ABSTRACT
Religion is per se non-social as its beliefs and values typically refer to a metaphysical reality that cannot be validated through the senses. However, religion may, when practised on a large scale, have important social consequences. Max Weber devoted several studies to the analysis of the economic consequences of religious beliefs. Weber presents the Occident as a civilisational or historical subject, or as a country variation to be studied comparatively: country-wise, region-wise, according to religion or according to time period. One may claim that these are different kinds of Occidentalism in the texts of Weber. Contemporary forms of authority reproduce classical forms in the Moslem countries. The Weber thesis searches for the roots of one aspect of modernity–the market economy–within religion.
