Prospering under people and systems where humans are the ultimate arbiters of right and wrong is and always has been dicey given the vagaries — and the very well-known dark sides — of human nature. Bottom line — I don’t and can’t fully trust any system or person whose final judge of good/evil is themselves and who believe in no sense of accountability other than to themselves. “To thine own self be true”? Bullshit — that’s one of the the main problems with this world. People are true to themselves and it’s not a standard measure.
What makes economies grow? It’s a question that has occupied thinkers for centuries. Most of us would tick off things like education levels, openness to trade, natural resources, and political systems.
Here’s one you might not have considered: hell.
A pair of Harvard researchers recently examined 40 years of data from dozens of countries, trying to sort out the economic impact of religious beliefs or practices. They found that religion has a measurable effect on developing economies – and the most powerful influence relates to how strongly people believe in hell.
Consequences baby. We’re not afraid of each other because nihilists think this all there is so how can anyone really be afraid of anyone else — what does it matter? Ditto Buddhists, Hindu, Marxists, Hegelians, Kantians, and whatever stripe of self-justifiers abound. This is all there is so I can either hunker down and live a comfortable existence or I’ll just wait for that big wheel to come back around and I’ll get another go around ’til I get it right. I have my opinion on that line of thinking but whatever — it is death on economic growth — why does this all matter when there’s no reward or punishment that lasts longer than my brief sojourn on this rock? Why invest in a future or avoid one that doesn’t exist or matter in my worldview? It makes perfect sense to become a fat lazy socialist in the State of Huxley.
Among the most provocative findings have come from Robert Barro, a renowned economist at Harvard, and his wife, Rachel McCleary, a researcher at Harvard’s Taubman Center. McCleary, the daughter of a Methodist missionary, felt that she had seen religion change people’s economic behavior, and wondered why economists didn’t look at it as a potential factor in economic development. Barro found the idea intriguing.
The two collected data from 59 countries where a majority of the population followed one of the four major religions, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism. They ran this data – which covered slices of years from 1981 to 2000, measuring things like levels of belief in God, afterlife beliefs, and worship attendance – through statistical models. Their results show a strong correlation between economic growth and certain shifts in beliefs, though only in developing countries. Most strikingly, if belief in hell jumps up sharply while actual church attendance stays flat, it correlates with economic growth. Belief in heaven also has a similar effect, though less pronounced. Mere belief in God has no effect one way or the other. Meanwhile, if church attendance actually rises, it slows growth in developing economies.
McCleary says this makes sense from a strictly economic standpoint – as economies develop and people can earn more money, their time becomes more valuable. For economic growth, she says, “What you want is to have people have their children grow up in a faith, but then they should become productive members of society. They shouldn’t be spending all their time in religious services.”
That last part seems a bit of an outlier. Most Christian religious traditions only require or encourage a few (2-4?) hours per week — hardly much — especially if it’s an overall societal benefit.
Of course, belief might just spark behavior that affects economic growth, rather than causing the growth itself. Charles M. North, an economist at Baylor University, argues that private property protections developed by the Church to guard against both secular rulers and the grasping popes and bishops of the medieval church gave Catholic – and eventually Protestant – nations stronger protections for individual rights than other nations, creating incentive for individual success. Similarly, literacy seems clearly connected with economic development, and mass literacy is a Protestant invention, says Robert D. Woodberry, a sociologist at University of Texas at Austin. He has mapped how missionaries spread literacy, technology, and civic institutions, and finds that those correlate strongly with economic growth. He argues in part that this helps explain why the once-poor but largely Protestant United States surpassed rich, Catholic Mexico after 1800.
This last part seems right to me also. And as always this is just resurrecting prior debates by the likes of Toynbee and others that became politically incorrect due to their colonial heritage. Anyway — read the whole thing. I haven’t digested it all yet myself. How far it goes too is an interesting question. Obviously at a micro level individuals prosper who do not fear any afterlife consequences and many of course abide by rules, play fairly and morally with their fellow-citizens, etc. Are the beliefs broad enough to leaven the whole of society — the “salt of the earth” as it were?
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I remember how, back in college, I was appalled and disgusted by the academics’ contempt for the “Protestant Work Ethic.” I never figured out why it was a bad thing to work hard and save your money. Would our society be better if our forefathers had promoted laziness and waste?
I’m also a big promoter of the importance of Pietism in western civilization. Pietists (people converted in Protestant religious revivals) wanted more than anything else to read the Bible, so they learned to read. Once they could read, they were able to read other books, and newspapers as well. Thus a better informed, more intelligent public came as a by-product of the religious awakenings (the history of my ancestral country of Norway provides powerful evidence of this). In time this change reached such a critical mass that it became impossible for “the best people” to deny that the commoners deserved a voice in government.
if church attendance actually rises, it slows growth in developing economies.
