It seems that your example points to a question of what could appear to be ethical / unethical behaviour as an external judgement for their actions. However, what prevents the store customers from walking away with goods without paying may be completely unrelated to morality, religion and capitalism at large. Here's a possible couple of scanarios:

(1) Some of the store customers are immoral, unreligious but are simply deterred by the presence of CCTV, in which case, they would fear being caught later on, and possibly reprimanded by the system. In this case, the previous assumptions do not hold,

(2) Some of the store customers may be deterred by the presence of a strong doorman who might break their bones,

Now I am not sure to what extent capitalism has been influenced by religion, but perhaps the idea of the market and the works of Adam Smith in his famous book: "the Wealth of Nations" may provide a starting point towards the journey of seeking an answer to your question.

Mohamed,

Perhaps I should have phrased the question differently. I guess a better question would be as follows. Can capitalism as we know it exist without the moral principles ascribed by religious teachings?

Thanks for your answer.

Dear Reginald,

Do we have any evidence that the moral principles you ascribe to capitalism have their origins in religion? because it is still evident that you assert the influence of religion on capitalism.

Dear Mohamed,

I've conducted a few studies that shows religious beliefs among college students are predictive of their perceptions of business scenarios. But, Max Weber should be credited with establishing the link between religious ideas and prosperity in a capitalistic economy. I don't assume the relationship, that has been established already. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber (1905) is where the idea "that societies having more Protestants are those that have a more developed capitalist economy." Talcott Parsons in 1930 translated the book into the English version.

I'm not merely begging the question.

I think it is valid to argue that people who don't steal items from the convenient store where they work don't steal for religious reasons. Just as your argument is valid when you say some people might not steal due to threat of physical harm or imprisonment; however, not stealing for these reasons does not preclude the argument that some (or most) people do not steal because of religious reasons.

You and I can agree that broad scale financial theft could destroy a capitalistic economy, as witnessed in the 2008 great recession when major banks engaged in lending behaviors that violate religious teachings.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism

Capitalism is, indeed, very much embedded in and with religion. Moreover, capitalism is the continuation of middle age theology through other ways.

But this is not new. Nearly all powers in the world have been intrinsically united to religion. Just names change. Reviewing history shed numerous examples about this.

Dear Reginald,

I very much thank you for detailing the background to the question. Indeed the authors you mentioned have their ideas anchored in religious belief. To what extent does capitalism draw its principles from religious belief? I beleive capitalism has changed significantly since Weber and Parsons...However, I may be seeing capitalism from a completely different perspective and context.

May I recommend the following book:

"The New Spirit of Capitalism" by Boltanski and Thèvenot.

Religion teaching can become a moral code-& fruitful guideline for any political line of behaviour in any part of the world the main end of politics for any country is for creating an overall human welfare for the people of the country .

Religious is a way of life - a method for practising for becoming a fine human being Whether captialism any code of practice reveling elsewhere ,religion has help for the people to carry out the action with the moral code of conduct under the practice of HONESTY -INTEGRITY -& SINCERITY .This practice will certain help you for guideline for evaluating the money namely MONEY IS WHAT MONEY DOES ''.What Money does is important not money itself .

This becomes the forum for providing general happiness to the people & with the practice of religion this would certainly spread the fragrance in the life.

Can capitalism as we know it exist without the moral principles ascribed by religious teachings?

You have two different levels in your question and your example The question is at the cultural or country level as stated.  You've already been directed to Max Weber. He most famously discusses Christianity relationship to capitalism but see also his work discussing Muslim countries as described in Max Weber and Islam edited by Wolfgang Schulter.

Your example is at the individual level and most easily addressed by religious scholars.  Of course, religion teaches us to behave morally according to our particular religion.

Inglehart and Baker discus the relationship between culture and economic growth and development.  All developed economies are capitalist democracies.  Nonetheless, I&B find that culture and religion are associated with economic growth and development in that countries tend to cluster based on religion.

Inglehart, Ronald and Baker, Wayne E., “Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of Traditional Values,” American Sociological Review, Volume 65, Number 2, Pages 19-51, 2000.

Professors,

These are very interesting remarks. This is important information to know. Does anyone know how deeply the correlation with religion might be with capitalism? Is there some sort of scale? Thanks.

See the I&B paper that is available online as a place to start looking.

Granting Weber's thesis some validity, I think inverted the question produces a more interesting and incisive level of reflection: to what extent are some forms of Christianity dependent on capitalism and its accompanying rationales? I mean, how is it that Jesus' message that "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven" has been so ignored?  Ah, by a massive misreading of the text, that says that the 'faith' of the rich man enables one to be rich, stay rich, and go to heaven.  But that ignores how Peter and the disciples respond to the story: "look, we have abandoned our possessions."  And Jesus say that this hard step, which is humanly speaking impossible, is what God enables through faith—not making money off of money, which the Law of God as articulated in the Torah, teaches to be evil, in banning taking interest from your own people.

Our Political system have been trying from the begining to establish the system of maximum happiness for the welfare of the people ,so to say for the establishment of welfare state.

Tried of the method just has Autocracy ,Socialism,Columnist.,Democracy have been try & implemented.

Religious countries of the world have from the same methods.To me Capitalism brings the surface & structure of Democracy ,which means government of people by the people,,& for the people.

People remain so to say a control & to make the ruler by electing parties.People have a free will &they can follow any practice of worship & religion .For the people said practice bring a peaceful environment of the country & happiness of the people.

As capitalism follows  the said gestures,but after winning the election  & occupying  the position of representative of rulers whether they would keep the norms & practice of goodwill for the people provided the also keep there mind pious & open.

If it is otherwise ,they will work & move  on Ivory tower with Ego for there status & standing ,& such cases .I would only quote ''Power Corrupts Power & Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.

