I am neither Catholic nor Protestant, so I do not have a dog in that fight but rather a cultural history question about the financially bankrupt PIGS or PIIGS countries in Europe.
With the exception of Ireland, all are in southern Europe. Including Ireland, all of them are traditionally Catholic [except Greece, which is mostly Eastern Orthodox, as William W. points out].
Some questions:
1. Is the Protestant-work-ethic thesis — which is thought to encourage diligent labor, saving, and living more frugally — relevant here?
2. Is there something contrasting in Catholicism’s cultural heritage that makes it politically more spendthrift?
3. Are there predominantly Protestant nations in as much economic difficulty?
4. What about the exceptions — predominantly Catholic countries not in the PIGS category: France, Austria, Poland, etc.?
5. If we were to place all European nations along a spectrum from financially strong to weak, what would the distribution of traditionally Catholic and Protestant nations look like?
6. Is there a carryover to economic development in the Americas–e.g., that North America was mostly settled by immigrants from northern-Protestant-European cultures and South America was settled mostly by immigrants from southern-Catholic-European cultures?
Related:
Empires of conquest and empires of commerce.
Successful nations and the British empire.
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Isn’t Greece primarily Eastern Orthodox?
Could IQ play a role? Or is that too reductionistic?
Indeed. Good catch. The majority of Greeks are EO and a minority are RC. I thought the RC were more prominent. And only a tiny minority of Protestants.
I have often wondered about this but never in the context of religion, although there may be something to that, either cause or effect.
It seems to me that the issue is north to south: Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Great Britian, France and the Nordic countries are relatively stable and wealthy. The rest of the continent and Africa are increasingly unstable and poor (again:cause/effect.)
In the Americas there is the US and Canada and everyone else, with a couple of possible exceptions in South America that seem exceptions that prove the rule.
In Asia clearly Japan is and has been the economic and political class of the region with increasing levels of political and economic distress as one moves south. Interestingly, Asia is neither Catholic or Protestant and has a completely different philosophic tradition.
One possible answer: could it be heat? Is that a stupid idea or what?
But even in the United States, until the availability of cheap air conditioning the south was less economically wealthy and it’s politics more bizarre than the northern states. Compare Mexico to Canada.
I don’t know. It’s the heat. It fries people’s brains!
Heat is the answer to history.
Australia and New Zealand are huge exceptions.
My view is that the issue is not strictly Protestantism vs. Catholicism. Both are negatives, but Catholicism exercises more control. The essential issue, of course, is cultural promotion of individualism vs. collectivism. Or capitalism vs. socialism. Or reason vs. religion. Or egoism vs. altruism. (This battle starkly prominent in America today.)
Religion and socialism require altruism and create impoverished societies by promoting collectivism (central authorities) and denigrating individualism. Socialism is essentially a religion with faith in collectives rather than God. Both ask for sacrifices, either on the altar of God or the altar of society. Both mystical concepts.
Martin Luther’s Protestantism, early 1500s, was a rebellion against the Catholic ideology that salvation came only through the church’s sacraments – that priests, however personally corrupt, provided the connections to God.
Luther, protected by local German kings, elevated individualism, sort of, over collectivism and central authority, by supporting the view that each person could commune directly with God for salvation. This morally freed the local kings and their tax monies from church confiscation.
And, men who can look to themselves for religious salvation can look to themselves for earthly productivity. Gaining self-confidence and esteem.
England already had some protections for individual rights against central authority and taxation by the Magna Carta of 1215. Henry VIII largely nullified Rome’s influence and taxation by creating the Church of England, early 1500s (building on Luther’s and Germany’s successes).
These developments, plus relative isolation, helped promote relative cultural values of reason and rule of law over faith and monarchs (though this is quite confused in German culture, which long remained a collection of principalities, simply replacing religious authority with more diffused socialist authority (or so I judge)).
Protestantism thus causes a weakening of widespread central authority and controls, even though creating multiple conflicting sects of dogmatic oppression. Reason manages to grow in the cracks and gradually weakens the influence of the sects. Which benefit from trade with each other. Trade and self-responsibility become more important than patronage from central authorities.
With the discovery of the new world, the Spanish came to loot. The English came to produce. Perhaps this was influenced by where they landed? But the cultures of the home countries were quite different. Reflected in the cultures they eventually established in the new world.
