Reviews for Confucian capitalism

The average rating for Confucian capitalism based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-03-02 00:00:00 Graeme Jenkins I think you could get away with reading just chapter five of this one - that is where the guts of the argument is. It is not that the rest of the book is completely uninteresting, but it is much less interesting. It is in this final chapter that the real thesis is worked out. A thumbnail version goes like this. There appears to be lots more Protestant capitalists than there are Catholic ones. Also, Protestant countries tend to be more economically developed than Catholic ones - so why? Marxism would say that people's ideas are a manifestation of the economic structure they find themselves in, but Weber believes this is only partly true, although he starts off strongly opposed to Marxism, in the end he is much less certain of the limits of the role of economics in providing the base for these ideas to flourish.. All the same, he believes that there is something in Protestantism that makes Capitalism more or less inevitable and that is not present in Catholicism. Now, given the countries picked - Italy and Spain on the Catholic side, Northern Europe and England on the Protestant side, you could possibly argue that living in a country with an incredibly bad cuisine is the problem. But Weber focuses on religion. In the last chapter he says that extreme Protestant views run something like this - God has a perfect plan which he worked out at the dawn of time. There is nothing you can do to change this plan. You don't deserve to be saved - no one does (we are all contemptible sinners and it is only God's grace which saves us in any sense). You cannot know you are saved. The only way you might 'guess' is if God rewards you. So, if you work hard and gain riches you are obviously in God's favour and therefore you might also be saved. Spending money is a sin. So, Calvinism and other extreme sects encouraged people to work hard and not to spend - prerequisites for the growth of Capitalism. Now, that bit is the bit this book is mostly known for. But what I found interesting was the idea at the very end that becoming increasingly wealthy - like Silus Marner - also leads one to become increasingly obsessed with secular interests, not least in increasing ones own wealth to the point of a fetish and to become obsessed with worldly goods, rather than heavenly ones. So, while Protestantism is seen as a kind of prerequisite for the early development of Capitalism, ironically enough, Capitalism does not return the favour and works to undermine the extreme forms of this faith that assisted its own development. Interesting stuff.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-01-17 00:00:00 Mimi Shkalim One of the central disputes in Protestantism had long been that between the Calvinists and the Arminians. The Calvinist believed that every person had been chosen by God in the beginning to be either saved or damned, and that there was nothing anybody could do to change his decision. These “elect” individuals could not be certain of their salvation, but they might be identified by their tendency to live lives of piety and goodness. In contrast, the followers of Arminius thought that each individual could hope to gain salvation by repenting his sins and by asking God to bestow his Grace. In the United Kingdom, Calvinism was centrally been found in Scots and Ulster Presbyterianism, while Arminianism had ruled among Anglicans and Methodists. From the great revivals of the 1850s steadily until the Great War, this great divide began to dissipate. A new division was emerging between “liberals” and “conservatives”. Nevertheless, the old disputes limped on, still quite strenuously among Ulster Presbyterians who fought a bitter if obscure theological battle over church music. So when a list of “fundamental principles” was formulated to unite conservative Christianity, these American “fundamentalists” tiptoed carefully to avoid stirring up the old dispute. They made no mention of individuals turning to or putting trust in God, and no mention of predestination. Weber’s most famous study has its focus in the Calvinists. Calvin established a new kind of saintliness for merchants and artisans living first of all in Geneva, but later in London, Amsterdam and Edinburgh and then further afield. The piety of the Calvinists had strong echoes of an older piety found in the best of the monasteries. Like the monks, the life of a dutiful Calvinist was one of hard work and diligence, frugality and seriousness with little frivolity. Since everything was pre-ordained, this life of obedience and frugality could not be hoped to bring salvation. Rather, it was a mere subservience to God’s Law which, in Calvin’s system, replaced the Rule of the great monastic leaders. Calvinism also claimed the right of the Elect to rule over the non-Elect in a theocratic political system. The monks, in pursuing pious obedience, poverty and chastity had inadvertently made their houses and their orders rich. So it was with the pious businessmen. They too lived frugally and worked hard. Without really intending to, the Calvinists made themselves and their households rich. This was the so-called “Protestant ethic” identified by Weber as giving birth to capitalism. After the Great War, Calvinism slipped finally from view, overtaken, diluted and absorbed by the Arminian doctrine that now became Protestant “conservative” or “evangelical” orthodoxy. Protestants conservatives were now universally enjoined to turn to God, to confess their sins and put their trust in a God who would reciprocate by offering salvation. The few people who still called themselves Calvinists merely emphasised the last part of this process, the positive activity of God. There were still other movements within Protestantism, the enlightened theology of the Quakers or the Unitarians, for example, and the High Church found in Anglicanism, both of which, however, were more important as belonging to the liberal camp. But it was now a different theological world.