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To the religious origins of capitalism

2021-01-22T19:35:50.234Z


FIGAROVOX / GRAND ENTRETIEN - Contemporary economic concepts have their roots in ancient theological debates, analysis Édouard Jourdain. For the philosopher author of “Theology of Capital”, capitalism has its roots in religion, but it is also religion that ...


Édouard Jourdain is a philosopher and political scientist.

He is associate professor-researcher at CESPRA (EHESS).

He is the author of several notable works, including

contemporary Proudhon

(CNRS, 2018).

This week he published

Theology of Capital

(PUF).

FIGAROVOX.

- You say you want to "

show how the different categories of political economy have their sources in religious or theological categories

".

How are our contemporary economic concepts actually theological?

Édouard JOURDAIN.

-

As a general rule, there are two conceptions in terms of historical analysis of capitalism.

Either capitalism is naturalized: it has existed at all times and therefore it cannot be overcome, or it happens suddenly at the birth of modernity from who knows where.

It is against these two myths that I envision another reading of the emergence of capitalism.

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For that we have to go back - this is my hypothesis - to the religious origins of the categories of political economy such as money, property, the market, etc.

And we realize a paradoxical movement: the economy is at its origins embedded in the religious, and in a certain way confused with it.

Very early, for example, in Antiquity, even in certain early societies, property will be struck with a sacred dimension, but not in the sense in which we understand it today: the religious will drastically define the right to property.

It is only little by little, especially with the divine conception of Christianity, that property will be freed from its hinges to be completely free with the birth of modernity and thus become untouchable.

In this, religion

contains

(in both senses) of the term capitalism: it conjures it up while carrying it within itself.

The paradox proper to the religious consisted in conjuring it although he carries it within it

In fact, to fully understand this phenomenon of conspiracy and secularization, it is necessary to understand the object we are talking about: in this case, capitalism.

We have been able to characterize this system by the regime of private property, by the existence of social classes, by the market, by the centrality of finance capital, etc.

All these characteristics are true, but they do not give the key to its success or the elements of its overall intelligibility.

My hypothesis is that we understand what capitalism is by referring to what Aristotle calls chrematistics, which consists of “

there is no limit to wealth and property

.”

(Aristotle, Politics, I, 9).

It is when chrematics transcends all the categories of political economy that we can speak of capitalism as a system, thus coming to destroy any sacred order and any limit that opposes its power and its force of expansion.

The paradox peculiar to the religious consisted in conjuring it although he carried it within it.

Adam Smith is portrayed in your book as a theologian - remember he taught this subject in Glasgow - who believes in Providence in the form of the “

invisible hand

” of the market.

But isn't his vision first and foremost heir to the Enlightenment and Darwin?

In reality I think Smith's Darwinian dimension is not first but second.

In other words, he made the scientific knowledge of his time compatible with something that preceded and transcended them: Providence.

It is from his theological conception of Providence that we can understand his conception of the market.

It is also distinguished in this from a vulgar and ruthless social Darwinism or reigns only the law of the jungle, in short.

There may well be inequalities and misery, but the most unfortunate know that Providence, which acts through the invisible hand of the market, provides for the happiness of all.

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Adam Smith, in his

Theory of Moral Sentiments

, thus says of them that their consolation comes "

from a firm belief and reverent submission to that benevolent Wisdom which directs all the events of human life and which , we can be sure, would never have suffered such misfortunes to occur if they had not been indispensable for the good at all.

"

Christianity appears in your essay in some places as a major cause of the emergence of capitalism, or at least as a "

paradoxical religion

" on this subject.

Should we not see there more precisely, according to Max Weber, a consequence of Protestant ethics?

The problem with this thesis is first of all that Max Weber was made to say many things that he did not say.

He does not speak of cause and effect relationship between Protestant religion and capitalism but of correlation, and more precisely he does not speak of capitalism but of the spirit of capitalism.

His analysis consists in advancing that Protestantism accompanied capitalism in its dynamics, in particular because of the doctrine of predestination, believers seeing in their individual success a sign of their election by God.

The days off may not have so much a religious function as an anthropological and political one.

Here again, if we keep in mind, perhaps Protestantism participated in a dynamic, but in reality we already find the structuring elements of capitalism in Italy, a Catholic country, long before the development of Europe. 'Germany and England.

For you, it would be necessary to "

conjure

" work, which would notably involve the "

multiplication of Sundays

".

But it is precisely Christianity which established from Genesis a day of inviolable rest that escapes rationality, work and therefore the market ...

Perfectly, in this case in this case it is first of all about Judaism, whose tradition will be taken up by Christianity, but we find this type of sanctuary of days freed from work in religions which have seen in work so it is not a sort of curse, at least an activity that could potentially colonize the whole of human life.

If they institute the nonworking day or bank holiday, it is to devote themselves to worship but also because they were aware that a society in order to exist must preserve time which is devoted to the maintenance of social ties, in the family sphere. , associative, friendly and even political.

To read also:

Abbé Pierre Amar: "The priest is dead ... Long live the priest!"

The whole stake then consists for secularized societies to preserve this heritage: the days off may not have so much a religious function as anthropological and political (although all these dimensions are initially confused).

