Re: End of the newsgroup

In article <WAsgq.1946$H54.1748@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
John Briggs <john.briggs4@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 27/09/2011 22:03, David Friedman wrote:
In article<5Mngq.70$Nd3.38@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
John Briggs<john.briggs4@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

hile I have your attention, where do you stand on Weber versus Marx,
the Protestant work ethic? Who was right?

No opinion. I know Smith quite a lot better than either Weber or Marx.

OK, brief summary: Marx said that ideas (e.g. religion) have social and
economic causes. Weber set himself up in opposition to Marx, and gave an
example of an idea (Protestantism) that had social and economic
consequences (the Protestant Work Ethic, leading to the rise of commerce
and industry, and capitalism as we know it today - at least in the
United States.)

This has a superficial plausibilty: take watchmaking and banking in
Protestant Geneva and Neuchâtel. Parisian watchmaker were Protestant to
a man. With the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, skilled
refugees fled to Protestant Holland and Britain, where they dominated
silversmithing, paper-making and lace-weaving. At a stroke, France had
lost all its skilled engineering workers. England went on to become the
first country to have an industrial revolution (with members of various
Protestant sects as industrial pioneers) - France might have been
expected to become the second country, but it wasn't. Ever heard of
"Yankee Ingenuity"? Where did America's industrial recolution start - in
the slaveholding South?

So, what is wrong with this picture? Quite a lot, actually. The second
country to have an industrial revolution was overwhelmingly Catholic
Belgium - the southern half of the old Burgundian Netherlands. The
"Dutch Revolt" had actually started in the great wool towns of the South
(where the Catholic diocesan structure was very weak) - the religious
refugees fled from the Spanish Army North to Holland and Zeeland, taking
their Work Ethic with them. Soon enough, the United Netherlands
(Holland) had a commercial empire. But the wool towns of the South
remained, and when the Ardennes coalfields came on stream, they formed
the nucleus of Belgium's industrial revolution. The point about Belgium
is its density of population, the town are very close together. England
was also very highly urbanised, with the towns close together, and that
was probably the crucial factor in its industrial revolution.

Take Ireland. There is only one industrial city in Ireland: Belfast in
what is now Northern Ireland. Those with the industrial work ethic
flocked there from all over the island, Protestants outnumbering
Catholics in the ratio of two to one. But well into the second half of
the twentieth century it remained a very puritan city - and the
puritanism was of two varieties, Catholic and Protestant, quite distinct
from the rest of Ireland.

Yes, those with the Protestant Work Ethic were usually Protestant -
except where they were not free to choose as (for different reasons) in
Ireland and Belgium. What actually happened was that those with the Work
Ethic chose a religion (where they were free to choose) that was
congenial to them and to it. So it was Marx who was actually right:
social and economic causes (proto-modern industrial and commercial
capitalism) had consequences in ideas (the spread of Protestantism.)

Interesting account, but I don't think the data you give are sufficient
to be confident of your conclusion. Are the Belgians still compelled to
be Catholic? Have they converted to Protestantism? I gather the
Catholics in northern Ireland are still Catholic.

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
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