument, where muslims very much have a mentality of X Allah (Gods will). But then again the Middle Eastern (especially the gulf states) people are completely different to the Africans…so I pin the argument of “successful capitalism” versus to falling behind and just accepting ones lot , is EDUCATION. Education and the fact that you have a mind of your own gives that entrepreneurial spirit for success.
[Daphne – Yes, Wahhabi Islam marked the turning-point for Islamic culture from one which set the pace for science and intellectual inquiry to the start of the descent into backwardness and poverty. But Bavaria and Northern Italy are essentially Protestant cultures with a Catholic religion. They are an anomaly. Bavaria, during its period of industrial advancement, was not an independent country but part of Protestant Germany. And Northern Italy is culturally closer to the Protestant north of Europe than to the Catholic south. Milan might as well be one of the great industrial Protestant cities of northern Europe, with better food and clothes. It is indisputable that the Protestant work ethic sparked the Industrial Revolution and that most of the technological pace-setting inventions of the past two centuries have come out of Protestant cultures. The interesting thing is that it is not Catholicism as such which held the south back, but the interpretation of its message as being one of passivity and fatalism, and of unquestioning acceptance of one’s lot. There is nothing in Catholicism which tells you to sit on your stump and wait for God to provide, but somehow, that is the message that came out round this part of the world. The Catholics of Bavaria, as you pointed out, look at it differently – and this was because they were steeped in the surrounding Protestant culture.]
You could also have mentioned, as a corollary, that the North always had a more educated and literate population because Protestantism encouraged literacy as a prerequisite to the personal interpretation of the Bible whereas Catholicism discouraged the reading of Scripture lest interpretations diverging from that of the all-pervading Catholic Church led to the perdition of souls or, rather, threatened the hegemony of the Church. It is no wonder that the first translation of the New Testament in Maltese was commissioned by Evangelicals in the early 19th century – the translator, Mikiel Anton Vassalli, was later refused burial in consecrated ground possibly for having accepted to carry out this translation.
I would add that it is only partly true that the peoples of the South refused to embrace Protestantism because of their culture. Many tried, even some in Malta, but the pitiless repression of the Holy Inquisition was so relentless and terrifying that many opted for self-preservation rather than burning at the stake. Read the history of the Waldensians in a “southern” country, Italy (and elsewhere), as an illustration of what I mean. The Waldensian movement began before the Reformation but was eventually absorbed into it.
The Catholic Church is going through a bad patch even in Latin America now where Catholics are leaving the Catholic faith in droves to join Evangelical Churches. I have heard this even from a very reliable Catholic source.
Regarding divorce, an excellent article by Prof. John Baldacchino is published in today’s Times. It is dispassionate, secular and eminently human:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080928/opinion/divorce-no-case-for-moralising
I have frequently thought of this Protestant/Catholic divide myself. However, I believe the divide is not simply between Protestant and Catholics, but between Protestant and all (or most of) the other religions, with a few exceptions in some countries. Greece is one other country which has always been sluggish economically, despite being reknowned for a number of billionaires. I believe that what can be attributed to Catholicism can also be attributed, to some extent, to the Orthodox religion, though I am even less familiar with that. Then again I believe the culture also does play a significant role, which I believe is largely attributed to climatic conditions. The Northerners live in less favourable climates than the Southerners, so the struggle for survival and better comfort has led to the development of a culture with a more ingrained initiative to improve one’s self than the Southern one.
What puzzles me about the Irish is that in spite of the amazing quality of their women, their music and their sense of humour they have submitted for so long to the tyranny of the clerics in their midst.
My 2c’s worth…
The industrial revolution in itself is nothing to boast of since it occurred at great human cost… one could argue that the loss of genuine social/christian values allowed many atrocities to happen in the industrial north… and coincidentally, the ‘self-reliant’ middle class justified its exploitation of the poor by claiming that poverty was a result of laziness and lack of initiative… much like your so-called ‘lazy, fatalistic’ southern Catholics who ‘lack initiative’.
One could also argue that the lack of RC values during the industrial revolution created a lacuna that allowed communism to spread in its stead since (at the risk of sounding like some bearded, dread-locked, Che Guevare T-shirt-wearing-loony) communism, in essence, is not too different from genuine Catholicism. Many of the humane laws and workers’ rights that exist in all civilised countries are a result of socialist ideology that had to be implemented because of the myriad human rights that had been blatantly ignored during the industrial revolution.
