The Protestant work ethic, for instance, functioned as sophisticated mechanism that encouraged population to care for the self, which served as an underpinning social activity for bourgeois capitalism.
The author has a detailed series of analyses which answer this question in terms other than the usual suggestions of nepotism, Protestant work ethic and sheer good luck.
The Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that influenced the development of capitalism and the industrial revolution.