Over the course of three previous essays, I sketched some of the origins of what I have called “the modern culture of achievement”.1 What has been missing up to this point in these explorations is a historical understanding of the context in which these origins emerged. The origins of modern success literature (and its corresponding culture) came about at a time when the quest to succeed existed in an almost exclusively–though not entirely–secular way. As Max Weber observed, the “spirit of capitalism” reached a point where it became self-sufficient, no longer requiring the religious impetus which had sparked it.2 It was in the rational and methodical reorganization of life, structured around the idea of a vocation or calling, which laid the groundwork for what I have described in the origin story.3 This is what I had in mind, when, speaking of success literature in Part I, I wrote, “the literature in question developed and emerged within a culture that already existed”. It is within the context of the larger whole of socioeconomic history that a deeper and broader understanding of the origins of achievement culture will emerge.4
“People do not ‘by nature’ wish to earn more and more money. Instead, they wish simply to live, and to live as they have been accustomed and to earn as much as is required to do so.”5 These words are from Max Weber, and at first glance, they may appear dead wrong. Today, we are inclined to think that by nature people do wish to earn more and more money.6 But while the crux of the issue here is really the meaning of the phrase “by nature”, Weber’s point is somewhat different. He is describing economic traditionalism,7 which refers to “a frame of mind in respect to work” largely adopted in pre-capitalist Europe. According to this frame of mind, work “is viewed as a necessary evil and only one arena of life, no more important than the arenas of leisure, family, and friends. ‘Traditional needs’ are implied: when fulfilled, then work ceases.”8 “Wherever modern capitalism began its task of increasing the ‘productivity’ of human work by increasing its intensity, it confronted, in the precapitalist economy, an infinitely obdurate barrier in the form of this definition of work.”9 For an economic traditionalist, the question is not “How much can I make?”, but “How much do I need to satisfy my accustomed needs?” This was the economic ethic of not only pre-capitalist but also pre-Protestant, medieval Europe.10 It was in the wake of the Reformation that we begin to see the breakdown of this approach to the cycles of daily work.
With the rise of Protestantism,11 we see for the first time the articulation of the modern conception of a calling–one’s task as given by God. In this sense, work takes on a uniquely demarcated position in one’s life. As God-given, it becomes a duty, an obligation, imbued with an imperative of success. We should not–can not–fail in a task appointed to us by God Himself.12 It is not difficult to see how the “fulfillment of duty in vocational callings became viewed as the highest expression that moral activity could assume. Precisely this new notion of the moral worth of devoting oneself to a calling was the unavoidable result of the idea of attaching religious significance to daily work.”13 Success in one’s calling was, therefore, a means of self-assurance that one had fulfilled one’s duty, and thereby added to the “glory of God”, but also for some a confirmation of one’s status among the elect–those predestined by God for salvation. “Ironically,” writes Eugene McCarraher, “the rejection of works as a means of salvation entailed a gospel of work”.14 As I have previously explored, work in the Middle Ages was largely “dominated by agrarian rhythms, free of haste, careless of exactitude, unconcerned by productivity”.15 Now, for the first time in history, the importance of daily work no longer consisted in the simple maintenance of daily living, but in the theological imperative to succeed in one’s calling.