It’s probably all to do with the brain-washing from kindergarten days. (“Bless us oh Lord and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord, Amen”.)
That is one prayer which I will never encourage my children to recite – whether silently or otherwise – having questioned its relevance myself at a young age. (“Why should I smugly thank God for providing me with food whilst so many millions are dying of hunger?”) Thankfully, my elder daughter questioned it herself, especially after watching ChildAid adverts on TV and seeing with her own eyes that not everybody has water, let alone food.
Is this a protestant opinion column?
Why all this anti-Catholicism?
Is this the Christian way?
[Daphne – It must have been hell in the Inquisition. Mr Cauchi, Protestants are Christians.]
Daphne,
Yes, Protestants are Christians.
As history records it, the Reformation/Protestantism started because the King wanted to sleep with another woman!
[Daphne – History doesn’t record it that way. The Maltese view of history does. Martin Luther was the father of Protestantism, and he was a German clergyman who had nothing to do with Henry VIII, King of England. That’s why it’s such a tragedy that religion and history are taught within such narrow strictures in Maltese schools and at ‘duttrina’. It results in the mouthing of the most unbelievable stupidities, like the one that Protestantism is the result of “the king wanting to sleep with another woman”. What king, anyway? You should at least specify, given that he wasn’t the king of the whole of northern Europe, nor Martin Luther’s king, for that matter. Henry VIII was not a Protestant. He helped suppress the Reformation until his fight with Rome over his wish to divorce so as to try for a legitimate heir. He separated the Anglican Church from the Roman Church, but continued to think of himself as a Catholic, and to advocate Catholicism and to practice within the Catholic rite, until his death. Save yourself from further embarrassment and fill the lacunae in your schooling with some very basic reading via the internet.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England
What you said is true and the issue is much more deep-rooted than it may seem.
For hundreds of years, the Catholic religion regarded work as a punishment from god. On the other hand, Protestants considered work to be rewarding and looked at it as a means to an end . . . This was mainly driven by the fact that the book of Genesis lists ‘work’ as one of the ‘punishments’ handed down by god when he/she/it expelled Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden.
It was only in the late 1800s that the Catholics realised how misguided they were (maybe it will take them another millennium to realise how stupid their view on women priesthood is).
mj
[Daphne – Thanks for reminding me about the ‘casting out from the Garden of Eden into the horrible work of work and toil’ bit. I’d forgotten about that completely. But it does sum up the way work is regarded in southern Europe, yes – as an affliction, when in the Protestant north it is seen as the means to salvation. The notion of actually enjoying work is alien to Maltese culture. Tell people that you’re working on the weekend, for example, and the instant reaction is ‘miskin/a’, even though you’re not exactly hewing stone. It doesn’t occur to them that you might find your work more enjoyable than their leisure.]
‘It doesn’t occur to them that you might find your work more enjoyable than their leisure’ – hmmm… first signs of workaholicism. Seriously though, anybody who considers work as an affliction has a huge problem. That’s why it is important to actually do the work you like.
BTW, the king didn’t want to sleep with another woman for a fling or for kicks – he wanted a male heir which was critical in those times if he wanted to preserve the kingdom in the family.
[Daphne – I’m lucky. My work is more interesting than any leisure pursuit could ever hope to be. It’s actually an extension of what I do for fun.]
Don’t you think you are buying in to an updated form of the imperialist message that the Protestant mother country was better? The sort of message that was disseminated among some tax-xelin types in the late 19th century? Don’t you think climate and lifestyle have a part in the equation as well? For example, undoubtedly Catholic Northern Italy is one of the richest regions in Europe. Catholic France is more advanced and prosperous then the Protestant U.K. Catholic Bavaria is one of the richtest parts of Germany. Catholic Austria is wealthy. Protestant Wales and the North of England are backward and poor. Looking across the pond at the U.S. Catholics, are statistically wealthier than Protestants. The Protestant South of the United States is undeniably backward and poor with Baptist Mississippi consistently coming in last among the 50 states in terms of average earnings. The more Catholic North East and coastal states – California, New York, Irish Catholic Massachussetts more advanced and much wealthier. The statistics don’t support your rehashed “tax-xelin” theory!
