Confucianism and Capitalist Development: From Max Weber and Orientalism to Lee Kuan Yew and New Confucianism

Using Said’s orientalism as an analytical framework, this article situates the contemporary Confucian revival within a longue durée of cultural discourse originating in the nineteenth century. From early European accounts such as Max Weber’s Religion of China to the contemporary New Confucian revival prominently championed by Lee Kuan Yew, this article highlights the historical persistence of culture as a catch-all explanation for the economic success or failure of societies. Such an analysis seems more relevant than ever with the growing popularity of Confucian-cultural explanations for China’s economic growth in the past decades.