There is a certain kind of logical structure contained in the concept of a calling, which appears to have had dramatic effects on the development of capitalism. The continual striving for success was, as stated above, built-in to one’s vocation or calling. But the concept of success also entails an imperative of its own: improvement or innovation. In other words, the continual striving for success in a calling entails, as a logical extension, the means of continual improvement or innovation. This is clearly the case in modern business enterprises. Furthermore, it seems to be confirmed in Puritanism, especially in England, where the “use of land for the profitable production of commodities” was “divinely commanded”.16 Improvement literature was developed by many Puritan ministers throughout the 17th century in England, though it must be emphasized that the basis for this literature was strongly religious. William Spurstowe’s The Spiritual Chymist (1677), Edward Bury’s The Husbandman’s Companion (1677), John Flavel’s Husbandry Spiritualized (1669) and Navigation Spiritualized (1671), and William Bagshaw’s Trading Spiritualized (1696), are all examples.17 The quest for improvement was closely bound up with the quest for profit, which provided a concrete measurement for it. This may help explain the Puritan’s “indomitable and lucrative faith in the imperative of profit. […] The same God who ordained the world’s wonders and marvels made the market for pecuniary glory. Contrary to the oft-reiterated claim that Puritans separated the religious and economic realms, the saints affirmed that profit-making followed the grain of the universe.”18 In his Christian Directory, Richard Baxter writes “if God shew you a way in which you may lawfully get more than in another way”–without “wrong to your soul or to any other”–then “if you refuse this, and choose the less gainful way, you cross one of the ends of your Calling, and you refuse to be God’s steward.” Improvement–religiously sanctioned, and quantified in the form of profit–thus became a theological imperative existing within the context of the continual striving for success in a calling. “Formed in the crucible of improvement, the Puritan doctrine of calling was the first covenant theology of capitalism.”19
Add to these considerations the concept of what Weber calls “this-worldly asceticism” and you have a good bulk of his main thesis behind you. In contrast to the monastic asceticism of the Middle Ages–which was largely confined to the cloister–this-worldy or Protestant asceticism “fought with fury against the spontaneous enjoyment of possessions and constricted consumption, especially of luxury goods. On the other hand, it had the psychological effect of freeing the acquisition of goods from the constraints of the traditional economic ethic. In the process, ascetic Protestantism shattered the bonds restricting all striving for gain–not only by legalizing profit but also by perceiving it as desired by God. The struggle against the desires of the flesh and the attachment to external goods was not, as the Puritans explicitly attest, a struggle against acquisition; rather, it challenged the irrational use of possessions. That which remained so familiar to feudal sensibilities–a high regard for the external display of luxury consumption–was condemned by the Puritans as a deification of human wants and desires. According to them, God wanted a rational and utilitarian use of wealth on behalf of the basic needs of the person and the community. […] Moreover, if we now combine the strictures against consumption with this unchaining of the striving for wealth, a certain external result now becomes visible: the formation of capital through asceticism’s compulsive saving. The restrictions that opposed the consumption of wealth indeed had their productive use, for profit and gain became used as investment capital.”20 In this way, the continual striving for success in one’s vocation or calling had the effect of nothing less than a rational, methodical, reorganization of human life.
As wealth increased, so too did the secularizing effects of it. John Wesley–the founder of Methodism–was keenly aware of this when he wrote, “I fear, wherever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion. Therefore I do not see how it is possible, in the nature of things, for any revival of true religion to continue long. For religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality, and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches. How then is it possible that Methodism, that is, a religion of the heart, though it flourishes now as a green bay tree, should continue in this state? For the Methodists now in every place grow diligent and frugal; consequently they increase their possession of material goods. Hence, they proportionately increase in pride, in anger, in the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life. So, although the form of religion remains, the spirit is swiftly vanishing away. We ought not to prevent people from being diligent and frugal; we must exhort all Christians to gain all they can, and to save all they can; that is, in effect, to grow rich.”21 Thus, motives which began as religious became increasingly secularized. “As the paroxysms of the search for God’s kingdom gradually dissolved into the dispassionate virtues of the vocational calling and the religious roots of the movement slowly withered, a utilitarian orientation to the world took hold.”22
Over the course of centuries–centuries of continued work, improvement, profit, accumulation, investment, reinvestment, scientific-, industrial-, and technological-revolutions, and many others–the human world was added to, expanded upon, and finally, transformed. “For to the extent that asceticism moved out of the monastic cell and was carried over into the life of work in a vocational calling, and then commenced to rule over this-worldly morality, it helped to do its part to build the mighty cosmos of the modern economic order. […] To the extent that asceticism undertook to transform and influence the world, the world’s material goods acquired an increasing and, in the end, inescapable power over people–as never before in history. […] And the idea of an ‘obligation to search for and then accept a vocational calling’ now wanders around in our lives as the ghost of beliefs no longer anchored in the substance of religion. […] The Puritan wanted to be a person with a vocational calling; we must be.”23
Thus we find the modern concept of “success”, conceived as the end-goal or purpose of life, is a secular conception that evolved from the historically religious concept of a calling.24 Each of these developments is illustrative of a growing hegemony of instrumental rationality, what I have called the “instrumental stance“, or what Jacques Ellul called “technique”. On the scale of business enterprise, this rationality can be seen playing out in phenomena as diverse as scientific management (Taylorism), Fordism, or even McDonaldization.25 On an individual level, it is clearly embodied in the success literature I have explored so far. Indeed, the development of success literature was its logical extension.
