Does Religion Still Influence Economic Development

Does Religion Still Influence Economic Development?

Abstract:

Despite the fact that the connection between religion & development is not of recent concern and is neither restrained to scholars of the 20th century, scientists tend to neglect or underestimate the role of religion while analyzing economic growth. This essay will provide arguments for & against the thesis that economic development is still influenced by religion. The basic approach to scrutinize this issue is to, firstly study the definitions of religion, secondly, to examine earlier theories used by scientists and, lastly, to provide arguments derived from scholarly literature. The anticipation is that even nowadays religion affects economic growth, although differently across the globe, as religions and states are represented in a great variety and, therefore, tend to differ in the influences on the economy which they might or might not have. This issue requires substantial examination & further analysis as this essay only elucidates general theories & arguments of a complex socioeconomic topic.

Key words: religion; economic development; Weber; Protestantism; secularization hypothesis; church attendance; religious beliefs; institution; behavior.

This essay shall serve as practice in writing academic essays on a substantial scientific topic using concepts & approaches examined during the first year at the National Research University Higher School of Economics & extracurricularly. Obviously, the concepts will be applied to the issue. The author realizes the challenges of applying simple methodology to a complex & controversial socioeconomic topic, namely to the question whether religion still affects economic development of a state. Needless to say, it will be challenging to profoundly address this topic in an essay of less that 3000 words, even having excluded effects of religion on social development which were initially in the topic.

The paper is comprised of 3 main parts: introduction, where the research question, its significance as well as the aim & structure of the essay are stated; the main part which includes arguments for & against the main statement based on concepts, approaches & theories of the 21st century scholars; conclusion which implies analyzing the results & making a final statement based on the arguments from the main part. This essay's fundamental aim is to make an attempt to briefly scrutinize the influences of religion on an economic development in a modern world based on scholarly literature. To clarify, the "modern world" will be referred to when elaborating on studies of the 21st century.

When analyzing economic growth, researchers primarily focus on factors such as accumulation of capital (Lewis, 1954; Lucas, 1998), human & natural resources (Gylfason, 2001; Benhabib & Spiegel, 1994) as well as technology (Malecki, 1997). Meanwhile, non-economic factors, e.g. cultural impact, ideology, politics & religion are commonly eluded as they are almost unquantifiable & are unable to change unless influenced by social changes. Despite that, religion may appear to be a plausible example of a factor which still has an influence on the economic development of a state. Hence, to tackle this issue, one has to include an auspicious non-economic determinant while analyzing economic growth - religion. This essay will provide arguments both supporting & disproving the statement that economic development of a state is still being directly influenced by religion. Disproving the statement, however, seemed to be challenging for scholars as very few of them denied the statement that religion still influences economic development. In order to do answer the main question, the main part of the essay will cover the following aspects: ways of defining a religion by scholars; historical background, i.e. previous studies of influences of religion on an economic development; arguments for & against the general statement based on scholarly papers.

In many ways religion is one of the original sources of the humanities laws - in many places it still is the source. Hence, the answers to the questions whether religion still influences the economic development as well as what are its definition are as diverse as religions & economies of the states themselves. Considering the etymology of the word "religion", it has evolved from the post-William-the Conqueror-English "religioun" which originated from French "religion". As Bellah (1963) deduces, it may have initially appeared in Latin as "religo", meaning "good faith" or "ritual". The term "religion" has been given various definitions by scholars. Durkheim (1912) defined religion as a unified system of practices & beliefs related to sacred things. In the Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, Durkheim argues that an essential function of religion is to "institute & police the distinction between the sacred & the profane". One of the most famous definitions given by Karl Marx negatively described religion as the "opiate" of the people (Bellah, 1964).

Such an abrupt critique of religion by Marx can be explained by the starting point of the discussion - Weber's theory of "Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism" introduced in 1904 & published in 1905 in the book of the same name. Weber is the author of the first noticeable connection between religion & economic growth. According to his reasoning, developments in Protestantism in Europe caused by the Reformation contributed to economic development of the region and its transition to capitalism. The crux of his theory was that capitalism emerged owing to Protestant doctrines which encouraged thrift, assiduity & self-denial by obliging individuals to increase their savings, accumulate capital & get involved in entrepreneurism. Nevertheless, Protestantism was not merely a protest against the Catholic Church, but, more importantly, a protest against strengthening of ties between the church as an institution and a disciple. Consequently, as it can be deduced, as the church stopped being an intermediary between a person & God, people stopped being in need of church, which drastically decreased church attendance while keeping the level of belief at least on the same level (the impact of belief & church attendance will be discussed infra). Therefore, individual political & economic freedoms became nurtured. The result is a diligent, skilled and educated labor force with immense amounts of capital. Self-sacrificial activities, hard work, refusal of the church as a middleman between God & wealth accumulation gave birth to