All seriously religious thinkers are anti-reason, anti-reality: Protestants, Catholics, Socialists, Environmentalists, Muslims, Jews. All are impoverishing. All rely on faith in authorities for guidance and to provide for everyone to a large extent.
Protestants and Jews are aided by officially having no central religious authority. Thus, they tend to produce more independently minded thinkers and doers. More people who look to themselves rather than prayer and ritual to solve problems and get ahead in life. That is, more people who escape religious thinking and approaches to life, for the most part.
Protestantism doesn’t permit this, per se, but as an unintended consequence, makes it possible.
You fail to understand the very deep anti-Catholic elements that exist within some of those PIIG countries – in Spain and Portugal particularly. The leftist, socialist elements within those two countries are markedly anti-Catholic in all respects – and have run those countries for long periods of time. The staggering levels of debt incurred by Spain and Portugal took place under anti-Catholic, socialist governments – the same governments that introduced other anti-Catholic measures such as abortion and same-sex marriage. Or are you saying that the Catholic Church is responsble for those novelties as well?
So your assessment is simplistic and uninformed – what you assume to be caused by Catholicism was, in fact, caused by the exact opposite.
If those countries had been, in fact, Catholic in terms of government as well as in terms of general social inclination, perhaps this debt-induced disaster would not have happened.
Summary: the problems in the PIIGS countries were caused by left / socialist policy rather than by Catholicism. You are barking up the wrong tree.
Hi Bernie:
In my post, there are no assumptions about what the right answer is. There are only discussion questions about a perceived common factor.
Of course you are right that socialist parties and regimes have had much greater influence in the PIIGS.
But a follow up question: How big are the differences between Catholicism and socialism? One is religious and one is often secular, but both share a communal ethic, both have a history of hostility to individualism, and both tend to top-down authoritarianism. (See also the second paragraph of Jack Gardner’s comment above.)
How important do you think those common cultural factors are?
In response to Bill’s point above. I agree that geography is a factor and that heat especially can be debilitating, and I like your range of north-south examples.
I don’t know how far the heat explanation goes, though. Over history many hot places have done well economically — classical Athens and Renaissance Florence come to mind. So heat alone doesn’t explain why their descendants do better or worse.
If we also consider countries in the cooler, temperate areas, some have flourished economically while others have stagnated.
So I see the hot-cool factor more like the brake on a car — it may slow you but it isn’t what makes you decide to go somewhere or what powers your vehicle.
Good morning, Stephen.
You say: “But a follow up question: How big are the differences between Catholicism and socialism? One is religious and one is often secular, but both share a communal ethic, both have a history of hostility to individualism, and both tend to top-down authoritarianism.”
Your lack of knowledge concerning Catholicism is substantial. How big is the difference between Catholicism and socialism? It is the same difference as between black and white. There is no similarity between the two whatsoever.
First point: Catholicism is all about the worship of God. Socialism is all about the denial of God’s existence. It is impossible to be any more opposite than that. And I must correct you when you imply that socialism is sometimes religious (your words: “often secular”) – socialism is NEVER religious.
Second point: Socialism is all about “the common ownership of the means of production and the common sharing of the fruits of production”. That means no private property – everything is owned, distributed and controlled by “The State” (lucky old you if you are part of the tiny group that runs the state!). The Catholic Church has always defended the right to private ownership of property and the right for evryone to run their own business – again, complete opposites.
Third point: Catholicism is traditionally conservative and cautious of change based on modernism (defined as the glorifying of the new and novel and the despising of that which is more than five minutes old). The Catholic Church has defined right and wrong in terms of things that are permanent and timeless – indeed, applicable in every age and at every moment. Socialism revels in modernism – out with the “old” and in with the new! Socialism firmly believes that concepts of right and wrong are subject to the modern curse of “relativism” – there are no absolutes – which means that what is wrong one day is right the next day. This leads to completely opposite views in relation to many, many issues such as abortion or homosexual “marriage”.
Final point: The Catholic Church is not hostile to individualism: it does not care what people do with their lives – it warns them what the outcome will be if timeless, unchanging rights and wrongs (the Ten Commandments) are breached in terms of the effects on the individual soul and the effect that will have if that soul dies not in a state of grace (do yourself a favour and look up these fundamental Catholic concepts). So what does the Catholic Church do if an individual breachesits teachings? Usually, at worst it will growl at that person – very rarely will a miscreant Catholic be excommunicated.
