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Coleman Nowell
Mrs. Bennett
Humanities II Period 4
19th February 2016

Argumentative Essay: Work Ethic and Why It Caused The Great Divergence

Anyone who has ever had parents (therefore, everyone) has heard the oh-so-often
used saying you can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it drink. Truth be told,
the current state of the world is as follows: the horses of the west are dying of thirst, and
the horses of the east are blown up like water balloons. The work ethic of the west
(specifically the USA) is all but dead, and the powers of East Asia, namely China, Japan
and Korea, are beginning to become the top powers of the world arguably for the first
time in a millennia. The secrets of attaining swift and emphatic dominance over the world
on an economic and innovative scale of Europe and the USA have been revealed to the
world and quite frankly are no longer exclusive to said areas. The idea that competition,
Protestantism and western qualities being the core sources for any large power have
been completely disproven and are yesterdays news, as todays news consists of the
following: any country can become a global power with the right work ethic and not
relying on the government to keep one on life support. Though the powers of the USA
and Western Europe are still quite powerful indeed in terms of technology and money,
this is only due to the gifts of their ancestors, and the great powers of East Asia are

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becoming the leaders in todays society due to their incentive to work instead of their
incentive to rely on the feats from the geniuses of the past.
Time and time again throughout history, the innate desire to chase after wealth has
always prevailed over the lazy mindset of laying back and forcing the government to
support us like infants, and this idea has always succeeded in times where the correct
institutions were put in place. Though the idea that westernization and Protestantism
being the reasons for swift control of the world has been in place for hundreds of years,
this has been proven to in fact be completely false, as though many of todays powers
contain western qualities, the true element that causes this advancement is the correctly
needed institutions. According to Explaining Asian Americans academic advantage over
whites by Amy Hsin, the poverty rates of Chinese and Vietnamese are higher than they
are for whites, but the children of Chinese and Vietnamese immigrant families
routinely surpass the educational attainment of their native-born, middle-class white
peers. Since these institutions have been implemented, the amount of hours worked by
the powers of Western Europe and the United States is significantly lower than that of
South Korea and China; in fact, the average South Korean works nearly 1,000 hours a
year more than the average German. This great rift is due to the Westernized countries
being overly reliant on the previously attained wealth of those before them, while the
major powers of the East have no strong support to stand on, and therefore possess the
work ethic to attain it themselves, thus explaining the greater work ethic.
Not only does the addition of necessary institutions swiftly add to fruition of new
global superpowers, but the incentive is no longer in the wests favor, and it is now so
heavily in the easts favor that the intelligence gap between the two is incredible. This

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massive difference in both intellect and overall competence between the West and East
roots still from work ethic, as the West has become reliant on their jumpstart that their
previous generations had given them, and have ceased to advance in their incentive to
continue working, which is completely opposite from the people of Eurasia. To the
contrary, the desire of the newly industrialized countries of the world has grown
exponentially since the arrival of the needed institutions to become fully developed.