The point of such work is not to enjoy the wealth it produces but to glorify God. Working for the sake of lavish consumption would be a distraction from this end, a kind of corruption. Calvinism combined strenuous work with asceticism. Weber points out that this disciplined approach to work—working hard but consuming little—yields the accumulation of wealth that fuels capitalism. Even when the original religious motivations fall away, the Protestant ethic of work and asceticism provides the cultural basis for capitalist accumulation.
