Culture + Computers (Part I)

Culture and religion can seem to advance a society as well as hold it back. Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, the role Confucianism plays in East Asian achievement-based societies, the identity between Judaism and worldly success—all suggest a positive role for religion and culture in facilitating economic development. Culture can help development as well as hinder it; religion can encourage achievement or block it.

Weber argues, persuasively I believe, that the Puritans paved the way for capitalism by making hard work on earth an expression of faith, but denying their community the right to spend lavishly, thus forcing people to invest—a course of action that fueled capitalism before Adam Smith discovered it. And Protestantism advanced the industrial revolution because Protestants were willing to buy mass-produced products that looked like what everyone else had, preferring them to the expensive finery aristocrats favor.

Weber recognized that while religious belief kicked off these trends, once people started making money, investing it, and spending it on consumer goods, religion faded and secular rationalism took over.

Weber wrote about how religion blocked similar progress in China and India. Both societies, however, have undergone revolutions since Weber did his scholarship in the early 1900’s.