That Wikipedia article is horrible and incorrectly states the common misconceptions about the Protestant work ethic. Worse still, it cites Leland Ryken in its s

That Wikipedia article is horrible and incorrectly states the common misconceptions about the Protestant work ethic. Worse still, it cites Leland Ryken in its second reference who makes precisely the same point about the common misunderstandings of the Protestant work ethic: > The Puritans never conceived of work apart from a spiritual and moral context of service to God and man. Richard Nixon's much-quoted Labor Day message of 1971 probably summed up the popular conception of the "Puritan work ethic," but if so, it is an inaccurate picture: >"The 'work ethic' holds that labor is good in itself; that a man or woman becomes a better person by virtue of the act of working. America's competitive spirit, the 'work ethic' of this people... the value of achievement, the morality of self-reliance-- none of these is going out of style. (Nixon)" >I trust that I have shown that the Puritans would not have been content with such a theory of work. Their ideals were obedience to God, service to humanity, and reliance on God's grace. In the Puritan ethic, the virtue of work depended almost wholly on the motives with which people performed it.