[Daphne – Oh dear, where shall I start? Firstly, it might have escaped your attention, but certainly not mine, that Malta’s commercial sector was built almost entirely by those you describe as ‘tax-xelin’ types who were Protestant in outlook even if not in religious practice. Look through the Chamber of Commerce list for the mid to late 19th century and the early 20th century. Meanwhile, those from the same stratum of society who were pro-Italian, ultra-Catholic and so on were moving en masse into the professions, not business. Far from being an imperialist message, the Protestant work ethic that infiltrated a very limited part of Maltese society was the salvation of this country, which would otherwise have had a middle class made up entirely of lawyers and civil servants, who contributed little or nothing to the economy, such as it was in those days. You can see the legacy of that cultural split even today.
Climate has nothing to do with anything, unless you are suggesting that warmth engenders lassitude. How much harder is it to work, then, in temperatures that plummet to 20 below zero in the winter? But you don’t take that into account. As for lifestyle, that is exactly what we are talking about here. I have already replied to someone else re northern Italy: it is a Protestant northern European culture which is nominally Catholic. Milan is essentially a Protestant city of the north without the Protestantism. France is not Catholic by any means. It was the first, and technically speaking remains the only, ruthlessly secular state in the whole of Europe bar the former Iron Curtain states. That was what the French Revolution was about, in case you missed it. For the entire duration of the Industrial Revolution, the run-up to it, and the explosive economic growth of its aftermath, France was a-religious. Bavaria, during the crucial period of its economic development, was and still is part of Protestant Germany. Austria cannot be discussed without reference to a great deal of unpleasantness, both historic and current. You cannot split England into north and south for the purposes of this discussion, just as you cannot split Bavaria from the rest of Germany. You almost miss the historic fact that the north of England was, for most of its history until the 1960s/70s, much wealthier than the south. It was home to some of the greatest merchant cities in the whole of Europe, including Liverpool and Manchester. The north was where the great industries that began with the Industrial Revolution were located: steel, wool, machines….It is naive to expect every last bit of a country to be wealthy. The crucial point is that the country as a whole is wealthy, industrious and innovative, and that is certainly the case with Britain. Your reference to the USA is just plain ridiculous, given that it is an established historic fact that it was the Protestants of British and northern European descent who sowed the seeds for industrial development there – and eastern Europeans of Jewish descent. The contribution of the Catholics was the Mafia, the Irish Hell’s Kitchen and some Italian restaurants. The irony, of course, escapes you that you are challenging what you consider to be ‘my theory’ when I am yet another example that proves the point. The reason I am the way I am is precisely because of my ‘Protestant work ethic’ heritage, even though my family were Catholics. Where I come from, failure to be industrious and to apply yourself is something that is actively frowned upon, rather than something to which to aspire, regardless of financial resources.]
The French author Michel Houellebecq wrote an extremely funny essay about ten years ago which describes how Germans (and, by extension, other Northern Europeans) toil away in their perfectly functional and efficient societies for 9 drab months a year in order to purchase their holiday home in the more laid-back, laissez-faire environment of Southern Spain.
You are making so many distinctions and exceptions to prove your theory that you are undermining your own non-argument. Milan is just nominally Catholic! Huh? The tax-xelin crowd were really protestant at heart?! My very Catholic great grandparents who were entrepreneurs, Stricklandians and imperiliasts to the core in late 19th c early 20c Sliema would find your argument ridiculous. Austria cannot be discussed without unpleasant memories – or is it just inconvenient to discuss the fact that very Catholic Austria is undeniably wealthy? Catholic Bavaria cannot be discussed without the rest of Germany? Since when – since you realized it was the most Catholic and the wealthiest part of Germany? Germany is a relatively recent creation, remember? Are you saying France only prospered after the secular revolution of 1789? Was it not a world power before that? The North of England was rich you say? The rich were very rich true – but for the vast multitude of the people forced by the Enclosure Acts into the city to eek a living in the factories life was nasty, brutish and short. Did you never read Dickens? The Catholic contribution to the U.S. is the mafia and some Italian restaurants? How insulting is that? Statistically and not just theoretically Catholics in the U.S. are economically better off than Protestants and are second only to Jews in terms of material success. The Protestant south is both socially and economically backward and has been since Reconstruction. Again the facts belie your theory which is a hopefully fading reflection of the imperialist nonsense that was taught in our schools up to your parents time – why it percolated down to you is a question only you can answer.
