Also, since the mid 60s pop culture has embraced the slacker as being hip and cool.
They guy and gal trying to get ahead are portrayed as greedy or at best blindly joining a rat-race forgoing more noble pursuits. Not so for many other cultures.
I think the same it true for most of Latin america, where many of my friends and colleagues are from. And when I was in Nepal they thought that, if anything, western people are way too much focused on gathering wealth.
Islam specifically rejects hoarding wealth, so I think that pretty much takes out most of the middle east and northern africa.
So I'm curious which other cultures you are referring to. Perhaps specifically Indian and Chinese culture?
Islam specifically rejects hoarding wealth, so I think that pretty much takes out most of the middle east
Full disclosure, I worked in Dubai for 2 years(as a disenfranchised expat), working closely with guys from above mentioned countries. I install heavy machinery.
It's true some are treated poorly, but most are there genuinely there out of free will, because they make buckets of money to send back home. One Pakistani foreman I worked with had stashed away 250k Dirhams and was going back home to start his own business.
The gulf states can/could be an opportunity for the poor, see Bin Laden family for a famous example.
More than criticizing the gulf states for using these people as cheap labor, the criticism should be aimed at their corrupt governments not giving opportunities to their own population. Ironically they are not even allowed inside Europe and the US.
FWIW my experience in Dubai changed my views on the region to a much more nuanced one.
The Gulf countries became wealthy because of oil. They don't really hoard that wealth though. They are pretty famous around the world for investing that money, no? They fund universities (with many Gulf countries having their own outpost of NYU or other such prestigious colleges), arts and arts museums (there is a Louvre in the Middle East), tech startups, and of course invest in tourism to diversify their country.
They also have many horrible qualities, which are 100% not condoned in Islam like employing slaves in deadly conditions even though all nations agreed to abolish slavery years ago. Or confiscating the passports of foreign workers. Or their ethnostate mentality (similar to Israel where citizens must be of a specific blood lineage even though the majority of people living in their nation are not of that lineage). I could go on and on.
Anyways, Tl;Dr, I don't think they really hoard wealth. They do spend and invest in the world around them and find lots of charitable things (they have rebuilt Palestine a few times now, a very costly endeavor). Also, being Muslim doesn't mean they don't do anything morally wrong by that religion's standard. Same as the many charlatan "priests" of various religions in the world.
Like many religion it emphasises the importance of being good, and doing good, to enjoy the rewards of that in the after life (i.e. it teaches delayed gratification). But it also recognizes that advocating its adherent to forego all wordly attachment and live like a saint is also not practical for society. Thus, it also pragmatically says that a muslims doesn't have to wait for the afterlife to enjoy the rewards of good deeds - God has given humans the ability to enjoy certain pleasures in life, and achieve a higher sense of spiritual enlightenment, and that too depends on the good deeds you do in this life:
Whoever does good, whether male or female, and is a believer, We will surely bless them with a good life, and We will certainly reward them according to the best of their deeds. (Quran 16:97)
More here: https://islamqa.info/en/answers/12702/is-there-reward-for-go...
That is why no muslim needs to feel guilty about the wealth they have inherited or earned provided it is done through honest means, without hurting others, and they also follow the Islamic obligations of Zakat (charity). This charity is how socialism works in Islam. Islam says that the wealth of the world doesn't belong to anyone but God. And wealthy muslims (and rulers) are just custodians of his wealth. And God commands the wealthy to share their wealth with the poor, and prescribes how this should be done (annually 2.5% of your wealth should be given to the poor and needy). Even here, Islam is very practical - it recognizes how human nature is often suspicious of helping strangers, and thus says to look for people within your own family, your own friends, your own neighbourhood, your own muslim community etc. (i.e. your own social circles) to do this kind of charity.
More on this: https://thequranrecital.com/zakat-obligatory-charity-explain...
And this kind of wealth creation, with charity, is seen in the middle-east, amongst all these middle-eastern countries you mentioned.
Interestingly enough the same forces are at work in kerala, which is one of the most Christian states in India (and the ruling communists are associated with them)
Prior to the mid 60s seeking betterment and wealth was one of the main reasons people migrated to the US replacing religious persecution back home as the main reason to come.
Kerala did not become wealthy from socialism, it became literate and land reform lifted many out of poverty. The actual wealth started accumulating when Keralites took advantage of opportunities to work abroad and send remittances home. That has been a major economic driver for the state and India as a whole, but they did it long before others did, largely because land reform gave people a safety net to fall back on so they could risk going abroad to earn more
I would suggest God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican as for a pop-culture introduction of how the Catholic church aligned itself with fascist states including Mussolini's PNF, the Nazis and the Ustaše.
The Ustaše were particularly closely associated with the Catholic church.
India is so far removed from Europe that things work a bit differently.
The keralites were not communist the way European countries were
If you ask me about communism, I would say its effects were kind of bad - overseas remittence came in as gulf nations flourished but for others from 60s till end of 90's economic opportunities were bleak. It came in power around 1956 in Kerala and a lot of privileged christians migrated to US in the following decades - with the christian cultural background they have, they integrated really well in that society.
Secondly, Catholics are often setting up schools for everyone. India has always had a history of education, especially Kerala, but universal education of even the lower classes is extremely protestant. The church ended up adopting this around the time colonialism started and thus brought universal education to a widespread base in India.
Finally, the idea of touching everyone and treating them equally was against the general zeitgeist of the prevailing feudalistic highly hierarchical indian society. The first conversion attempts of the Portuguese for the south indian brahmins actually were incredibly successful (Nicholas of Tolentino). The Vatican even allows (and still allows as far as I'm aware, although no one does it) vedic rites for Catholics (malabar rites controversy).
However, no one wanted to give up untouchability. The Vatican eventually forced the missionaries to not have separate missions for touchables and untouchables, which basically ended Brahmanic conversions (and is one of the reasons indian Catholics no longer really care to do the vedic rites, since most are now from the lower class. As far as I know, some still do in Mangalore). Caste is still a problem in some christian communities in India but the bishops work to end it and it is officially condemned.
Which is to say, catholicism is associated with labor movement, equal social treatment, and universal education.
Which is also what the communists want.
It's no surprise that Kerala, being way more christian (and Catholic particularly) with a rich and prominent Christian history is thus the center of socialism.
Keep in mind also that communism in feudal countries has basically no relation to the communism you find on university campuses of america.
Now to the west. In the west, the church is seen as conservative, but the church is actually radically left wing in most parts of the world. It's only because leftism (in a global sense) is fundamentally a part of western culture that the church seems right wing because the church does not go as far as some leftist parties in the west.