Notes:
1. See my essays, The Origins of the Modern Culture of Achievement, Part I; Part II; and Part III.
2. Those who are unfamiliar with the work of Weber may be surprised by this. That the roots of a this-world success orientation; the methodical organization of life structured around the idea of a vocation or a calling; the accumulation of capital itself–that each of which respectively derives from a specifically Protestant understanding of the world–would likely not be our first guess. There are, of course, debates about Weber’s thesis. But I have found no reason to be persuaded that Weber is incorrect in his analysis. I believe disagreements concerning the veracity of his position involve a mistake of using the same terminology to explain different phenomena. There are certainly some good questions posed to those following Weber, but I believe they are answerable and do not cast doubt on his main points. See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
3. By “origin story” I refer to the tripartite string of essays concerned with the beginnings of the modern culture of achievement. See my essays, The Origins of the Modern Culture of Achievement, Part I; Part II; and Part III.
4. In these considerations, I have mostly been influenced by Max Weber, Eugene McCarraher, Charles Taylor, and Jacques Ellul.
5. See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Chapter 2.
6. Ironically, we think this because it is built into the structure of the human world that we have been born into. We are thus accustomed to the idea of “always wanting more and more money”. The permeation of our society by the use of money makes this impulse extremely hard to resist.
7. The subject of economic traditionalism was briefly touched upon in my essay, A Sketch of The Workaday World.
8. Quoted from the Glossary to Stephen Kalberg’s translation of Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism with Other Writings on the Rise of the West.
9. See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Chapter 2.
10. It should be noted that exceptions always exist. What I am talking about here is that generally, and for the most part, this was the ethic the common people lived by during the Middle Ages. The Catholic ethic was closely bound up with that of the traditional ethic. The Catholic was not burdened by a quest to confirm his place among the elect, nor was he bound by the duty to succeed in a calling as the highest praise or aspiration of human life.
11. See, for example, the theological developments Weber cites by Lutherans, Calvinists, Pietists, Methodists, Baptists, Quakers, and others. See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Puritanism yielded the strongest influence in America. Alexis de Tocqueville went so far as to observe that the “passions that move Americans most deeply are commercial rather than political.” The uniquely American expression of ascetic Protestantism is Mormonism, which due to reasons of brevity, I will set aside for the time being.
12. Failure would, perhaps, be a sign of damnation; of one’s not being a member of the elect, and thus not numbered among God’s chosen and saved. This line of thought is particularly relevant in Calvinism.
13. See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Chapter 3.
14. See Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon. Emphasis in original.
15. See Jacques Le Goff, Time, Work and Culture in the Middle Ages.
16. This is closely bound up with the enclosure movement and its effects in 16th century England. See Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon.
17. I am indebted to Eugene McCarraher for these examples, who also adds: “Improvement literature give birth to a new utopian genre: the utopia of incessant research, innovation, industrial development, and economic growth.” See Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon. In my essay, Philosophy, Utility, and The Modern Frame, I spoke of the “endless search for improvement and innovation” as an essential “characteristic of the modern frame”.
18. See Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon.
19. Ibid.
20. See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Chapter 5. Emphasis in original.
21. Quoted by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Chapter 5.
22. See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Chapter 5. Emphasis added.
23. Ibid. Emphasis in original.
24. This is also true for that closely related modern concept, the career.
25. See, for example, The Principles of Scientific Management, by Frederick Taylor; The McDonaldization of Society, by George Ritzer. Fordism appears to have developed independently of scientific management, although it in many ways is hard to distinguish.