Where have the Calvinists gone? Our friend Steve Sailer has poked fun at godless capitalist's name a few times-noting that capitalism and godlessness tend not to mix well. This draws upon Max Weber's Catholic/Protestant (Calvinist) dichotomy. Steve says:

Godless Capitalist (I keep telling him that capitalism works better among the God-fearing who worry about the fires of Hell as well as the SEC, but, kids these days, they never listen)

But as this site from Gallup indicates, regional trends in religiosity aren't that clear cut in correlation toward capitalistic vibrancy. For instance, while North America tends to be rather religious, western Europe and eastern Asia tend not to be. On the other hand, Africa and Latin America are very religious (granted, it is not Calvinism that is dominant in these countries-in fact, one could assert than the secular nations of eastern Asia are more Calvinistic in their general outlook than the Christianity of either Africa or Latin America). And of course, we all know how religious the Islamic world is! If you want to look at regional trends, Canada is probably somewhat more secular than the United States, and less economically dynamic. On the other hand, northern Europe is more secular than southern Europe, and more economically dynamic. Within nations-the pattern can be even more complex. In certain regions of Europe-the working class is anti-clerical, while religious faith has a middle-class association. And yet the intelligentsia still tend toward secularism. In Chile-Latin America's "tiger"-the growing Protestant minority (who practice charismatic evangelical Christianity) tend to be the underclass, while an ostentatious conservative Catholicism is dominant among the political and economic elite (though the current president is an admitted agnostic). In almost every non-Islamic country, women are more active in religious life than men, and yet are invariably less affluent. In Germany, de-Christianized eastern Germany (Prussia) is destitute, while relatively pious Bavaria is prosperous. And yet the secular north German states, where the Protestantism is only marginally more active than that of the Prussian heartland, also contribute to German economic strength (North-Rhine Westphalia for example). Sociology is a tricky subject, and any two positions can be argued rather well by knowledgeable and articulate people. And that is one of the saddest facts of all.