Before China, the likes of Japan (after the Meiji Restoration) and Newly-Industrializing Countries (NICs) of South Korea and Taiwan, during Post-World War II period, were able to emerge as global economic players, crucially without adopting Western religious values, but instead looking into certain elements within their own (Asian-Sinic) culture, which encouraged entrepreneurial spirit, adoption of Western technological infrastructure, and capitalist development.
In the case of China, we can clearly see how the country - in spite of its Confucian values - has come to not only match the industrial might of the West, but also gradually transform into the world's leading economy. Aside from (mistakenly) dismissing the Jewish people's entrepreneurial success and contribution to the expansion of capitalism, Weber, "was also mysteriously blind to the success of Catholic entrepreneurs in France, Belgium and elsewhere." To the contrary, Ferguson explains, "Much of the first steps towards a spirit of capitalism occurred before the Reformation, in the towns of Lombardy and Flanders while many leading reformers expressed distinctly anti-capitalist views." Ferguson cites at least two empirical studies that show a lack of a strong correlation between "Protestantism" and "economic growth." A more nuanced perspective, Ferguson explains, looks at how Lutheran thoughts on 'individual reading,' self-reliance, and education allowed its followers to take advantage of prior developments, gaining pace during the Renaissance, in technology - all culminating in the scientific revolution, which began in Protestant states, notably Scotland and England.
Nonetheless, as British economic historian, Niall Ferguson, puts it, Weber's analysis lacked correspondence with important facts and developments on the ground. Weber's work inspired a whole literature on the correlation between culture and development - a cottage industry that survives up to this date with much vigor. In his sequel to The Protest Ethic, Weber, in Confucianism and Taoism (1916), tried to differentiate between China and the West by examining how Confucianism emphasized 'adjustment' to the world, as opposed to Western rationality emphasizing 'mastery' of the world. Weber was not, however, confined to a comparative analysis between protestant and catholic states within the West. Even the colonies of Protestant states, on the whole, outperformed their Catholic counterparts. After the Reformation, the Protestant states, beginning in the 1700, clearly overtook their Catholic peers in economic terms, enjoying, on the average, a 40 percent edge in per capita income. The thrift, sheer hard work, communitarian values, and (religiously-grounded) appreciation for material prosperity among Protestants, Weber argued, explained their central role in pushing the boundaries of capitalism towards ever-greater strides in industrial output and financial success. In his seminal book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), Max Weber, widely known as the father of modern sociology, provided (arguably among the first and most compelling) arguments on the relationship (or correlation) between 'culture' and 'economic productivity.' As an established economic analyst, Weber was interested in understanding why protestant nations of the West - with the United States figuring on the top of his mind - emerged as not only the harbinger of capitalism - the epochal transformation in the means and scale of material production - but also the forerunners of industrial expansion and growth.
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