[Daphne – You have a lot of learning to do. Did you read my original post, properly or just in a cursory manner to see with what you can take issue? In that, I expressed my astonishment that there are people in Malta who actually think that the history of Europe since the Industrial Revolution, and of Protestant culture – not religion – as a driving force for economic and social change are just an ‘opinion’ rather than a long-established and well-documented fact. There is a wealth of books written by social historians, and not by Daphne Caruana Galizia, that you can read on the subject. If your great-grandparents were entrepreneurs, imperialists and supported the Constitutional Party, then it is almost certainly because they had more in common with the values of Protestant culture than with the values of southern, Catholic culture. My family were as you describe yours to be, and Catholic too, but I noticed from an early age that there was a marked difference between the behavioural and intellectual values that were taken for granted in the environment in which I grew up, and those of other households and families which I encountered as I was growing up. I didn’t have the tools to assess the difference as a child or even as a teenager, but I could grasp it readily. You shouldn’t feel you have to defend your religion as its representative. This isn’t what the discussion is about. We are talking here about the culture engendered by religion X and religion Y, and not about the religion itself. The difference in culture is indisputable. I am not going to bicker and nit-pick with you, as you are clearly arguing from a different, personal, standpoint and without the benefit of any particularly wide reading in the social history of those parts of Europe under discussion, or the economic history of the United States. I suggest that instead of discussing history and the economy armed only with religion – and one religion at that – you read a little bit more about the subject. If you find it difficult to read books, there’s not much that can be done, though there is plenty to be found on the internet. Armed with real facts and information, and a disciplined approach to assessing them, you will be better placed to defend your faith. You might even change your mind.]
Daphne, I am not defending Catholicism believe me and as the son of a convert from low church Protestantism I have no problems with Protestantism either. Half my family are Protestants. I am totally perplexed by you as I have had occasion to say in the past. On the one hand your intellect is undoubtedly head and shoulders above average, and then from time to time you let these cultural prejudices, outdated views and some sort of misplaced sense of social superiority cloud your judgment. I really wish I had the training to understand what makes you tick.
[Daphne – That’s good to know. It also illustrates what I could only guess at before: that your Maltese family were actually inclined towards Protestant values, otherwise they would never have tolerated a mixed marriage. What makes me tick is that, unlike many people my age, I have a good grounding in social history. This means that my perspective tends to be different to the norm. But what is the Maltese norm is not necessarily the norm elsewhere. Cultural prejudices: hardly, given that I was an anthropology undergraduate trained for two or three years against adopting cultural prejudice. Most of my writing is the result of approaching the things we take for granted from a fresh perspective – and the most frequent comment I receive is ‘Oh, I never thought of it like that before’ or even ‘I never thought of it at all’. Outdated views: again, hardly – a great part of my time is spent reading about what’s current, which is crucial to my newspaper column and my business. Misplaced sense of social superiority: it’s not misplaced; I do come from a socially superior background, and I say that as a statement of fact and not for any other reason. This doesn’t mean I feel superior to others. It does mean that I have a keen awareness that I have had privileges – and these are not financial – that others have not had, and that I am obliged to use the result of those privileges positively rather than selfishly. You don’t need training to understand what makes me tick. You just need to get out a bit and meet more people, and then you’ll discover that in the European context, I’m really quite ordinary.]
@ Uncle Fester: here’s a little something to get you started:
http://www.coe.uga.edu/~rhill/workethic/hist.htm
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/11/business/wbturkey.php
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/oct/06/work7
http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/weber.htm
http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/TheoryWeb/readings/WeberProtestform.html
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/05/economic_prospe.html
@Uncle Fester: here are two more links. Now the rest is up to you. Honestly, it’s a great shame this basic information isn’t taught at school. Here is yet another example of how the Catholic religion is allowed to get in the way of real education at secondary level: mela x’naghmlu, nghidu lit-tfal li l-Protestanti ahjar minna fil-kamp tax-xoghol, jew? The tragedy is that most Maltese adults, as a result, haven’t a clue about any of this and argue about it – when forced to do so in conversation – from emotion and not from the perspective of history. All that book-learning and no education….
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=2883980
http://www.geneva.ch/calvin.htm
Hate to delude you, but what you think is so new is really not new at all. If you had spent some time living in England you would recognize it as just another argument used by the Protestant established order to “prove” why England prospered as a result of Protestantism! These very old “ideas” (for lack of a better word) bolstered by so called studies and research mumbled on about the Protestant work ethic being so superior to the Catholic way of doing things. The cultural forbearers of these people were responsible for the social marginalization of English Catholics and their exclusion from participation in the public sphere well into the last century. Their modern day equivalent would be Ian Paisley or some other extremist knucklehead. Yet with the same breath these modern day “free thinkers” will talk about the “Catholic mafia”, the fact that Catholics in the UK are better off financially then Protestants as if by unified design and the other imagined evils of Popery totally oblivious to the contradiction in their position. So your idea may be new to you but has been around for over 400 years.
