But I still believe a crucial foundation of the American dream is that unfashionable belief called the Protestant work ethic.

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Some speculate that Americans, being the cultural heirs of the industrious Puritan settlers, are still gripped by a Protestant work ethic.

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The last time I checked this was the core of capitalism and the Protestant work ethic that this country was founded upon.

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But these states have a Protestant work ethic: we'll help you find a job, they say, but you must work if you can.

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Nor is it the willingness to go onto part-time working to preserve jobs in the downturn, the Protestant work ethic, the large manufacturing sector or any of the other things that people are musing about.

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The Pew study found that the new Asian immigrants identify themselves, surprisingly, as 22% Protestant and 19% Catholic, but whatever their religion, most of them have in spades what Max Weber called the Protestant work ethic.

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The industrial revolution in America was driven by a bourgeois Protestant ethic that celebrated work and frowned on self-indulgence.

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