Changes in Social Values: The Example of the Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract

Among about 170 nations represented in the United Nations, only some three dozen can be called industrialized societies. The question how certain variables must be lined up in order to allow societies to suddenly manage take off economically has been discussed over and over during the last century by economists and social scientists. The cases of some European countries, as well as that of the “European exclave” North America (which, after centuries of traditional economic behavior, developed new revolutionary forms during the 20th century), are regarded as challenges to our usual understanding of societal development. Max Weber, who epitomized the economic and sociological knowledge of his time, tried to give an answer to this challenge in his “Sociology of Religion”¹. Weber made the point that specific elements of the Protestant and, especially, the Calvinistic-Puritan belief systems created a societal value system which led to the economic takeoff of these countries. Later Alfred Müller-Armack tried to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the dependence of economic behavior on the value system created by the different forms of Christianity.²