We are both too young to remember this – in 1960 JFK’s Catholicism was an issue to the Protestant American electorate. Would JFK get on the phone to the Pope to get his input on issues of the day? I mean that’s what Catholics politicians do, right?! Do you think Tony Blair waited until after he left office to convert to Catholicsm for no reason?
If you had lived among the Protestant English you would know that they were not hardworking at all. The Catholic Maltese are much more hardworking. I don’t know which British Governor said that it would take two Jews to outwit one Maltese merchant but he said that as a compliment and for a reason. Look at the obsession with studies that our generation grew up with. Observe how many working class Maltese have a second job or do some business on the side. Look at how many Maltese take on 3, 4 and 5 foreign languages. Is Smart City going to be based in Malta because our Catholic work ethic is so terrible? Look at our immigrants who rather than live in poverty at home took the risk of going across the seas to work extremely hard to provide for themselves and their families. In short get out of your rarified strata of society and meet the rest of the world.
P.S. My parents did not have a mixed marriage.
[Daphne – For crying out loud, why do you persist in ignorance instead of doing the decent thing and reading a little? I’ve posted some basic links for you, so before you next return to this subject, do yourself a favour and read them. The Protestant work ethic was not an English invention. The change in religious attitudes to work was the result of John Calvin’s reform, and he was French (Jean Calvin) not English. He set up home in Geneva, a hot-spot of Calvinism, and it’s not a coincidence that Geneva is one of the richest cities in the world, with citizens who work longer and harder than those of other European cities. The man who first wrote about the Protestant work ethic, coining the phrase for a phenomenon that had been noted already, was Max Weber. And he was German, not English. You might consider that the two key figures of the Protestant work ethic come from England’s historic rivals/enemies, rather than from England itself.
The question of the English Recusants (they had a name) has nothing to do with the issue of work. Please discipline your thinking. They are two separate matters.
I repeat, this is neither ‘Daphne’s opinion’ nor do I think it is a new idea. On the contrary, I am decrying the fact that such basic information is not taught in Maltese schools. And, for your own sake, do stop talking like somebody with a chip: the oppressed Catholic among Protestants. Whatever personal axe you need to grind, this is not the place to do it.
In one of the links I posted for you here, there’s a piece on why the Catholic attitude to work and the Protestant attitude to work translated into very different results for the individuals involved and the societies in which they lived. Catholics saw their jobs only as a way to earn more money and to get to a higher station in life. The job itself was by the by, and so paying attention to it and taking pride in doing it well and thoroughly was not important. You did what you could get away with. They also spent more of what they earned. Does any of this sound familiar? Protestants were taught to value work for its own sake, and as a means to salvation. You achieved salvation by doing your job as well as possible, with great attention to detail. As we now know from our own experience in the liberalised market, this the way to get more custom and to get ahead. Through working hard and for longer hours, by paying attention to the finer details of the job and taking pride in what they did, they earned more and, because thrift was a virtue, they spent as little as possible. The Calvinist principle also dictated that any profit had to be reinvested. By accumulating a surplus and working hard, Protestant societies found themselves with the basis for capitalism. But don’t take my word for it. Try reading. Go on. It won’t kill you.]
Nah, nothing to do with religion. It’s all about having the basic raw material for the economic wotsit of the period in question. At one time it was a warm comfortable climate and a coastline, with plenty of omega-3-rich seafood. By the time the industrial revolution rolled by, it was coal and iron. No coincidence, then, that the economic power base shifted to the T’North. Nothing to do with Protestantism. Nowadays the secret to success is cheap labour and a colossal nerve. All hail the Middle Kingdom.
[Daphne – Here’s another one who doesn’t read.]
I will read your links which were posted while I was writing my contribution. I don’t have a chip on my shoulder about being Catholic and not Protestant. Being Catholic is of little to no importance to me. Heck years ago both sides would have come together to burn the likes of me at the stake! And I totally agree with you that in my/our day we got a sanitized version of Protestantism in the Maltese educational system. I remember the brother who thought us history begrudingly conceding that perhaps there were a few abuses with the selling of indulgences that led to the Protestant reformation! When I look back I have to smile.
[Daphne – Now let’s be friends and stop quarrelling about this….]
