Whence the Protestant Ethic? The Tension between Competing Economies of Worth in Christian Writings on Business and Economics

Author:

*  Brittany Griebling (University of Pennsylvania)

Abstract:

This paper investigates the continuing power of the Protestant ethic, at least at the within particular discourses. I am interested in analyzing contemporary Christian thinkers' attitudes toward neoliberal market capitalism; specifically, I look at a selection of Christian business self-help texts. While this essay draws upon the historical and critical scholarship of the Protestant ethic, neoliberalism, and the self-help genre to provide a context for the texts explored below, textual analysis of the primary materials constitutes the major method used and is carried out according to the model put forth by Boltanski and Th'venot in On Justification (2006 [1991]). I find that authors create composite "economies of worth," or justificatory discourses, re-reading the inspirational polity of Christianity through the industrial, domestic, and market polities. Thus, I find that the mixed economies of worth featured in Christian business self-help and economic writings do seem to uphold the Weberian hypothesis that Protestant Christianity sanctified work-in-the-world, demonstrating that the Protestant ethic continues to be a relevant meta-discursive frame in the early 21st century .