Comparative analysis of the work ethic in four religious traditions and its impact on economic and social organization: from Judaism to the Baha'i Faith

Abstract

This article starts from the hypothesis developed by Max Weber that the different conceptions of work underlying religious worldviews have a decisive impact on forms of economic organization and social action. Part one: how the tradition of writing and study among Jews led to their high intellectual level in the Middle Ages and to the rise of intellectuals and artists now. In the second: how Christianity preserved in the monasteries the knowledge, the work and the art, to evolve in a different way in the Protestant and Catholic Europe. The third part will analyse how the Koran promoted the sciences and the economy in the first centuries of Islam and why Puritanism led it to a progressive decline. Finally, the ideological presuppositions of Bahá'ís that favour them in facing the challenges of globalisation.