A contemplation on the cultural and work ethic of Iranians in the safavid era

In the Safavid era and especially during the reign of Shah Abbas І, series of actions and institutional reforms caused a huge change in trade and brought short-term commercial and economic prosperity. In fact, after many years, Iranian people experienced a period of economic prosperity, however short. But this prosperity was short term and the economic reforms of this period did not lead to long-term accumulation of capital and sustainable economic growth. In this regard, various viewpoints have been presented to explain it, which often considering the dominance and dependence on macro theories, emphasize structural factors such as despotism and tyranny of the Iranian society as an obstacle to sustainable economic growth in this period. Therefore, not much attention has been paid to the human actor and subject and the culture and attitudes ruling his mind. Therefore, in this research, an attempt has been made to investigate the culture and work ethic of Iranians in the Safavid era with the historical method and the technique of traditional content analysis of the sources of the Safavid period as an explanation for the lack of sustainable economic growth in this period. In general, the analysis of the data related to this era shows that the content of Iranian culture and work ethic in this period was such that it not only did not support the institutional reforms and short-term economic prosperity of the Safavid era, but also acted as an obstacle that acted against this economic boom.