"At the present stage in human history, all the successful economies are rooted in European or Sino-Japanese culture" (47).
Now, I forget who brought this up first (or I have the courtesy not to name names) but someone mentioned the possibility of Protestant Christianity being at least part of the cultural path toward development.
I don't mean to be rude or to offend anyone who happens to ascribe to a Protestant faith, but this idea (Max Weber's idea) of the Protestant work ethic is nonsense. Although Weber was a Prussian (and later a German), the Protestantism of which he spoke was originally English and Dutch and this 'work ethic' was especially lauded by the Anglican British Empire: Rudyard Kipling, paragon of British imperialism, was quite the fan. His 'White Man's Burden' goes hand in hand with the Protestant Work Ethic. Weber's theory was part of the snobbish, upturned-nose attitude the English held regarding the Continent, foreigners and Catholics. The Protestant Work Ethic was, in Britain, code for insulting the 'lazy' people of France and Southern Europe (no more siestas and bunga-bunga parties, please). This pseudoscience (not dissimilar to Sir Francis Galton's class-based eugenics which suggested that genius and talent were inherited) served the sinister purpose of providing an excuse or reason for Empire.
Aside from the implications involved in citing the Protestant work ethic, we should know that this theory is not only morally reprehensible (though I am sure it was not intended as such by my classmate(s)), it is also incorrect. What does Protestantism really have to do with economic activity? The aforementioned Max Weber's thesis on the subject, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) compares Catholicism with puritanical Protestantism: where devotional Catholics reject worldly affairs, especially those of the monetary sort, Protestants were compelled by God to pursue Earthly goals. Similarly, the Protestants were forbidden to waste their earnings on luxuries and subsequently invested their unused piles of cash.
This mistakes a mixture of empty rhetoric and secular proto-capitalism for true religious devotion: if anything, Protestant fervor held Western Europe back. If we take the Protestants at their word and rely solely on scripture for guidance, we find that the Bible expressly forbids wealth of any kind. One recalls the incident in which Jesus was supposed to have cast the money-lenders out of the Temple, and anyone with a basic background in English Literature or scriptural studies will be familiar with Matthew 19:24: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God." Christ is well-known to have been impoverished by choice and eschewed worldly possessions: indeed, priests of nearly all modern and past Christian sects take a vow of poverty upon ordination (an apparently hypocritical vow, given the lavish marble and gold palaces of St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in London). Remember that it will be the meek (read: poor) who will inherit the Earth.
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| St. Paul's Cathedral and the London Stock Exchange, Paternoster Square |
Christianity, especially Christianity which stems directly from scripture, is anti-wealth and prosperity. All churches want their sheep to be poor and unlearned - God forbid someone teach them evolution or that condoms do not, as Mr. Ratzinger maliciously claims, increase the incidence of AIDS. To express this idea any more eloquently, I turn to the regrettably late Christopher Hitchens:
“...The central doctrine of Jesus of Nazareth: “Take no thought for the morrow. No investment. No thrift. No care for your children. That you should abandon your family. Not worry about construction, about investment, about anything. Just follow me.”
So then it is neither Protestantism nor Christianity generally which spurred Europe's development. The analogy of Promethean Fire is an apt one: Prometheus, despite his divine stature, is frequently cited as the arch-humanist. He (according to Greek legend and superstition) gave humans 'divine fire' and made us as good as the gods. We learn from Greek Mythology that the gods themselves are capricious, anxious, jealous, angry, shy, overconfident, lustful and flawed - just like us. Mankind is inherently capable of knowing morality without divine instruction and, more pertinently, capable of creating its own prosperous future.
The conclusion that must be drawn is one which stems directly from the enlightenment, the earliest stages of which coincided with the shattering of the mysticism of the Roman Church and the rise of Protestantism. Suggesting that Protestantism caused development is to miss the point: the 'virtues' of Calvinism and other sects had no bearing on economics, but the splintering of Catholicism which marked the beginning of the (long drawn-out) end for Western religion allowed for the enlightenment and for the spread of secularism.
Protestantism did have an important role to play in that respect: the Reformation, famously jump-started by Martin Luther, loosened the grip that the clerics held on the people of Europe. Though Protestant churches could be and often were quite brutal to those who questioned dogma, they were no where near as horrible as the Church in Rome. Indeed, Protestantism, for all its fiery rhetoric, was at least marginally more tolerant than Catholicism - what Protestant leader claims, as the Pope does, to be infallible? Similarly, Protestantism's own incoherence prevented the rise of a super-Church that could act as its Catholic counterpart did. Churches, in that sense, are economies of scale: the bigger you are, the better you are able to hold back the indefatigable tide of reason.
Were Protestantism allowed the same scope and strength as the Catholic Church, development would have been severely hamstrung. Of that we can be certain. We see the alternative in Islam, a still-young religion which has not gone through either a demystification or reformation. Protestantism did, at least, allow for the drawing back of the veil (I choose that word with purpose) which surrounded priesthood. Whereas the Bible (after much dissent from Rome (and by 'dissent' I mean 'violent reactionism')) has been translated into the vernacular, the Qur'an remains (at least officially) only in Arabic. Indeed, any translated version of the Qur'an found in the West must be printed side-by-side with an Arabic version - no exceptions. For a religion that purports to be universal (think how the Kyrgyz, Turks, Berbers, Persians, Indonesians, Pakistanis and Africans must feel when they learn their language is not quite good enough for the Prophet), Islam does anything but disseminate Allah's wishes. One is reminded of Jonathan Swift (author of Gulliver's Travels) via (once again) Mr. Hitchens: "We are the pure and chosen few / And all the rest are damned / There's room enough in hell for you / We don't want heaven crammed!" ("She wears short skirts / I wear t-shirts / She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers" is the other Swift, Taylor. Not to kill the tone or anything.)
Usury (or interest of any sort) is forbidden by Sharia and this restriction is enforced. Business equity stakes are allowed through a convenient loophole left by the Hadith, but banks in Islamic countries which ascribe to Sharia do not allow interest in the year two thousand and twelve (erstwhile of our Lord), ladies and gentlemen. If the Catholic Church had its way, as it did during the years of the Spanish Inquisition, interest would be forbidden in Europe as well: perhaps it is no wonder London, unchecked by the bleating, powerless sheep that is the Church of England, is and has been Europe's center of commerce since the decline of Amsterdam.
And that's the point: Protestantism's doctrines or virtues weren't the key to industrialization, even though the reformation did have a role to play in the breaking of the Catholic Church's monopoly. It was Protestantism's weakness and inability to stop the enlightenment (Lord knows the Churches tried). Yes, had Rome had its way, the enlightenment may very well have never happened: it certainly would have been delayed. To reiterate: the Protestant Reformation weakened Christianity as a whole and allowed for secularism to begin its rise. With secularism came moral, scientific and economic progress. The Church of England is frequently referred to and refers to itself as the 'middle way' between the puritan Protestants and the Catholic Church - the Via Media. Applied to Protestantism in general, that Latin phrase is especially pertinent: Europe has moved from Rome to Canterbury and finally toward civilization.
