If Luther were Alive today...

In 1905 Max Weber wrote about the Protestant work ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, arguing that it was the impact of Luther’s Reformation in dignifying work, and encouraging thrift and the accumulation of wealth, that gave rise to the development of capitalism in our day.

Whether or not his thesis, and in particular, its view of the essential differences between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism in regard to economic realities, holds water, the early 21st century reality is that the faultlines in regard to countries that are managing to hold together, and countries that are plunging further and further into debt seems to run very roughly between north and south, between what is traditionally Catholic Europe and Protestant.

In an article on the BBC news website, Chris Bowlby remarks on the different values held in Northern and Southern European countries and their overall approaches to saving and going into debt. The German word for debt, he says, is  “schuld”, which is the same as the word for “guilt” or “sin” . Quoting another commentator, Stephan Richter, he wonders back to the Reformation as to what difference it would have made, had Luther been alive today, and a political force in the Eurozone crisis. After all, the papal indulgences themselves of the 16th Century, were a form of fiscal management to get out of a crisis,  and a solution that was based, not so much on the concept of indebtedness, but of guilt and the need for forgiveness.

"Too much Catholicism" suggests Richter, "is detrimental to a nation's fiscal health, even today in the 21st Century". Worth thinking about...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18789154