The American (Protestant) Work Ethic
“The American work ethic, the motivation that drives Americans to work longer hours each week and more weeks each year than any of our economic peers, is a long-standing contributor to America’s success.” This is the first sentence of a report (that expanded work requirements for welfare recipients) that the Trump administration released in July 2018.
Work, work, work. We all do it, we all oblige ourselves to it, and some people even love to do it. ‘Workaholics,’ they’re called. I’ve never met a real one.
I’ve met people who work out of fear of social retribution, fear of scarcity, fear of instability, fear of no longer being able to get what they want… I’ve met people who love what they do until it eats them up whole, as they get further caught up in everything (business/legal/make it profitable/appeal to an audience/secure funding) but what they wanted to do in the first place. I’ve met people who love what they do and are in a pretty good position in life. But they wonder about the other paths they could’ve taken to better optimize their free time/passion/personal interests. And I’ve met Buddhist monks who dedicate themselves to something beyond passion, who wake up at 4am to meditate and give all day and sleep at 9pm, who I am always trying to emulate in my life.
As you can probably imagine, I am trying to figure out what I want my work life balance to look like. Why is it tempting for so many Americans to go overboard? Why? Why is it tempting to overwork yourself?
I’ll speak for myself. I have grand ambitions and don’t always hit them. Then what? Can I still fill in the gap with more work, more attention, more focus? Or will this process terminate itself for my own good? (It usually does, until I get enough sleep). We talk about burnout a lot on college campuses but many people are like this outside of and before stepping foot onto a college campus. Of those who remained employed, Americans literally worked through the entire pandemic: “the amount of time employed persons spent working was about the same in 2019 and 2020 — 7.7 hours in 2019 and 7.6 hours in 2020” (US Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Yet the average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950: “An average worker needs to work a mere 11 hours per week to produce as much as one working 40 hours per week in 1950,” according to MIT mathematicians using statistics from the US Bureau of Labor. We’re producing so much more now, surpassing expectations much higher than what existed less than 70 years ago, yet we’re expected to work even harder now.
So I’ve made the argument that we work hard. Way too hard. But doesn’t this remind you of something… something called the Protestant Work Ethic? Linked to the Puritan Pilgrims who founded this country? Associated with the virtues of achieving the ‘American dream’ and rugged American individualism? Has to do with the rags to riches Carnegies, the first Rockefeller, the first Vanderbilt, the first rapper who makes it big and buys “a crib for [his] momma off that mumbling shit?”
Americans. We love to work hard and win big. Only, most of us don’t always win big.
Stay tuned for more on Protestant Work Ethic showing its face after all this time.
