Spiritual Capital in Comparative Perspective

For more than a century social scientists have grappled with the question of the role of religion and values in the creation of modern capitalism and democracy. Although it is only in the past twenty years that sociologists have begun to use the phrase “social capital” to describe religion’s role in these developments, the concept was implicit in the pioneering analyses of the great German theorist of modern economy and society, Max Weber. Influenced in his views of economic action by Austrian neoclassical economics, Weber believed that religion was the pivotal determinant of actors’ rationality and behavior. In his The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in particular, Weber argued that the values of independence, self-discipline, and inner-world asceticism nurtured by Protestant Christianity, especially its Calvinist variants, had played a central role in the development of modern European capitalism. Conversely, in his writings on religion and economic development in China, India, and the Muslim world, Weber argued that traditions indigenous to these regions had also created vast reserves of spiritual capital, but ones largely antithetical to the rationalities and achievements of modern capitalism. However perspicacious Weber’s insights, recent developments suggest that the questions underlying his analyses are anything but settled. A comparative research program investigating spiritual capital in different civilizations remains a matter of central intellectual and policy importance. This urgency is all the greater in light of the fact that, contrary to the forecasts of modernization theorists a generation ago, the past twenty years have seen an unprecedented religious revival in much of the world. The Islamic resurgence in Muslim countries; the diffusion of evangelical Protestantism across Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and even China; the rise of a militant Hindu nationalism in India; and the growth of new varieties of congregational Buddhism in East and Southeast Asia – these and other developments show that modernist forecasts of religion’s demise were premature, to say the least. Equally important, the recent course of global politics indicates that the spiritual capital engendered by these varied religious revivals differs, as do its implications for markets and democracy. These and other facts underscore the need for a sustained and cross-cultural investigation of spiritual capital. The remainder of this paper will outline the rationale for such a project in further detail.