Max Weber was Right about the Preconditions, Just Wrong about Japan: The Japanese Ethic and its Spirit of Capitalism

ABSTRACT

Max Weber claimed that while Protestantism provided the proper ethos necessary to spur capitalism, Eastern religions did not. Japan’s economic success has belied his hypothesis, and while there have been various theories explaining its rise, perhaps Weber’s own claims regarding the connection between embeddedness and capitalism best explain Japan’s rise. Simply put, Japanese capitalism was born and has evolved within a politico-economic-cultural context which has long encouraged hard work and asceticism, and which has had a rich 400-year plus history of entrepreneurship. Combined, these factors have constituted a Weberian-like Japanese Ethic which, along with its vaunted national industrial policy, has spawned and propelled its incredible economic growth since the late-19th Century. This article briefly chronicles the evolution of the three main tenets of the “Japanese ethic” – long working hours, high savings rates, and private, profitdriven entrepreneurship. In doing so, it shows how Weber was both right about the necessary embedded preconditions for capitalism, and wrong about Japan’s ability to cultivate such an ethic.

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