A new sociology book looks at how a number of Silicon Valley leaders embraced religion as they also created a unique work culture:

Author and sociologist Carolyn Chen calls this philosophy “techtopia,” where “people find their highest fulfillment in the utopian workplace.”…

Chen’s research subjects are almost all men, and most are white or Asian. Eighty percent had moved from places outside Silicon Valley, marooned there without the support structures of family, friends or community. Chen describes them as “far from home, alone, young, impressionable.” Work is their only outlet to fill in the “meaning” gap…

While Silicon Valley may be the epicenter of experimental self-improvement (just check out how many tech workers fast or microdose psychedelics to achieve greater clarity or productivity), the “work as religion” philosophy has spread across the country. According to Chen, almost every Fortune 500 company has some kind of religiosity baked into its corporate structure — from inspiring mission statements to charismatic leaders — and many companies have actively gone “spiritual” to drive up the bottom line.

For the past 40 years, the workplace has successfully unseated religious institutions as a primary meaning maker, right after family, according to a recent Pew survey. High-income employees work longer hours than ever and are less likely to consider themselves religious, writes Chen. People who don’t have any religion — “religious nones” — have tripled in the past quarter century. At the same time, corporations have changed their strategies, using new incentive structures like gain sharing and stock options to bring people into the corporate “family.”

Going back to the early days of sociology, is the Silicon Valley marriage of religion and work more like:

1. Marx’s suggestion that religion is a tool used by the capitalists – who own the means and modes of production – to distract workers from the reality that they are being exploited.
2. Weber’s idea that religious ideas could transform economic systems; is this less about religion being connected to work and more about religion fundamentally changing work?
3. Durkheim’s argument that people will no longer need religion as humans embrace a brotherhood of people and progress.

There might be some merit to all of these. If humans are meaning-making creatures, they will continue to make meaning – and ultimate meaning – in the midst of their day-to-day realities. Yet, since we are right in the middle of this transformation, it is not certain that it will necessarily continue. Do American workers like the idea that work is the primary meaning-maker?