Slow growth usually means problems – problems usually mean increased church attendance.
Did they control for this fact? I doubt it.
As you go from mathematics to physics to biology to social science you become much less rigorous with each step. Which is why social science, isn’t.
No one… I agree heartily that social science is heavy on social and light on science, but they’re still on to something — which common sense could otherwise have told them.
I’d be more inclined to believe that the US outstripped Mexico due to its superior political institutions.
Which are a part of our religious heritage also. Political institutions didn’t just happen (I know you know that — just sayin’)
At that point I can easily look at a map and see which parts of the world have been mostly affected by Judeo-Christian religion — and its institutions (yeah I’m looking at you post WW2 Japan) and it marks liberty, individual rights, economic growth, etc.
This is where I tend to part ways with a lot of agnostic minded libertarians. Secular values are not conducive to long standing societies. They do not promote generational values. A belief in God, hell, ultimate accountability, lead to people thinking less about the here and now and more about their legacy, both generationally (i.e. their children) and eternally.
The self-justifiers, as Floyd puts it (quite accurately by the way, I’ll probably be stealing that) do not perpetuate these same generational values. They strive for self-perfection, an unreasonable and impossible goal. A good example of eternal and generational living comes from Jeremiah 29:11:
11′For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.
That promise was given to the pre-exiles in Babylon, they died in exile. The people who were alive to receive that promise never lived to see it fulfilled, but their children did. Christianity is not about there here and now, but rather about the eternal. It is not hard to believe that this would also lead to economic growth because they both involve discipline, hard work, and a vision that goes past next week.
By “children” I mean “descendants”
By George, I think I’ve got it!
Thanks for posting this Floyd, and thanks for the comments all!
So I read this and your comments and I started to think about post WWII Japan and post revolutionary Russia and China. All three had a religious like fervor based on the state. People believed in the state, believed their hard work and sacrifice would result in a better life for future generations, and there was quite a bit of progress in all 3 nations. But, no Hell.
The study says a lack of belief in damnation is a fatal flaw, but I’m not so sure. I think it may have more to do with a societal belief in individual salvation. If one believes in Hell one believes one can be saved, and if one believes one can be saved one believes one has personal control over one’s destiny. Post WWII Japan and post revolutionary China and Russia believed in communal sacrifice, sacrifice for the good of the collective. Christians believe in personal sacrifice, sacrifice to save one’s soul.
Now, why might that matter economically? The believer in Hell believes he or she controls his or her own destiny. He or she is willing to sacrifice personally to improve his or her spiritual life, and, likely, personal and material life also.
I wonder if the real differentiator isn’t a belief in Hell, but a belief in personal redemption?
You can’t have an idea of personal redemption without a belief that one needs to be redeemed *from* something. Which is Hell.
There’s an old evangelist’s image that I like. It goes like this. Imagine getting on a plane, and the flight attendant hands you a parachute and says, “We’d like you to have this chute. It will greatly enhance your flying experience.”
So you take the chute, and discover it’s the most uncomfortable thing in the world. There’s no way to sit in the seat with that thing on. You start looking for ways to get rid of it.
Now, imagine that, during the flight, the attendant brings you a parachute and says, “You’d better take this chute. We’ve lost all our engines, and we’re going to crash.”
Suddenly the chute becomes your most precious possession.
It’s like Dr. Johnson’s comment on the prospect of being hanged in a fortnight. It concentrates the mind wonderfully.
Lars,
“You can’t have an idea of personal redemption without a belief that one needs to be redeemed *from* something. Which is Hell.”
I understand that, of course, and that’s probably why the Economists made that the element they were testing for; it’s easy to ascertain it’s presence in a culture. But I wonder if the salvation isn’t the important ingredient. In other words, we, in the West, believe we literally control our own destinies. Even if one is not religious that independence permeates our culture.
Interesting. I will have to come back after my coffee has kicked in. I just figured out last night that your title Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was WTF (and it made me laugh really hard)…..I’m running a bit slow lately.
Delayed laughter is better than no laughter at all. I once made the offhand comment to my wife (then fiancee) as we were passing a liquor store that I wanted to buy a liquor store and name it “Butt”. That’s all I said. 5 minutes later she started laughing hard. She STILL married me.
“Butt Proprietor of Wine and Spirits?”
I don’t get it…
Nah, he was going for “Butt Package Store.”
Oh! Now I get it!