Somewhat different, wouldn’t you say, from the outcome that inevitably follows the individual bucking of rules pertaining to a socialistic government such as China or North Korea? Yes, buck rules in those countries and you will be shot.
Summary: any perceived similarity between socialism and Catholicism is so flimsy and vacuous as to fail completely at the first serious consideration.
Hi again, Bernie:
1. About the political points you make: There is a long, mixed history of Catholicism here. Think of all the thousands of Catholic monasteries and convents, set up to be ideal Christian societies, all organized along communal lines. Think of St. Thomas More’s influential Utopia, in which corrupting private property is abolished. Think of Liberation Theology, which is an effort by many earnest Catholics to marry Christianity with Marxist socialism. Of course there are many prominent Catholics who adopt other political positions and there is an ongoing debate within Catholicism about its proper politics, but there is significant overlap between socialism and Catholicism in the historical record.
2. But the point of my original post is not about explicit political philosophy but about underlying cultural factors that may give rise to fiscal irresponsibility and dysfunctionality in the PIIGS.
E.g., if a long-standing cultural movement organizes itself in centralized and hierarchical fashion (as Catholicism does), does that mean its followers will be more likely to support an economic system that is centralized and hierarchical (such as socialism)?
E.g., if a cultural movement is more collectivistic in its ethic (as Catholicism is in some respects more collectivist than Protestantism is), will countries that are more Catholic be more likely to support collectivistic economic policies?
Those are hard questions, I think, and the answers are more/less overlaps rather than either/or dichotomies.
Roman Catholicism depends on voluntary taxes for growth and has historically depended on encouraging large families of working class laborers. I can’t think of any other more essential long-term organizational attributes to Roman catholicism than these. The Eastern Orthodox differs, for example, in that it encourages large families among the merchant classes. And the other european catholics have generally been supported with taxes.
So the Roman Catholic leadership of the PIIGS is clearly excluded from mastery of finance, or they would have a closer relationship to the banks and governments of europe in the form of tax arrangements as the other european churches have, or at least tax deductions as the Protestant churches have. The working classes that the Roman catholic church depends on for growth are also clearly not suited for mastery of finance. So the whole outfit is bound to get the raw end of the deals when it comes to finance and relationships with European financial institutions.
Good morning once again, Stephen.
You have stated that you are neither Catholic nor Protestant – that implies you are either atheist, agnostic or of a non-Christian faith. I am very much a traditional Catholic – and am therefore able to provide you the Catholic insight you lack because of your unfamiliarity with both the technicalities and the subtleties of the Faith.
I understand the concept you have proposed and are trying to develop, but observe that it was flawed ab initio by virtue of your misidentifying Greece as a Catholic nation – that basic historical error in itself shows that the path you are pursuing is premised on a flawed foundation.
The key to your thesis is that you suspect (strongly, by my assessment) that Catholics are likely to support socialistic governments because such governments are “centralised and hierarchical” (your words), in strong similarity to the Catholic Church itself.
There is a problem with your train of thought: IF your suspicion is correct, would that not also mean that Catholics will provide similar support to ALL governmental types that are “centralised and hierchical”? Such as a Hereditary Monarchy, for instance? In fact, aren’t ALL governmental types ultimately “centralised and hierarchical”? Certainly Monarchies are – and so are pretty much all other types, when you think about it, with the possible exception of a tiny number of Anarchist regimes that have all lasted no more than five minutes.
Your theory can be tested by examining history, which is where you might be a bit on the weak side. I refer you to Spain and Portugal. Both of these Catholic countries had decades – between the mid 1800’s and about 1930 – to examine the attractions and allures of socialism / communism. By the beginning of WW2, both countries had rejected these types of government.
The key question is: Why? Why did Catholics not support “centralised and hierchical” socialistic / communistic governments in Spain and Portugal? ANS: Because those governments were invariably and uniformly hostile to the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church – indeed, murderously so.
You do know, for instance, that Catholic orders were banned in Portugal in 1821 and were not allowed back until Salazar took control in 1929? And that various republican or socialistic govenments there attacked the Catholic Church with absolute malice over a 200 year period that included actions such as seizing Church property and banning the ringing of church bells, the wearing of clerical garb on the streets and many popular religious festivals on Catholic feast days?
