Whereas Karl Marx contended that ideology and ethics were no more than reflections of underlying material conditions – in particular economic conditions – Max Weber in his ‘Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’ made the case for the existence of quite the reverse relationship. He considered that it is the ethic that is given, and any type of economy which necessitates the people's possessing an ethos incompatible with that ethic will not develop; rather the emergence of an economy compatible with this ethic is inevitable. It was from this standpoint that Weber examined the world's major religions.

Weber's conclusions concerning Confucianism can be summarised as follows. They are that Confucianism, like Puritanism, is rational, but that there exists a fundamental difference between the two in that whereas Puritan rationalism has sought to exercise rational control over the world Confucian rationalism is an attempt to accommodate oneself to the world in a rational manner. Furthermore, Weber concluded, it was exactly this sort of mental attitude among Confucianists that was a major factor in preventing the emergence of modern capitalism in China.

Despite this judgement Weber observed: ‘The Chinese in all probability would be quite capable, probably as much as if not more capable than the Japanese, of assimilating capitalism which has technologically and economically been fully developed in the modern culture area.’ It must be said, however, that the ideology of Japan, or at least the most important of Japan's ideologies, is also Confucianism. Since Weber made very few positive observations on Japan, it is not at all clear, at least from his ‘Confucianism and Taoism’, whether or not he himself considers Japan to be a Confucian country.