The Wealth of Nations

Manhattan ("New Amsterdam" at the time) circa 1660

Another excellent site I recommend everyone add to their favorites is Tech Central Station, an online business and political journal run by conservative libertarians like myself. Today's main article, written by this Turkish guy, explores whether Islam and capitalism can ever coexist (outside of the exceptions of Dubai and Turkey). I tend to disagree with the author's contention that Islam was originally an undoubtedly peaceful religion, but I think the article does a good job of pointing out how a necessary ingredient for economic prosperity is a culture that is favorable to investment, wealth creation, hard work, free markets, and thus capitalism as a whole.

For historical proof, look no further than the Netherlands in the 1600s and England in the 1700s. Neither of these tiny countries had much in natural resources or royal riches like France or Spain, but they were quickly swept by a Protestant ethos and Calvinist theology which preached hard work, individual accomplishment, profit-making, property rights, and economic freedom (by allowing usury). This stood in stark contrast to the lazy, bloated, socialist, bureaucratic, inefficient, centrally planned Catholic countries. As a result, England and Holland (and America) boomed, blooming into dynamic, mobile, and prosperous societies, and leaving Spain and France in the stone age. This is because the English and the Dutch provided legal/economic environments and frameworks favorable to wealth creation and economic freedom, as they continue to do so today.

My point is certainly not to bash Catholicism, as it has clearly reformed itself and now welcomes free-enterprise (look at Ireland and Eastern Europe). It is instead to show, unlike some who dismiss these things as valueless because they are intangible, that culture and religion clearly play a role in the legal and economic institutions that determine the wealth and poverty of nations.

God, I'm a huge nerd.