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19. The hacker ethic as the culture of theinformation agePekka HimanenTHE CULTURE OF THE INDUSTRIAL ECONOMYIn his famous essay, “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,” MaxWeber described how the “Protestant ethic” formed the culture of capitalism.His analysis extended from the beginnings of modern capitalism in the seventeenthcentury to the industrial economy of his own time in the early twentiethcentury. Three elements constitute the core of Weber’s concept of theculture of capitalism in this period. First, the Protestant ethic and the spirit ofcapitalism include the notion of work as a duty:this peculiar idea, so familiar to us today, but in reality so little a matter of course,of one’s duty in a calling, is what is most characteristic of the social ethic of capitalisticculture, and is in a sense the fundamental basis of it. It is an obligation whichthe individual is supposed to feel and does feel towards the content of his professionalactivity, no matter in what it consists, in particular no matter whether itappears on the surface as a utilization of his personal powers, or only of his materialpossessions (as capital). (Weber, 1904–5: 54)A second element of the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism is temporaldiscipline. Weber cites Benjamin Franklin’s “remember that time ismoney.” Time must also be subjected to a temporally regularized lifestyle. Inthis culture, “irregular work, which the ordinary laborer is often forced toaccept, is often unavoidable, but always an unwelcome state of transition. Aman without a calling thus lacks the systematic, methodical character which is. . . demanded by worldly asceticism” (Weber, 1904–5: 161). The thirdelement in Weber’s definition of the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalismis the earning of money as an end in itself: “the summum bonum of thisethic,” Weber writes, is “the earning of more and more money” (Weber,1904–5: 53). Maximizing money becomes an imperative.Weber’s analysis of the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism has beenquestioned in many ways (for some of the main ways, see, for example,420