ABSTRACT
Samuel SmilesMan is made to be in the visible universe an image and likeness of God himself, and he is placed in it in order to subdue the Earth. From the beginning therefore he is called to work. Pope John Paul II Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies. The period since the Second World War has seen numerous very important changes. Countries like Great Britain have shown relative economic decline, while others like Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong have shown spectacular growth. More importantly perhaps, there has been a micro-electronics revolution which has meant sudden and vast changes in the number and type of jobs available. Industrialization therefore had a highly paradoxical and contradictory effect on the Protestant Work Ethic (PWE). The growing industrial economy helped the growth of the PWE among the bourgeois, but the factory system of necessity undercut the PWE ideals.
