The Protestant Work Ethic and Capitalism

Here is an excerpt from a paper I wrote as an undergrad about the consequences of Puritanism in America (please pardon the flat and overall poor writing style):

America is the great capitalist society in history.  According to the highly acclaimed sociologist Max Weber, capitalism is a result of Protestantism in Europe.  With belief in the doctrine of predestination, many believers sought methods that would indicate if they were chosen by God to go to heaven or not.  One method devised by the leaders of the Protestant movement was economic success.  They said that if a good Protestant believer worked hard and was successful, this could be a sign that they were to be brought to heaven.  They effectively turned work and economic prosperity into religious practice and signs from God.  This initial Protestant movement urged frugality.  While economic success may be a sign from God as to one’s status in the afterlife, spending all of these monetary gains on things other than the church was frowned upon.  In fact, in John Winthrop’s A Model of Christian Charity, he quotes Proverbs 3.9 “honor the Lord with thy riches” to say that wealth should be accorded to the church or attained with God’s purpose in mind.  Thus, the initial impetus for capitalism can be traced to the Protestant reformation and their belief in the doctrine of predestination.  Since Puritanism is a branch of Protestantism, the Protestant work ethic, as this has come to be called, was also transplanted from Europe to the New World along with the settlers.  The Puritans sought what they called ‘competency’, the possession of enough property to ensure the family’s economic independence.  While seeking familial economic independence, surpluses were traded and acquired at fair market rates and services were traded.  Thus, it can be claimed that the genesis of American capitalism is the Puritan colonists that settled parts of America over 350 years ago.

Just a little background for you:  The Protestant schism was started by Martin Luther posting his 95 Thesis, essentially 95 talking points about how the Church's then-current practice of selling indulgences (no matter what the Catholic Church's official stance on indulgences is at this point in time, at that point in time, indulgences were essentially pardons for a sin that you bought from the church) was, for lack of a better word, bad.

Anyway, this eventually lead to the establishment of Lutheranism (which is the oldest and, hence, original branch of Protestantism).  Puritanism is another branch of Protestantism (or at least was originally...  Things change you know.)