The Protestant Ethic is known for describing how religious ideas influenced the unfolding of modern capitalism in the West. However, there is nothing inherent in Protestantism that requires linkage to industrialism. I argue that Protestantism has evolved, and that it need not necessarily promote environmental exploitation, although under industrialism it has. The very sociological structure that, in the absence of ecologically realistic norms, permits widespread ecosystem degradation by industrial capitalism may also generate ecologically realistic norms for a natural capitalism. The irrational continuation of environmentally degrading social practices eventually contributes to a legitimation crisis.
People turn to religion as an alternative authority.
If science and religion converge on environmental values, they might catalyze social change, unless they are too distorted by ideological bias. Adaptive social change only occurs if ethical and ecological values are in accordance with the sustainability of ecosystems. Hence, to adapt to the ecological crisis, sociocultural systems require socialization into ecological realism, because ecologically rational societies may still be maladaptively organized around environmentally unsustainable trajectories. All rights reserved.