How religion shaped modern economics
wsj.com
wsj.com
This is again some kind of whitewashing the history where Europeans seem to have invented everything and nothing ever happened before them.
Very well might not be the case here, but it was simply a thought that occurred to me.
> This is again some kind of whitewashing the history where Europeans seem to have invented everything and nothing ever happened before them.
My point is basically that this person seems to believe that our current problem is whitewashing history, whereas I would argue that we have an equally pernicious problem, wherein western civilization is made out to be uniquely responsible for problems that are actually found all over the world, and throughout history.
A couple examples:
1.) The 1619 Project is an attempt to reframe the defining characteristic of the US and its founding as being uniquely fixated around slavery. Despite it existing in a world in which slavery had existed in virtually every civilization up to and beyond that point. And more importantly, despite it being one of, if not the purest embodiments of liberal governance explicitly outlined up until that point, since which its constitution has served as the foundational text for countless other nations to come, as well as the basis by which the abolition of slavery and the subsequent civil rights movements would come to follow...perhaps its least interesting feature, in slavery, is elevated to the forefront of the nation's character. We are so far down this rabbit hole that during the George Floyd crisis, we had congresswomen making claims that the existence of POLICE in the US (again, a concept that exists virtually the world over), are simply downstream from government officials whose purpose was to catch runaway slaves.
2.) The various attempts to go after logic/mathematics/scientific method as being constructions of the western patriarchy, arbitrarily imposed upon other cultures. If you are unaware of this movement, it is an academic argument that suggests that "western science" and "western medicine" are equally valid as, say, shamanistic practices of other cultures, and that things like logic and mathematics are simply held to an arbitrary standard of correctness due to a western-centric view of the world. All the while failing to acknowledge that we use Arabic numerals, contributions of Islamic scholars in the invention of algebra, or that concepts like the Pythagorean theorem were very much un-arbitrarily and independently arrived at within multiple cultures. So without even getting into the non-arbitrary nature of the correctness of logic and mathematics, attempts at accusing western civilization of whitewashing and imposing their modes of thinking onto the world, there is a complete failure to understand the cultures that contributed to those modes of thinking in the first place. There is literally a whitewashing of how influenced western civilization is by other cultures, when accusing western civilization of actively erasing other cultures with its modalities.
Maybe it's a sophomoric point, maybe I'm not getting it across clearly. I'm just finding a pattern among the self-flagellation of the west, that there's a certain beauty that seems to be lost in reducing the complicated way in which the west fits into the web of historical and contemporary civilizations to basically be one of oppression and whitewashing. For all of the whitewashing that may occur, I am simply making the point that there exists just as pernicious an issue in which the west is not framed as uniquely good and benevolent, but the precise opposite.
- It can't be discounted as a mere "accusation" when it is a "fact" that western civilisation, where-ever it went, systematically and categorically 'erased' the indigenous, and I am not saying metaphorically.
I live in NZ and the history and injustice here have been bloody, like any European occupied colony. The Maoris still suffer from systemic oppression here.
The cultural whitewashing is something that has always been operating at the intellectual echelons of 'European/white supremacy', they usually move into the scene to carry their jobs, after the military/warlords/mercenaries have cleared the scene.
And trust me, I do get the point you are trying to make, but that doesn't apply here. Nor I am saying that ideas from other cultures shouldn't be subjected to valid criticism or that Europeans should bear the brunt for it.
And if you do study history of other colonies a bit, you will find that police in colonies like India was created to instil the fear and British dominance in locals, with guns and batons.
The police there hasn't been reformed even now and is still brutal, following the same standards set by the British.
So there is a degree of truth in that congresswomen's words.
What I mean is that our view of history is often written from a western perspective, and therefore biased in favour of western civilization.
As a consequence of this, when we learn that something we had previously thought to be true, might not actually be true, it is likely that the new information portrays western civilization in a less favourable light.
You can not talk about theories(Adam Smith) about ideal trade without considering geopolitical power. It was a free market within the British Empire for the British to benefit, but the British gave themselves the monopoly of trade with whatever they could monopolize by force, like India's trade.
There was not freedom of trade in India under British domination, remember the Salt March of Gandhi.
And just to be clear, economics <> capitalism <> free markets <> trade
https://www.amazon.com/One-Nation-Under-God-Corporate/dp/046...