So yes, If "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely", capitalism can be made to serve the general welfare (of a given society, of the world) only if there is a great power that, unlike corporations, has a great good in mind than corporate profit. What power besides that of government can check the greed that is the motive force of capitalist enterprises? And to make sure that government will control capitalism in the interest of the general good, that government must be genuinely democratic, i.e., it must contain safeguards that prevent the wealthy from influencing government for their private ends to the detriment of the general good.  In the USA, we have clearly not found the right balance (yet). Witness the power of corporations exercised through lobbyists, witness the ridiculous number of tax loopholes that allow both corporations and wealthy individuals from to escape tax burdens, the revenues of which could be applied to rebuilding infrastructure, etc. A government that doesn't exert a strong hand to minimize economic inequality ends up being a plutocracy!

Dear Reginald,

In one of my articles, I advanced the idea that greater religious freedom and liberty, the more individual wealth will be stimulated. Analyzing and interpreting them, I can conclude that the economic freedom variable is about 3.6 times higher than religious freedom in terms of individual wealth impact over time. But, what it seems extremely interesting and even intriguing for many is that religious freedom, as cultural bias towards different religious structures and institutions, is an important factor which stimulates the individual wealth.

From Max Weber onwards, there has been a long debate and concern about the impact of religion on economic behaviors. The dominant economic paradigm does not examine the impact of religion towards the process of economic growth. I have tried to prove in another article that the complex process of growth can be influenced or determined by religious factors (Thrift, Patience, Tolerance and Respect for other people). The main idea is that the process of economic growth, together with associated intangible components (type of "quality of life") are stimulated especially by Protestantism.

Even if Weber's theory may be subject to various criticisms, the relationship between Protestantism and economic progress is difficult to deny. In my PhD thesis and in other articles, I have developed a metacritical perspective on different approaches to Weber’s theory, trying to give, using empirical data and methodological tools, our personal interpretation of it. It seems that the theory is validated through my empirical model. I have shown that Weber’s analysis provides us with a model for better understanding the complex scientific tension between material and immaterial spheres that guide our world and, in particular, our behaviours. The main result from my empirical research seems to confirm the validity of Weber’s influential theory. It reminds the direct determination between the religious sphere and the economic domain through the moral and ethical channel, beliefs that shape the individual human action and provides superior economic outcomes. Although I cannot notice the fact that, gradually, the moral-religious root of Protestantism began to fade, the excitement and tension of searching the Kingdom of heaven were attenuated, while capitalism has grown increasingly cultivating, even up to excess, the economic effects of the movement, translated by a very earthly utilitarianism. Professional ethics and the consciousness of the beginning were altered, turning into speculation and greed. The spiritual-religious essence gradually disappeared to a great extent, remaining only the shell, a perverted social mechanics, from which many crises were born. For “man does not live by bread alone”...

Another paper of mine explores the relationship between religious participation, beliefs in the existence of Heaven and hell and a pattern of wealth accumulation. It follows from my finding that the frequency of participation in religious services does not affect or enhance the production of high economic results. The results verify the validity of Barro and McCleary’s theory, namely, the inverse relationship between the frequency of participation in religious services and the economic growth. People’s belief in the existence of Heaven and hell significantly influence the economic outcomes. The relationship between the aggregate factor of socio-economic development and the belief in the existence of hell is more notable than the belief in Heaven, but in the opposite sense. For the belief in the existence of hell, the effect is significant and is negatively correlated with the aggregate factor of growth. In the case of belief in the existence of heaven, there is no significant link between this variable and the aggregate factor of economic and social development. In this respect, I could say that religion directly influences the economic growth by identifying valuable incentives, by providing a set of ethics and moral information that may or may not spur the individual action towards material prosperity.

Dear Plopeanu,

Please give the citations or links to your papers so we can read them. Thanks for your answer.

Dear Reginald, 

These are some of my articles that I stressed about earlier in my answer:

1.  Aurelian-Petruș Plopeanu, Tiberiu Brăilean, Mircea Arsene - RELIGIOUS FREEDOM INDEXES, CULTURAL DIMENSIONS AND WELFARE IN EUROPE, Proceedings of EDULEARN12 International Conference, Barcelona, Spania, 2012, ISBN: 978-84-695-3491-5.

2. Aurelian-Petruş Plopeanu, Gabriela Bodea - RELIGIONOMICS, Review of Economic Studies and Research 'Virgil Madgearu', Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Year IV, No. 2, pp. 97-110.

3. Tiberiu Brăilean, Plopeanu Aurelian-Petruș, Chiper Sorina, CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON WEBERIAN ETHICS, European Journal of Science and Theology, December 2011, Vol.7, No.4, pp. 47-65.

4. Aurelian-Petruș Plopeanu, Mariana Gagea, ECONOMIC GROWTH AND RELIGION (I), Business Excellence, Proceedings ISI of the 6th International Conference on Business Excellence, Transilvania University of Brașov, Romania, Vol. II, 2011.

5. Aurelian-Petruş Plopeanu, RELIGION, FREEDOMS AND WEALTH, Review of Economic and Business Studies, Vol. 4, Issue 1, 2011, pp. 107-115.

If you don't find them all, please let me know.

I understand that your question has much to do with the idea by M. Weber, that protestant countries would grow economically because that was what their religion asked. However, in the middle ages and in the Renaissance, italian city states (Venice, Florence) were (are) catholic and however were the greatest capitalists of all times. So I would say that christian ideas match perfectly with capitalism.

Besides, it´s just a matter of human history, all the systems that quarrelled with religion finished badly. Religion is very very important for humanity, at least from my point of view.

Regards

Gustavo Concari

I agree with you Gustavo.

And I also think religion is a bigger deterrent to bad business behavior than the threat of fines or incarceration.