I found insightful, and completely agree with, the original "Protestant zealotry" assessment - it's not a religious argument, it's a philosophical one.

It has everything to do with a moral perspective - that righteousness and wealth go hand in hand, and it does indeed come from the culture of the European Reform. It's not a matter of Christianity, it's mostly absent from Catholicism, and I suppose other strains.

Think of the meaning, the moral implications, of the phrase "the deserving poor". Try translating it into other languages, and see what happens.