Daphne – And about time too! Now here’s a little something to distract you:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080929/local/cuschieri-says-resignation-is-pause-from-parliamentary-work
We can agree to disagree. We’re not quarrelling we’re debating. I had a look through your links and essentially they reiterate the rather naive and imperialist Protestant view that their work ethic is somehow unique to them and a result of Protestantism. Just because this theory exists doesn’t make it gospel. I don’t buy it for all the reasons that I stated. The success of the British Industrial revolution is not due to the Protestant work ethic but as Baxxter says due to the U.K.’s natural resources – coal, steel and linen. The mines and factories that processed these raw materials were staffed not with hardworking Protestants but with crofters who were forecefully pushed off their land holdings at the time of the Enclosure Acts with the purpose of leaving them with no other alternative then to migrate to urban areas were they were exploited mercilessly and forced to work long hours for miserable wages and in atrocious conditions. The export markets for these goods were the colonies which had no option other than to buy their imports from the mother country or else. Protestant work ethic my left foot!
[Daphne – Here we go again, with the fixation on England. I suppose it escapes you that Poland had the same natural resources, and that Switzerland did not. There are none so blind as those who will not see. It’s like arguing against the existence of the tooth fairy with somebody who still believes that lost teeth turn into pound coins.]
What exactly did I not read? I’ve heard the one about the Protestant work ethic before, and I think it’s a case of misreading the data to produce an elegant theory. If everything else were equal, then yes, we could say that economic prosperity and Protestantism are correlated. But there are so many other factors which are conveniently ignored, because they would make the theory so much more messy.
I mean, you’re comparing Poland and, and Switzerland. Apples and bleeding oranges.
[Daphne – Why are they apples and oranges? If anything, the Polish had far greater natural resources and much vaster territory than the Swiss, who had only their human capital and still do. The people of both countries were farmers operating in an agriculture-based ‘economy’ before the advent of Calvinism, then they went their separate ways. Why did the Dutch and the English turn their access to the colonies into mercantile success and economic prosperity while the Portuguese and the Spanish, with access to far greater wealth and more extensive colonies, did not? Why was there a Dutch East India Company, an English East India Company and no Portuguese or Spanish equivalent? All things were equal in Europe for centuries. It was only after the development of capitalism in the Protestant countries – and in those that formed a cultural part of overwhelmingly Protestant regions, like the Protestant/Catholic Low Countries, and what became Austria and Bavaria – that things became unequal, until there developed a gulf between rich and poor, socially advanced and socially backward. It’s not only about the work ethic, but about the fact that Protestant cultures encouraged literacy and education, primarily because people had to read their own bible. In Catholicism, meanwhile, the bible was interpreted for ordinary people by intermediaries, who discouraged them from reading it, so they had ‘no reason’ to learn how to read, and they didn’t. You can’t have failed to notice that the literacy rates and the habit of reading for pleasure are still much, much higher in those countries that were under the Protestant influence (past tense) than they are in the countries that were (past tense) under Catholic influence. This is a historic legacy, and not a strange phenomenon that cropped up out of nowhere. Now academics are studying what seems to be the reversal of the fortunes of European capitalism, which is in decline, and linking this decline to the increasing secularisation of European society. Meanwhile, in the US which remains fiercely Protestant – the so-called Christian Right – capitalism is going strong. There’s a good essay by Niall Ferguson, based on a talk he gave in 2004, on the subject.]
Some people commenting here are thinking in terms of environmental determinism without even realising it, or being aware, presumably, of what it is or of the historical implications of what they are saying.
‘Uncle Fester’ insists that the Protestant work ethic theory is outdated. It is actually the idea that he and Baxxter propose, that climate, “lifestyle” (whatever that means) and natural resources had anything to do with success that is actually outdated.
Environmental determinism fell out of favour, at least in academia if not in popular uneducated thought as demonstrated here, in the 1930s – before World War II. It was used to legitimise British imperialism, Nazi Fascism and ‘Manifest Destiny’.
When you believe that people are shaped by their climate and environment, it becomes very easy to suppress them, and even to dehumanise them as incapable of autonomous achievement. Besides, natural resources are such because they are culturally determined, by religion or otherwise. Nature doesn’t wittingly create resources for our benefit. So the argument that a culture succeeded because it had access to resources is illogical.
[Daphne – Thank you for that. You can give a people all the natural resources in the world, and it doesn’t mean they’re going to do anything with them. Conversely, you can give them next to no natural resources, like the Swiss and the Dutch, or very hostile and inhospitable terrain, like the Scandinavians, and just watch them go and never look back.]