> We're often told that the United States is, was, and always has been a Christian nation. But in One Nation Under God, historian Kevin M. Kruse reveals that the belief that America is fundamentally and formally Christian originated in the 1930s.
What a bizarre claim. Even the most cursory glance at historical documents would reveal this belief before the 1930s.
One such example (among innumerable others) is from Princeton Seminary professor Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology, published in 1895.
> Proof that this is a Christian and Protestant Nation
> The proposition that the United States of America are a Christian and Protestant nation, is not so much the assertion of a principle as the statement of a fact. That fact is not simply that the great majority of the people are Christians and Protestants, but that the organic life, the institutions, laws, and official action of the government, whether that action be legislative, judicial, or executive, is, and of right should be, and in fact must be, in accordance with the principles of Protestant Christianity...
https://books.google.com/books/about/Systematic_Theology.htm...
Of course, this view of the founders unravels pretty quickly when reading their personal writings or the federalist papers.
John Jay comes to mind, perhaps a second tier father but none the less a fairly 'orthodox' christian at least by american protestant standards.
My suspicion is that this book is motivated by the desire to undermine the Christian foundations of american to make further secularization 'natural' and 'in keeping with our foundational documents,' rather than the clear departure that it plainly is.
Professors are people too, with their biases and ideologies.
I myself am happy to bean increasingly secular nation, but I dont share the authors desire to erase the past
> While our Country remains untainted with the Principles and manners, which are now producing desolation in so many Parts of the World: while she continues Sincere and incapable of insidious and impious Policy: We shall have the Strongest Reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned Us by Providence. But should the People of America, once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another and towards foreign nations, which assumes the Language of Justice and moderation while it is practicing Iniquity and Extravagance; and displays in the most captivating manner the charming Pictures of Candour frankness & sincerity while it is rioting in rapine and Insolence: this Country will be the most miserable Habitation in the World. Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
"Madison's ideas on philosophy and morality were strongly shaped by Witherspoon, who converted him to the philosophy, values, and modes of thinking of the Age of Enlightenment. Biographer Terence Ball wrote that at Princeton, Madison
was immersed in the liberalism of the Enlightenment, and converted to eighteenth-century political radicalism. From then on James Madison's theories would advance the rights of happiness of man, and his most active efforts would serve devotedly the cause of civil and political liberty."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison
Ideas of Enlightenment and humanism are exactly the opposite of what the "corporate Christian" ideologists would like to sell everybody today.
Regarding the use of "religious" influence for political purposes, I also recommend the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Power-Worshippers-Dangerous-Religious...
A lot of hatred and discrimination to Irishmen ("Irish need not apply" times) was due to their Catholic faith.
Joe Biden is only 2nd U.S. Catholic President ever.
And there are to this day links in the US to hard-line protestants like Ian Paisley / DUP
A reviewer summarized it as follows:
> In One Nation Under God, Kruse argues that the idea of the United States as a Christian nation does not find its origins with the founding of the United States or the writing of the Constitution. Rather, the notion of America as specifically consecrated by God to be a beacon for liberty was the work of corporate and religious figures opposed to New Deal statism and interference with free enterprise.
https://www.amazon.com/Debt-First-5-000-Years/dp/1612191290
My TLDR for this thread: Capitalism is very old. Calvinists and Smith's views towards money, debt, etc. had many precedents. George Gilder's tortured rationalization that God endorses usury is probably unprecedented. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gilder#Wealth_and_Pover...
The significance of Smith is that he's where everybody learned these ideas from, not because the ideas are necessarily new with him. "Wealth of Nations" as much of an act of synthesis as it is an act of creation.
Two links:
His tribute to David Graeber - https://michael-hudson.com/2020/09/vale-david-graeber/
A summary of his book on debt cancellation in bronze-age societies - https://b-ok.global/book/4983733/12aafa?dsource=recommend
I've been wondering how to continue learning about the ideas Graeber's writings introduced to me.
Graeber's work puts me in the same frame of mind as Robert Wright (Nonzero, Moral Animal) did. Very optimistic.
Hudson's anecdote about Deaton refusing to appear on stage with them is hysterical.
For clarity, the idea was that the catholic church didn't control your afterlife through their priests and rituals etc so you didn't need the pope and the catholic church for salvation. Your salvation was independent of that. Which was initially thought of as predestination ( names written in the book of life stuff )
Under Catholicism, the church enjoyed a monopoly over interpreting and proclaiming the word of God. The Catholic Church secured this monopoly by encoding the bible in Latin, and requiring priests to know Latin before they could participate in religious dissemination, the source of which was the Vatican.
