Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment

by Francis Fukuyama

One of the elements of that culture that Huntington emphasized was the “Protestant” work ethic. Empirically, Americans do work much harder than many other peoples around the world—less hard than many Asians, but certainly harder than most Europeans.23 The historical origins of this work ethic may indeed lie in the Puritanism of the country’s early settlers, but who in the United States works hard these days? It is just as likely to be a Korean grocery-store owner or an Ethiopian cabdriver or a Mexican gardener as a person of Anglo-Protestant heritage living off dividends in his or her country club. While we can acknowledge the historical roots of this culture, we must also recognize that it has become detached from its particular ethno-religious origins to become the common property of all Americans.