Daphne I am a little surprised at you for not posting my contribution made two days ago. In that contribution I pointed out that Mr. Baxxter was correct in saying that you were selectively picking on information to fit the theory of the Protestant work ethic being valid. You try to explain away or distinguish or ignore uncomfortable facts. You compare successful Calvinist Switzerland to poor Catholic Poland but ignore the existence of wealthy Catholic Northern Italy/Austria and dirt poor Protestant Northern England and Wales. You dismiss the existence of Progressive and properous Irish Catholic Massachussetts and pretend that backward and poor Baptist Mississippi which is almost 100% Protestant does not exist. Where the facts don’t fit the theory then you ignore them. Then to cap it all you refer to German Max Weber to bolster the validity of your theory. You fail to inform your readers that Max Weber was an imperialist German who’s work inspired the emerging National Socialist movement in Germany. In other words you rely on the works of a proto fascist to bolster your misconceived theories. Why don’t you tell your readers about Max Weber’s famous Freiburg Address – Economic Policy and National interest in Imperial Germany – the philosophy that inspired the Nazis. Do you expect to be taken seriously by your readers when your reading material and source of literary inspiration is that discredited and proto-fascist to boot?
[Daphne – Lots of comments go straight to spam, though that isn’t a verdict on them, of course. What astonishes me is that you are using this, clearly, as an excuse to pick an anonymous fight. If you’ve got a bone to pick with me about something, and are using this instead, have the decency to declare yourself. As for the rest, I have pointed out several times already that this isn’t ‘my’ opinion, but an opinion I share with many others far more notable than myself.]
@Daphne. Don’t be so paranoid – nobody’s out to get you. I love a good discussion nothing else. You do tend to make statements that are “out there” from time to time and I can’t resist the temptation to take a swipe. The idea of our ultra-liberal national columnist breathlessly relying on the discredited ideas of one of the intelluctual fathers of National Socialism as if they were a major discovery was just too tempting a pot shot to pass by. And, Daphne what is this with you wanting to know my identity? Believe me if it was important I’d let you know. Fact is that your face would glaze over in non-recognition were I to tell you.
[Daphne – I have a problem with people who wear a mask to bicker with me, but if it’s as you say, then fine. Those ideas are not discredited. They are still being evaluated and re-evaluated: Niall Fergusson, probably the most interesting historian around at the moment, just four years ago evaluated the decline of capitalism in Europe and the continued strength of capitalism in the US (current crisis apart) in the light of Weber’s thesis. You can download his paper over the internet, against payment.]
Uncle Fester
I haven’t commented about this topic yet because, although fascinating, it’s a very complex one and I’m still looking things up, including reading Weber’s ‘Protestant Ethic’ which started the whole debate. Your dogmatic assertions, however, expressed rather angrily, draw me into the fray.
I can say that, first of all, the sociology of Weber, which is what is relevant for this discussion, is generally considered quite distinct from his political thought. After reading your post, however, I sought to learn what modern scholars think of his political convictions as well and looked for the Freiburg Address you mention (but only found a synopsis).
Weber did promote German expansionism but that was typical for the mid/late-19th century and many European intellectuals were imperialist in outlook. He is nonetheless widely considered a liberal and a democrat, albeit within the context in which he lived. I haven’t found a single author who associates him with Nazism (one of his students did become a Nazi but that has no bearing on Weber himself). In the Freiburg Address, he advocated “liberal imperialism” and strengthening the eastern border of Germany by breaking up the estates of the German aristocracy, which he despised, and parceling the land into smallholdings.
He also propounded a strong leadership for the state and some say that this is what could have been used by the Nazis to justify their dictatorship but it’s an unfair and unreasonable criticism. Even Darwin’s theory of natural selection was used to justify extreme class distinctions and racism but that was hardly Darwin’s fault and does not discredit him as a scientist.
In his ‘Protestant Ethic’ Weber doesn’t talk at all like a Nazi. Looking at the population of Baden, for example, he says that, although Protestants were more prosperous than Catholics, Jews had an even better work ethic and were infinitely more successful than everybody else. I can’t see Hitler smacking his lederhosen in joy at that little snippet of information.
In conclusion, accusing Weber of being “one of the intellectual fathers of National Socialism” is pure, unadulterated nonsense.
