| > In my experience that bit is more forgotten in protestant countries rather than catholic ones. I think you're misunderstanding the "hard work" part. Unlike (perhaps) in the US, the work ethic part of northern/Germanic countries is not about working super hard to get rich, but rather to do the job with the integrity and effort that is reasonable, given your health and abilities. The typical reward is not to get super rich quickly. But if you uphold the ideal, you deserve respect, even if you're cleaning staff or the janitor. Similarly, NOT living up to the ethical standards will be damning regardless of social status. Cheating and corruption comes with harsh social punishment, especially for those near the top. Remember that we're talking about the part of the world that pratically invented both Social Democracy and the Nordic Model. Now, I also have family and contacts in various places in Southern Europe and South East Asia, some of which as very wealthy. What these ALL have in common is that various types of corruption and plutocracy are just facts of life that are taken for granted, and nobody cares. Now my own hypothesis is that religion plays only a small role in this difference, and that this is mostly a consequence of the difficulty of surviving as a farmer in Northern Europe during the medieaval era, and especially in Scandinavia. People used to live on isolated farms or in small villages, where the farms would barely produce enough food to sustain the family of the farmer. Those who did not work at least moderately hard usually would not survive, and there was little left over to give to either the poor or the nobility. This led to an egalitarian outlook, where people who wanted to live off the produce of others were not tolerated easily, regardless of whether they were beggars, thieves or barons. And since production was low, there was little to tax or steal, anyway. In warmer climates, farm yields were much greater, which caused success to be much more about social relationships than hard work at the farm. |