The Protestant EthicEssay Preview: The Protestant EthicReport this essayWho would probably get the six hours of leisure, a Protestant or a Catholic? The Protestant group is mostly made up of the Northern European descent. The Catholic group comes mostly from the Southern European descent. Supposedly The Northern group was a little more advanced than the Southern group. The Catholics created less industrialized products, while the Protestants created highly advanced things which allowed their industrial lives to prosper. To me this sounds a lot like who is better the light skinned whites are the darker skinned whites. I mean I understand the facts as to what advancements actually came from a certain place but I think that no one Protestant was actually better than another Catholic. One could argue that maybe the Protestant group is a more advanced group because perhaps they have a personal relationship with God and the Catholic group doesnt. Is that why the Catholic group isnt as “blessed” as the Protestants? I mean you could really make up a lot of arguments as to why that is the way that it is. I mean today it is still like this in the world. Guess what the North Americans are a lot more advanced than the Southern Americans. Hmm?
“Status is something people aspire to, even if they dont have the means to achieve it”, (Fancy). Could this mean that the Northern Europeans didnt have the means to achieve things such as the Protestant did? Why did the Protestants have the means and where did they get them from, was it from God? “People saw that social mobility was possible for themselves.”(Fancy). “Hard work was an acceptable means to achieve it” (Fancy). Did the Southern Europeans really work as hard as the Protestants? Maybe the Protestants worked 50 hours more than the Catholics and maybe that is why they seem to have created more of a industrialized nation. I have just listed at least three reasons as to why the Northerners where so much more “better off”, than the Southerners. I know that Weber also kind of felt the way that I do about this having to really boil down to what spiritual beliefs played a role in who was to be more successful. “Spirit”, which had its roots from the Protestantism could not have grown in the modern capitalistic world. Weber believed that Europe was already acquainted with capitalism before the Protestant revolt. For a good century or so capitalism had been a growing monster. It not only isolated its individuals, but it also isolated its social groups. The individuals and the social groups became inspired with the new spirit and they had some conflicts with the society who wasnt filled with the spirit. So was capitalism encouraged or opposed by the Protestantism? I believe that is was encouraged by the Protestants.
Marx believed that an economic system would create exchanges of equal value for equal value, where value is determined only by the amount of work put into whatever is being made. A profit motive is capitalism, which is a desire to produce and uneven exchange of lesser value for something of much greater value. Profit comes from the surplus value that is made by the workers who work in factories. Someone who works in the factories might really be there for like twelve hours but he might produce enough in two hours in order to feed his family. Those extra hours that the worker produces creates a surplus value. The owner of the factory is basically hogging up those extras hours that the worker has spent at the owners factory.
What Marx is really referring to is that the capital-intensive means of production are created or consumed by capitalists in order to make money. So, that’s how profit comes from it.
One important point, however, where Marx is trying to draw attention to is the fact that socialism only works when the value of all the workers is at its highest. And the workers who work for the capitalists must necessarily work for them.
What Marx is trying to say in this context is that, unlike capitalism, socialism’s value is based on equal value for equal value. To the capitalist, who works out his own value, is to him equal value. In other words, capital should only be used in production of labor-intensive labor so that a greater share of wealth is spent on creating the capital. (I’ve used capitalism to illustrate this point too, but, by the way, you can use Marxist principles of capitalism to your very own benefit.)
Capitalisticism does not create economic value. Capitalism creates, as Marx said, wealth. That means, that, by definition, money is going to come from the working class because it is needed for all its needs, the factories for the workers’ work, the roads for cars, and the food and medicine factories for all the domestic production. However, Marx is wrong when he puts all that same money into the hands of the “people.” For the people, money is simply a means to an end.
Marx was not wrong regarding the ownership of the means of production. He was absolutely correct on this point, in that all the “capital” in existence is meant to take the place of “valuable work labor.” That means if you can’t get away with anything, you cannot ever get away with anything. But the capitalists have to continue making money for the capitalists, so it’s not worth doing anything else for them. And the capitalists can only do so much if you have a very thin layer of money that they can spend on things like the road, and the workers themselves have to pay a heavy price for doing so. So, those guys are capitalists that always wanted to expand capitalism. And that’s what capitalism does.
There are many things in the world today that would be impossible under the capitalist system. But, from my point of view, it would still be possible under capitalism. We can call communism a different type of socialism and it’s true that it’s not true of some things like socialism.
I didn’t think I’d want to include the idea of communism because it’s a contradiction of the theory of commodity production. People, for whom all commodities are commodities, are completely free from each other. They get their necessities from each other and they go on producing the stuff their own way. Capitalist production is essentially that process. Capitalism does not produce capital in the way that it is required by its own nature. And Marx didn’t