All of this naked hostility to the Church by the very governments you contend will be automatically attractive to Catholics is what contributed greatly to the rise in both Spain and Portugal of pro-Catholic, anti socialistic, conservative governments that lasted for decades.
And I assess that you will be surprised to learn just how much virulently anti-Catholic sentiment there has been for centuries in countries such as Span and Portugal, not to mention France. Have a quick read on the net to broaden your knowledge in this respect – those countries are by no means the pure Catholic enclaves you appear to believe them to be.
Summary: your fixation on “centralized and hierarchical” and “collectivistic” ignores the key reality: Catholics will NOT support governments of the type you propose IF those governments will attack the Catholic Church and the Catholic faith.
That also applies to the Irish Catholics vis-a-vis the British Herditary Monarchial system.
In Portugal we have an author (Pedro Arroja) with the thesis that democracy and catholicism are incompatible and that catholic countries should not try to mimic the protestants’ political models (classical liberalism) and should instead stick with authoritarianism. (I do not agree with his normative conclusions.)
Concerning Bernie’s reply about the ruling elite being anti-catholic in Portugal: both the parties in power since the communist revolution in 75 were socialist, but only one of them is progressist (PS).
I would not discard that there is a link between politics in Portugal and our catholic culture: since at least the 15th century we have the concept of “Providence State” (Infante D. Pedro), a concept deeply rooted in catholicism; that stood during the authoritarian regime of Salazar (who acted like the father of the people) and that is still strongly present in our political parties. We have a so called liberal party and a catholic party (the coalition in power now), and both would never doubt the concept of Social State.
To summarize, it seems like our current concept of social state is rooted in catholicism, but that doesn’t mean that catholicism explains the debt, but a combination of democracy and catholicism can explain it. The catholic Salazar managed to reduce drastically the debt of the first republic, but his protectionism inhibited the country from growing.
If you are interested in the link between social democracy and debt, Portugal makes a great case study: http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=862.
Happy New Year to you, Stephen, to Elisabete and to all others visiting Stephen’s blog. The conversation is interesting and the topic of discussion is highly relevant.
Best wishes,
Bernie.
Dear Stephen,
This article might be of interest to you and your audience.
Best regards from Portugal.
http://governanciaonline.blogspot.com/2010/04/pendulum.html
Thank you Elisabete and Pedro, for the recommended post. I was struck by its second paragraph:
“There is no Economic Theory of Catholicism, even though the Social Doctrine of the Church (SDC) provides a basis to build one, and some attempts have been made in the past. Economists are educated at universities in the political and economic theories of Liberalism and Socialism which are at the core of modern liberal democracies. Both of these currents of political economy have distinctly Protestant origins, Liberalism in the Scottish moral philosophers of the 18th century, Socialism in the German idealism of the 19th century. Among the 51 economists awarded the Noble Prize in Economics since its inception in 1969, there is not a single one from the predominantly Catholic countries of Southern Europe and Latin America.”
And good to hear from you in Portugal, home of the Portuguese language, which is currently among my favorites.
What a crock of bullocks Bernie. Christianity has been around a lot longer than the Western Roman Christian church which claims to be “Catholic” but in reality it isn’t. I suggest that you read church history and you’ll find Christianity originated from the East.
@ Bernie – you have your head buried in the sand with respect to your expectations of the State. The fact is State cannot coerce belief and it is unrealistic to expect otherwise. Also, “traditional Catholicism” has been proven to not work. Take for example, Greece – their government is secular but the majority of its people are orthodox. So, if the Australian government is secular why aren’t we all “traditional Catholic” for obvious reasons. That concludes that people have choice.
@ Bernie – I believe you are a member/supporter of the Australian poliitical Party? Is this correct? I am confused what you believe in. If you are a traditional Catholic and are anti – socialist/communist why are you against “Halting asset sales to save jobs and services” refer
http://www.ausparty.org.au/who-we-are/our-people/profile/97/bernard-gaynor
Socialism/communism believes in nationalising assets and is against selling assets. According to your Party profile, you against selling assets, so that must make you a socialist/communist? Seems like you want to have your cake and eat it too.
Perhaps, you would like to correct what I am saying, if I am wrong.
