The idea that "hard work, discipline, frugality" are Calvinist and Protestant inventions may be the most preposterous thing I've read today. As if the rest of the world or previous eras valued self-indulgence and wasteful lavishness.

Or that an unproductive member of society wasn't always scorned or at least viewed negatively by those having to produce.

It's mere slander. It reminds me of the Smithsonian's insistence that punctuality, hard work, objectivity, and politeness were aspects of "white dominant culture" and "white supremacy".

https://web.archive.org/web/20200715153724/https://nmaahc.si...

Some Inuit practiced senilicide up through the 20th century.

"On the other hand, when food did run short, the old and sick were looked upon as drains on the community’s resources. Sometimes they were killed – thrown into the sea, buried alive, locked out in the cold, or starved to death. Far more commonly they were simply abandoned to die. The victim might be taken out in the wilderness and left there, or the whole village might pick up and move away while the old person slept. If the villagers were unexpectedly restored to prosperity, they might go back to rescue those left behind. An abandoned person would also be welcomed back as a full member of the community if he could manage to make his way back to the village on his own. But usually he couldn’t."

https://www.straightdope.com/21343302/did-eskimos-put-their-...

(His title is sarcastic. They aren't known to have done that in particular.)

https://www.britannica.com/money/Protestant-ethic