The Traffic in Cairo and Max Weber

January 31, 2007

The current book for Freshman Studies is The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber. I was struck by an admittedly minor point, his description of the way a social system becomes self-perpetuating. One could ask: if certain varieties of Protestantism are largely responsible for capitalism as we know it.. then why are contemporary Catholics or Muslims so good at it? Weber dispenses a neat answer:

The capitalistic economy of the present day is an immense cosmos into which the individual is born, and which presents itself to him, at least as an individual, as an unalterable order of things in which he must live. It forces the individual, in so far as he is involved in the system of market relationships, to conform to capitalistic rules of action. [19]

In other words, once the social system is up and running Catholics and Muslims will be born into that system and will learn to live according to its ethos. The system itself is self-perpetuating.. and continues even after Protestants have stopped believing in the things that gave rise to that ethos.

This notion of the continuity of social systems provides a way of viewing some historical facts unrelated to capitalism. Take for instance the idea that something seminal in the American character was formed by the Puritans experience in the 17th century (a common notion). Numerically that might seem odd, since the Puritans that migrated to the United States would be numbered only in the thousands.. just a drop in comparison to the current 300 million Americans! Yet there is a certain competitive advantage to be had in instituting a system, namely: everyone that comes after you will to some degree conform to the dominant social pattern which you have set. So assuming growth is slow enough, a social system practiced by a handful of people may form the system of a much larger group.

This idea can be illustrated by a brief thought experiment relating to the traffic in Cairo (which is a mess). Below is a YouTube video (not by me) giving a glimpse of what this traffic is like:

What would happen if you took a couple of these Egyptian drivers and set them in the middle of Appleton, Wisconsin? Would the Egyptians continue to drive the way they do? My bet is no.. it might take a day or two, but before long these Egyptian transplants will be driving like Appletonians.. staying within the lines, stopping at traffic signals, and refraining from the kinds of exuberant risk taking that characterize Cairo driving.

Now extend this thought experiment. Say five Egyptian drivers and their families are relocated to Appleton every month.. what would happen? Each successive group of transplants will find themselves changing their driving habits and even after a couple of decades of monthly transplants, Appleton's system of driving will remain about the same.. even though a decent percentage of Appleton's population would be Egyptian.

This thought experiment could be reversed.. you could imagine Americans being dropped off in Cairo and told to make their way around Cairo by car. It might grate on them, but before long they would be driving like Cairenes. That is just the power of a social system. People do not commonly buck social systems.. they conform to them.

That is a fantasy situation.. but it illustrates the way 100 people could form the lifeway of 10 million people.. given a slow enough increase in population. The older system would perpetually hand off its rules and values to new arrivals. Interest in this idea should hardly be limited to national populations, but applies on a micro level to the social system at a fast food restaurant or large corporation. A social system perpetuates itself.. to the extent that even after one wave of employees has left, the social system remains the same.