So if you have the above beliefs, they are not compatible with “Traditional Catholicism”. I would be curious to know what you truly believe in.
i think the pigs countries indeed have lower iqs than the scandinavian countries and germanic countries including holland. it was perhaps this higher iq that led them (germanics) to succesfully revolt against catholicism.(southen european, Mediterranean type) and the further eastwards you go, the lower iqs and the higher collectivism becomes. (slavs and greeks and arabs) orthodox christianity has even less appreciation for individualism than catholicism, which got individualism through incorporating pagan elements into its theology.
however protestantism is indeed socialist, anti richness, anti individual and so on. (muntzer rebellion, calvin, luther)
but the emerge of protestantism eventually led to freedom in religion because they saw themselves opposed to catholic church, protestantism might have had some, on one hand promoting socialism, on the other hand, precisely not because of its doctrines but because it was an opposition movement led to other people becoming even more rebellious. where protestantism was rebellion against the church, some ex or post protestant writers like locke and nietzsche (writing in a protestant and not a catholic environment) and feuerbach might represent a furthering of the rebellion, against the last remnant of religion, the “individual” or “personal god” which was all what was left after the protestants did away with tradition, saints and churches catholic style. which itself was already a rebellion against the pagan concept which did not know a dividing line between state and religion (hence the things like pontifex maximus derived from roman state religion, a title also given to rulers like caesar, whereas christianity was born as a rebellious movement, jesus opposed to caesar, hence the first greek and roman aristocrats who wrote against christianity labelled it as anarchic and atheist, we could perhaps say proto leftist. christian theology does not allow for a truly hierarchic or aristocratic view of man, central to much of pagan traditions worldwide, which is why the west is, after secularization, still obsessed with equality as an ideal in itself.)
i think catholicism, in other to survive the blows it got from protestantism, classical liberalism, leftism, had to adapt, following protestantisms example, a more communal attitude, and hence promoted a collectivist view of man, after the renaissance and scholasticism had passed as its main components of ideology.
while those in protestant countries finding themselves not against a “dolce vita” catholicism but a merely collectivist mandatory monasticism became then (protestant nations) producing fierce anti christian critics, which in turn allowed for liberalism to emerge with greater support for free markets as well. it seems scandinavian countries, england and non pig countries in western europe support conservative parties which sometimes are pro free market while in those pigs countries conservatism is more aligned with catholicism and socialism. for example a syndicalist history in france among conservative catholics, spain portugal etc.
i also think many countries outside the west, where islam, buddhism, hinduism is reigning the cultural and because of this also partially the personal convictions of men, are poor because these religious traditions allow even less attention to free reason and free individual choices.
in islam determinism is also very much alive “inch allah” “by allah” or “mashallah” “god willing”
in buddhism and hinduism in fact human reason is also, likewise as in genesis, seen as something bad. if everything is an illusion, and trying to “liberate” oneself from “the human condition” is the ideal, then of course you won’t have any markets or capital accumulation emerging served to the interests of humans.
capitalism seems to need individualism and many religions are opposed to individualism. and of course socialism is itself religious in the way that it has dogma’s and a collectivist, egalitarian (the two reinforce each other) view of man.
You English is pretty good, Davy, I appreciate your lengthy, thoughtful comment.
Really not true to say East Europeans are less intelligent. Mostly the Slavs are of exceptional intelligence. One Russian friend has two children at Oxford Uni and another Slav friend has one at Cambridge. Catholicism encourages people to rely on God for guidance and help more than Protestantism. Protestants have adopted St. Pauls teaching of working harder than anyone else as their goal.
Catholics have relied on Jesus’ teaching of the birds of the air but Protestant have emphasised ‘if a person doesn’t work neither shall they eat.’
France is just as communistic as Italy and both are predominantly RC. The latest GDP per capita from Wiki (IMF calculation) puts Ireland at #7 while France is #26, Italy #33, Portugal #43 and Greece #48. Germany at #18 actually ranks below Australia #17. The Calvinist ethic says that anything enjoyable is a sin, so perhaps the Holy Rollers have got it right after all.
Medicines and pesticides/food additives seem to be optimised to suit Protestant genetics. Protestants and Catholics traditionally have avoided intermarrying. Has resulted in separate gene pools for those two groups.
Imports of foods and medicines into PIIGS countries from predominantly Protestant countries are causing mental and physical health problems of varying degrees. Perhaps one side effect of those mental health problems for some individuals might be manic/bipolar sometimes resulting in creativity or it could be very good longterm memory. Organophosphate pesticides can affect the brain’s neurotransmitter activity.