Protestantism, enabled by the printing press, changed the locus of control to parishes, and ultimately, to individuals.
Rome no longer held a broadcast monopoly on the word of God. Suddenly, the bible was in English. And German. And French. And Dutch. And Belgian. And American. It was possible for congregations to roll their own sermons, without instruction from the central authority. It was even possible for an individual preacher to break the shackles of the institution by speaking his own interpretation of the bible to his congregation.
From the article:
> Americans still have a profound faith that our individual destinies are in our own hands. That’s why many people who have only the remotest prospect of ever making their way into the top income-tax bracket nonetheless favor keeping that tax rate low, and why people who have no chance of inheriting money from a taxable estate passionately oppose “death taxes.”
I’d agree about dispensationalism, but it’s a stretch to say that people shouldn’t study the Bible by themselves just because an errant doctrine may enter their head. I mean, look at all the errant doctrines of Rome, it hasn’t helped them any.
The Bible has always been more of a political powerplay than a coherent text. It can literally be interpreted convincingly to support any moral position, from slavery and genocide of unbelievers to soup kitchens for the poor.
It's the ultimate meta-text - a patchwork of absolute inconsistency, which makes it possible for anyone with a yearning for political power to cherry pick from it for an effective Proof by Authority gambit.
And so all Christians invariably believe their own personal interpretation is the correct one and all other interpretations are more or less obviously wrong.
And some will literally fight each other violently over this.
A moment's thought should suggest there's something a bit strange and unconvincing about this.
Interestingly, most of the requirements around latin from the Church came about during the counter reformation. Before that, it was the humanists pushing to standardize around latin as a common language.
In our case here now, this is an example of the liberation of information and thought continuing to progress right up to the invention of the internet, and then HN, and now this thread.
The original documents were Koine and Aramaic with translations into Coptic and Latin, but you do realize that for most of history, this was taught to primarily illiterate people, most of whom spoke languages derived from Latin, right?
So it's not like the Vulgate was some grand conspiracy here. It was one of the oldest translations and they simply didn't keep translating it further because the idea was that people should be taught before going around instructing others. Given some of the tortured interpretations from people who founded doomsday cults and whatnot, it's not like they didn't have a point.
The fact that people were speaking languages related to Latin is irrelevant, because most people weren't allowed to read either the Vulgate or the original texts. So the Church had a monopoly on interpretation for a millennium or so, and this was the foundation of its political influence at every level.
So your argument is undermined by the fact that this power dynamic started to fall apart as soon as translations into other languages became available.
It started to fray during the Renaissance when contact with Classical and Islamic ideas began to dilute the narrative. But political power remained centralised until the original texts were translated into German.
The fact that it was Martin Luther who translated them just makes the point more obvious.
>> Americans still have a profound faith that our individual destinies are in our own hands. That’s why many people who have only the remotest prospect of ever making their way into the top income-tax bracket nonetheless favor keeping that tax rate low, and why people who have no chance of inheriting money from a taxable estate passionately oppose “death taxes.”
Wouldn't you say it's a bit one-sided to attribute all support for lower income/inheritance tax rates to naïve/aspirational optimism? I'd say most people in this group are well aware that their odds of making it into the top income brackets are slim; but even so they still feel that it's fundamentally wrong to steal from people, even ones who are currently better off than they are, in hopes of slightly improving their own circumstances. I also think they understand (far better than certain political economists, at any rate) that the existence of others who are wealthier than themselves is no threat to their own well-being, and that we're all better off helping each other to improve rather than dragging down anyone who dares to get ahead.
Hey let me tell you about how a sports rule (3 strikes and you're out) became a judicial and informal rule instrument.
Other countries of course have a progressive warning/penalty system but not indiscriminate like 3 fouls (of any level) and you're out.
AFAIK, Calvinism is alone among Christian denominations in making that prejudgement.
It's cognitive dissonance.
Actually that doesn’t pose any kind of cognitive dissonance to more mainstream economists since they know what role the state must play in a capitalist economy. Which is not “leave it be”.
The state is a protection racket. They claim to exist to defend you—mostly from other states, or other entities that do pretty much exactly what states do with without the false veneer of "legitimacy"—but in the end the only real threat to your life and property if you don't do as they demand comes from the state itself. Unfortunately they're a popular protection racket, with a large emphasis on PR and propaganda, so if you try to stand up for yourself your own neighbours will turn on you rather than joining you.