@Antoine Vella. I sent a second post yesterday that must have gone to spam in which I drew the distinction between Weber’s valuable critique of dialectical materialism and his work on the Protestant work ethic which has been largely discredited. In 1890 Weber attended the founding of a political social grouping called the Evangelical Social Congress. The aim of the group who’s leaders included some famous anti-semites, was to take working class support away from the German Social Democratic party. In 1895 Weber was instrumental in convincing this group that nationalism could be used to focus the working class away from the class struggle advocated by the Social Democrats. This is what is known as the Freiburg address that convinced the leaders of the Evangelical Social Congress to give a nationalistic tone to their movement – this address by Weber also led to the renaming of the party as the National Socialist Association just a year later. Some 25 years later Hitler founded the National Socialist Party or Nazis. Hitler used Weber’s tactics of diverting the working class’s struggle into nationalism and also anti-semitism. So my dear friend far from being “unadulterated nonsense” my statement which is not original in any way is backed by historical fact. In short Daphne relied on the discredited works of a proto-fascist. Quite amusing for someone who considers herself so “liberal” and open minded. Even more hilarious is the fact that she angrily berated me for not doing my research and referred me to many web links so that I could learn before I commented. Isin’t it true that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing – for Daphne, for you and me and for all her readers.
[Daphne – Now I have to work out why the Protestant work ethic theory annoys you so profoundly. You must have been loved and left by a Protestant….]
Daphne: Wrong again and there really is nothing to work out. It is quite simple. The theory is demeaning to us as Southern European Catholics in the same way as Nazism is demeaning to any self respecting Jew or rascism to any self respecting person of colour. It’s sad to see someone like you buy into it so blindly and unquestioningly. It’s a variation on the colonial mentality of housewives of the 70s and 80s asking if a product was “ta’barra” or “ta’Malta”. The vestiges of colonialism live on 44 years on.
P.S. You’re always going on about my choice to use a pseudonym, a choice many of your contributors make. Yet my email address contains my initial, last name, profession and place of residence.
[Daphne – Siiiiiiiggggghhhhh.]
@Daphne. LOL :)
Uncle Fester
Let me first congratulate you for the strength of your head. No, really, you have one of the strongest heads ever to grace the pages of this website.
I have no idea why you persist in rubbishing Weber. I’d understand it if you didn’t agree with his theories; I myself haven’t made up my mind whether his observations of German 19th century society can be applied to other countries and periods. Sociology is not my field however so I have to rely on the opinion of others more knowledgeable than me.
Speaking of which, since you’ve reminded us that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and I hate to see you in danger, let me try to make you safer by pointing out a study by Godfrey Baldacchino about the protestant ethic. Unlike you, Baldacchino doesn’t despise Weber for he even includes him in his Social Studies textbook for secondary schools (Ninvestigaw is-Soċjeta. PEG 1995)
In 2006 Baldacchino co-published a paper: “The Impact of Public Policy on Entrepreneurship: A Critical Investigation of the Protestant Ethic on a Divided Island Jurisdiction” (the divided island is not Malta, for once, but St Martin, in the Caribbean). You can read it here http://www.mang.canterbury.ac.nz/docs/dana/Protestant%20Ethic.pdf. The study concluded that there is a marked difference between the Dutch and French sectors of the small island. The authors also refer to notable differences in the attitude towards work in European Catholic and Protestant regions, though they do say that “it would be nothing less than a caricature to explain European labour law differences as arising simply from a religious practice that may hardly resonate today in a largely secularised Europe.“
At any rate, my purpose is not to prove whether Weber was right or not but to point out that one of the foremost Maltese sociologists, who certainly cannot be accused of harbouring right-wing sympathies, considers Weber’s thesis worthy of serious research and is not at all demeaning.
I’ve quoted Baldacchino because he’s Maltese and you’ve probably heard of him but I could have quoted scores of other reputable scholars who do not think Weber is one of the founders of Nazism.
So there.
@Antoine Vella. You either misread what I wrote or I was not clear enough. Let me be clear – I did not say that Weber founded Nazism. I said, and I was careful in my choice of words, that he was a source of inspiration to the National Socialists and “attended the founding” of the Evangelical Social Congress which later evolved into the National Socialist Association. I labeled him a “proto-fascist”. On a much smaller scale, Weber was to Nazi-Fascism what Marx was to Communism. An intellectual who’s writings inspired the philosophy of two distinct political movements. Marx, had he lived, would probably have been shocked at how Communism turned out in practice in places like North Korea and the Soviet Union. Similarly I would speculate that Weber would have been distressed to see the way in which his ideas inspired a movement that is best remembered for the Shoah. I may be very hard headed but I am not empty headed, Mr. Vella.