Tag Archives: Max Weber

Think of Work Sweat as “Odorous Oil”

By Robin Bates | Published: September 4, 2022

Barrett Browning celebrates work in this sonnet, even as she alludes back to God’s curse on Adam in “Paradise Lost” and Genesis.

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Crusoe and the American Work Ethic

By Robin Bates | Published: February 16, 2022

A Pakistani student looks at Americans and notes their obsession with time. One can see that same obsession in Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe.”

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The Origins of Crazy U.S. Work Ethic

By Robin Bates | Published: March 29, 2018

New interpretation of “Robinson Crusoe” suggests that maybe Puritans not quite so much to blame for America’s insane work ethic as once thought.

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When Christianity Becomes a Money Cult

By Robin Bates | Published: August 27, 2016

A new book, “The Money Cult: Capitalism, Christianity, and the Unmaking of the American Dream,” brings to mind Howard Nemerov’s poem “Boom!” The book’s author argues that prosperity theology is not an aberration but was present from the beginning of American Puritanism.

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