Capitalism is the practical expression of individualism.
There are ways for individualist thought to develop without religion, but it just happened that christianity had already given the west an individualist viewpoint and it was easier to accept the values of capitalism and individual freedom this way.
Sure, now there's a big pushback against individualism, but it was good while it lasted.
“When two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20
Moreover, "Render unto Caesar things that are Caesar's" avoids any kind of confrontation between personal worship and fulfilling duties to the secular government.
Arguable. For example look at Acts 2:44 which reads "All the believers were together and had everything in common." Or Luke 3:11 which states "Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same."
In fact, there is an entire ideology referred to as [Christian communism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_communism)
Charity is not collectivist or non-capitalist.
Acts 5 paints a rather different picture, with the threat of being struck down where you stand for holding out being the ultimate cudgel.
5 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.
3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”
To point out the salient quote, "Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?" The reason for the death was lying. It was lying to the community. It was lying to look good to community, but in fact not having its interests at heart.
This also stands as evidence that Christianity, while wholeheartedly communialist is not communist nor socialist as defined Marx or Engles. The State, i.e. the Church/Apostles, does not lay claim to the means of production or personal/private property. It asks for charity. Communism has the State own everything. If anyone doesn't fall in line, they're killed.
A capitalist Jesus would have offered loaves and fishes to a few followers then opened a restaurant after the buzz spread.
In fact Jesus came from Galilee, the working/merchant class area. Generally the more capitalist area. He spoke a lot about money, but all of the vitriol was aimed at Judeans, who were close to Jerusalem and politically connected. I.e. ones who didn’t necessarily get their money from usual hard work, but through political exploitation. Good podcast on it here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wROu4IPB4bQ
True, but only the market-driven transactions are capitalist.
>He spoke a lot about money, but all of the vitriol was aimed at Judeans, who were close to Jerusalem and politically connected. I.e. ones who didn’t necessarily get their money from usual hard work, but through political exploitation.
Jesus said it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. He didn't make an exception for those who earned their fortune "honestly." He constantly told people to give all of their possessions away to the poor and abandon their individual identities and ambitions to the extreme of even attending their families' funerals ("let the dead bury their own dead.") He said "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
The goal of capitalism is the accumulation of material wealth, which is clearly at odds to what Jesus and the early church were trying to preach.
No, this is an imbalanced view. Listen to the podcast linked, it was directed at Judeans.
I’m not saying that individuals shouldn’t be wary of holding wealth up as the most important thing as Jesus said you cannot serve God and mammon. But that’s a different thing entirely from “how do you get wealth to begin with”. One can become wealthy in an honest way and then be quite generous if he serves God instead of mammon.
Also not laying up treasures speaks to what one should do when they have money, not the system by which they got money. Coming from Galilee, I think he’d be more pro-free market since he railed against the politically connected who got their money through corruption.
Also there’s a time and a place to take care of the poor voluntarily, but don’t trust everyone whose says they care for the poor. You should donate to them out of your own heart, and be wary of centralized programs. Socialism is the Judas Iscariot view of economics: pretend to care for the poor and then line your own pockets.
Be sure to read the whole story there. Ananias and Sapphira come shortly after that part and you'll soon get to the verse saying "those who do not work shall not eat."
They did indeed live communally for a while, but it didn't work out very well and it didn't last.
Ok, I did.
> Ananias and Sapphira come shortly after that part
Yup they do.
> you'll soon get to the verse saying "those who do not work shall not eat."
Nope, I don't. Where is it exactly?
Christians groups have historically has values from pretty much maximally communitarian to maximally individualistic, which interpretation a Christian views as the correct view as Christianity will naturally correspond pretty exactly to that Christian’s own preferences.
Are Christian values inherently individualistic? Sure, to an individualist who is also a Christian. To a Christian who is communitarian, the opposite will be seen as true.
Absolutely not. The largest church is catholic and their are really big on obeisance. They monasteries are literal opposite of "expression of individualism" and so are expectations on their priests.
And that trickles down to every level.
"Fill the earth", "subdue it", "rule over <every creature here>" = Habitat loss for every other creature = Anthropocene extinction.
But you cannot talk about this, because it's in the Bible, even if we all die from starvation in 100 years.