Religion and the Rise of Capitalism
- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
- دیدگاه کاربران
نقد و بررسی
October 5, 2020
Harvard political economist Friedman (Day of Reckoning) delivers an ambitious intellectual history of Christian influence on the development of economic thought, from the Enlightenment to the present day. Focusing particularly on the theological ideas that influenced Adam Smith—whose work is considered the foundation of modern economics—Friedman argues that Smith’s understanding of economics was “shaped by what were then new and vigorously contended lines of religious thought within the English-speaking Protestant world.” As a result, Friedman writes, Enlightenment-era Protestant understandings of human nature still inform ideas about economic theory. Friedman digs deeply into the theological debates about human nature, free will, and depravity, and the possibility of human progress that shaped Adam Smith’s belief that “the key driver in this progression, from each stage to the next, was scarcity.” Friedman then surveys Christians’ influence on American economic policies from the colonial period to the present, explaining that “public awareness of... economic improvement and the expanded opportunity that came with it further reinforced the tendency toward non-predestinarian thinking within American Protestantism” and allowed Americans to believe in an “economic destiny.” Unfortunately, Friedman skims the surface of such topics as slavery and the New Deal in the book’s final third, and fails to paint a clear picture of how U.S. economic policies have been shaped by Protestant beliefs. This dense work will be of most interest to scholars of political economy.
October 1, 2020
A study of the long and deep influence of religion on economic thought and policy in the West, especially in the U.S. Following in the footsteps of Max Weber and R.H. Tawney (from whom he takes his title), Friedman, a professor of political economy at Harvard, deepens the case that throughout modern history in the West, religious thought and economic policy have been reciprocally enmeshed. From the birth of serious economic thinking in the 18th century, questions of virtue and morality inescapably infused thought about wealth, poverty, commerce, and industry. At the same time, religious leaders preached about people's obligations regarding earning, saving, using money wisely, and thinking about wealth in moralistic terms. The author sets his story in its full historical context, with the economic and theological principles of the leading characters not disembodied or isolated from life. Adam Smith, responsible for "an astonishing intellectual breakthrough," is Friedman's leading figure, but many others, some little known (Daniel Raymond, Shailer Mathews), populate his pages. Turning to the U.S., the author argues that the breakup of religious thought and practice into old-style Calvinist ideas and evangelical enthusiasm have led to many of today's political and economic predicaments. Few readers will fail to come away convinced of Friedman's strong central thesis, but there are omissions. Friedman, a noted economist, strangely devotes more ink to religious thought than to economic principles, and aside from late-in-the-book appearances by Friedrich Hayek and William F. Buckley Jr., this is a history of the rise of Protestant religion in relation to capitalism. We learn nothing of Jewish or Catholic thinkers or economists, especially curious given the author's attention to the U.S. If this is really a Protestant story, what does it tell us? Friedman doesn't say, but he does provide solid points of departure for further scholarly investigation. Not without flaws but still an important work on the origins of capitalism.
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December 1, 2020
In The Wealth of Nations, most readers see a decidedly secular worldview. Friedman frankly acknowledges that the author of that epoch-making work, Adam Smith, evinced no religious devotion. However, through careful scrutiny of the capitalist economic theory Smith constructed--with the help of his friend David Hume--Friedman exposes the profound influence of the religious thinking pervading the eighteenth-century Scottish intellectual environment in which Smith and Hume worked. More specifically, Friedman illuminates the effects on both thinkers of the displacement of dour Calvinism by a newly optimistic Protestantism affirming the benefits of individuals freely making choices while pursuing their own self-interest. That displacement, readers come to see, made possible Hume's understanding of economic progress and Smith's faith in "the invisible hand" of the unconstrained economic agent. In the next century, on the other side of the Atlantic, Hume's and Smith's economic precepts received a warm reception from devout Protestants whose theology helped to enshrine them as justification for America's laissez-faire capitalism. As he limns the subsequent evolution of American economic life, especially during the Great Depression and the Cold War, Friedman traces the shifting but perduring influence of religion in America on the capitalism that Hume and Smith helped launch. A bracing challenge to narrowly secular assessments of economic theory.
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December 18, 2020
Capitalism is well entrenched in the American ethos, explains Friedman (William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy, Harvard Univ.) in his latest work. Here, Friedman uncovers what exactly contributes to many Americans' beliefs in the primacy and efficacy of a free market economy. While the author notes that the concept of religious views informing economic beliefs has been explored before, he interprets matters in a new light. Beginning with the philosophical and theological underpinnings of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, he traces the shift in thinking away from predestination, where human agency is futile, toward a belief in human potential, where self-improvement is possible and desirable. Friedman maintains that, regardless of people's current religious views, their economic notions are the product of the religious debates of the Enlightenment era, which still undergird modern economic thought. He concludes by stating that many Americans who would benefit least from a free market economic system, free from government intervention, are among its greatest adherents. VERDICT Friedman has made an important contribution to the literature on the intertwining of Western economic thought with religious beliefs. His detailed tracing of the philosophical and theological roots of free market economics is well researched, well written, and well worth reading.--Carol Elsen, Univ. of Wisconsin, Whitewater Libs.
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