ABSTRACT
Axial Age societies were concentrated in two places: the Mediterranean and Maritime East Asia. In the third Axial zone, the Ganges Basin, Buddhism began. Maritime East Asia has long been receptive to axial intellectual culture. The most improved parts of the tropics have been Southeast Asia and Central America, while extreme poverty in Central and Southern Africa has gotten worse. Peak modern societies are ‘automated societies’, that is, autonomous societies. In varying degrees, they are dominated by five self-organizing systems: industries, markets, cities, nuclear households, and publics. The Mormon divinization of the material, a classic paradox, parallels the Protestant spiritualization of work. Both are types of paradox that energize a material civilization. Many high-achieving Mormons come from modest backgrounds. The proposition is that religion becomes relevant to prosperity to the degree that it conveys a paradoxical metaphysics.