The anarchist Proudhon understood this well when he published his first book entitled

De la fête du dimanche!

"

Conceiving a sphere of the market which coexists with others (religion, politics, family, school, work) is no longer conceivable

" according to you because the modern market inevitably overflows from its bed.

Would economic liberalism inevitably lead to consumerism?

We find in many critics of the market society the idea that it is necessary to re-compartmentalize what the market has decompartmentalised by contaminating all social relations and institutions with its principles (for example competition).

This is the great thesis of Michael Walzer, for example, who speaks of

Spheres of Justice

: each area of ​​society has its specificity and therefore its rules of justice, the market having its own which must not colonize the others.

The limits (...) failed to contain capitalism which is a system capable of breaking all limits

In principle this thesis is sympathetic but in fact it does not hold, and in reality it is reduced to a political philosophy which has not integrated the genealogy and therefore the content of the different categories of political economy.

The question of limits is fundamental and in this the religious anthropologically still has things to teach us, but this is not enough and it is partly in this that they have failed to contain capitalism which is a system capable of breaking all limits.

It is therefore all the categories of the economy that must be reconsidered.

You underline the extent to which money has always been, in one way or another, linked to the sacred.

How could this phenomenon survive the disenchantment of the world by modern rationality?

Money is the only god the moderns agree on.

Traumatized by the wars of religion, which brought into conflict different ways of thinking about the world, it was necessary to find a standard of value which had the appearance of neutrality in order to pacify society.

In the 17th century, the great myth of commercial exchanges that brought peace appeared.

To read also:

Philippe d'Iribarne: "The encyclical Fratelli Tutti, the Bible, and the two figures from abroad"

But to paraphrase René Girard, we always notice a propensity of society to deify or sanctify what brings peace.

This was also the case for money, even if in reality its power of pacification is just as proportional to its propensity to fuel conflicts.

The fact remains that there is in money a kind of sacred aura associated with a certain mystique of power.

Another sacred dimension - which means leaving the profane domain - of money: its empowerment.

No one today is in a position to control high frequency trading or cryptocurrency lines of code.

If the Ancients and Moderns both insist on the importance of property, you tell us that their perceptions of it are radically at odds.

Why?

As Fustel de Coulanges clearly shows in his famous work

La Cité antique

, the idea of ​​private property had religious foundations among the Ancients, and more particularly among the Greeks and Romans.

"

It was not the laws that first guaranteed the right to property, it was religion

."

However, this property was not sacred in the sense in which we understand it today.

It rested above all on the gods of the domestic hearths.

Each family had its god settling in its home, thus taking possession of the land.

In a way, the ownership of the Ancients was inalienable.

Property is sacred in that it protects and perpetuates a lineage, a community in a delimited place which is reduced to a place of use.

In many societies, for example in Sparta, it was strictly forbidden to sell one's land.

When such a sale becomes possible, it is again thanks to religion insofar as it becomes necessary to make a sacrifice to the gods.

For the same reasons, expropriation for debts is not conceivable for the Elders.

The human body is answerable for the debt, which is why it can become a slave.

But his property cannot be alienated, because it belongs to his family.

Property is sacred in that it protects and perpetuates a lineage, a community in a delimited place which is reduced to a place of use.

There is therefore no absolute and individual property right in the sense in which we understand it as modern liberals.

Today in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, property is considered in article 2 as one of the “

natural and imprescriptible rights of man.

"

To read also:

Éric Zemmour: "A praise of the limits which stops halfway"

In article 17, it is considered an “

inviolable and sacred right

”.

It is no longer finality or reason, subordinate to a divine order, which prevails, but henceforth the absolute right that individuals have over things as they wish.

And very often this unlimited power over things enables a few to exercise their power over men.

The law is there to set limits of course, but as Edgar Pisani underlined in

Utopie foncière

: “

private property is the foundation;

fundamental reasons are needed to undermine it.

The general interest must be justified.

Property doesn't have to.

It exists and finds in itself the arguments for its existence and its duration

. "

You recall that “

the slave population in America was 300,000 in 1700

”, then “

more than six million in the middle of the 19th century

”.

How, like you, should we see in this a consequence of liberalism?

Indeed, contrary to popular belief, slavery does not disappear with liberalism, on the contrary.

If it suffered an eclipse during the Christian Middle Ages, it was in the 18th century that it reappeared.

Its first opponents are monarchists supporters of the Old Religious Regime, like Bodin, Montaigne or Las Cases, while its most fervent promoters are among the fathers of liberalism, like Locke, Grotius and Washington.

The liberals are stuck before the following paradox: is it reasonable to abolish the private property that is the slave when we have consecrated it as the most absolute of rights?

Several elements make it possible to understand this rise in slavery linked to liberalism: we can see the consequences of a form of economic imperialism, but that is not all.

In reality the liberals are stuck in front of the following paradox: is it reasonable to abolish the private property that is the slave when we have consecrated it as the most absolute of rights?

Francis Lieber answered this question with freedom understood in the liberal sense of the term: “

If people feel the need to have slaves, having them is their business.

"

Source: lefigaro

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