Culture 250 Years from Now

When reading Max Weber’s “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” it’s easy to see how much emphasis he puts on culture as being directly correlated to the amount of economic success seen in a particular state/region of the world. He makes it clear that he believes the “West” has it right when it comes to just about everything from art to architecture to math to economics. One could argue that he’s a little biased in his treatment of the “East,” but he does bring up some interesting questions regarding the importance of culture on the success of a state’s economic system. I’d like to discuss whether or not culture will have as pronounced of an effect on a state’s economic system 250 years from now as Weber believed it did in 1920.

I argue that a state’s culture will have an increasingly minimal effect on a state’s economy going into the future. The world is becoming much more global and we have the technology and transportation infrastructures in place which allow us to be in any country in the world within hours if need be. More people are traveling and living abroad than were back in 1920, and that trend won’t stop. The more people are exposed to other cultures, the more they incorporate some of the “foreign” customs they’ve picked up into their own lives. Looking forward 250 years from now, more of the world may look a bit like New York City or London in terms of being a giant “melting pot” of cultures. I fully expect that national/regional cultures will still exist, but they may just not have as much as a profound impact as Weber believed they did in 1920.