Religion, Values, and Capitalism in Asia

Syed Farid Alatas

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2650599

Abstract

The question of the relationship between religion and other phenomenon that come within its conceptual and semantic field, such as values, the one hand, and modern economic development, the other, occupied the minds of scholars since the last century. While this was first dealt with theoretically and sociologically by lhn Khaldun in the fourteenth century AD, it was taken up again in systematic fashion by European classical social theorists in the nineteenth century.

Highlights

The question of the relationship between religion and other phcnome n · that come within its conceptual and semantic field, such as values, '1!1 the one hand, and modern economic development, 011 the other, h~1' occupied the minds of scholars since the last century. \x'./hile the issw· was first dealt with theoretically and sociologically by lhn Khaldun in the fourteenth century AD, it was taken up again in systematic fashinn by European classical social theorists in the nineteenth century
The l0g:i'''I step was to define Asianness in order that the ~lem~nts tl1:'t distinguished Asian from Western civilization could be_1de_nt1~ecl :1'_1·1 made to constitute theoretical accounts of moderntzatton 111 Ae1:i, As a result, from the late 1960s onwards, several works
I do not suggest that there is no such thing as "Asia" or "Asian values"

Summary

CHAPTER 4

Another aspect of Weber's work on the Protestant ethic that w;nP 11 t c more serious attention is the question of unanticipated consequenceFor example, against the commonplace view that Confucianism hinderc·'.l capitalist development, could one suggest that it may liave lv"·n an unwitting impetus to capital accumulation as Confw:iani't ''': craftsmen and merchants tried to "buy" their way out of their occupori: H 1 and to place themselves in a less despised class? Such questions cannot be answered without empirically oriented research to which the prevailing textualism and other problem remain as obstacles

Conclusion

Findings

The Predicament of Mo ermzation in as '