A comment from cvj on the previous post had me checking the files for a related column I wrote in 2003. And here it is:
TWO literary greats of the 20th Century once tangled on the subject of money. “The rich,” said one, “are different from you and me.” “Yes,” the other retorted, “They have more money.”
Hemingway’s glib answer to Fitzgerald aside, one does wonder what it is that makes the rich what they are, apart from inheritance and intermarriage.
A recent American study suggests religion may yield some clues: that people who regularly attend religious services amass more wealth than those who don’t. And that certain sects or denominations encourage habits that make their followers richer than those of other faiths.
Of course, any study that suggests Jews are conditioned to be wealthier than Catholics or conservative Protestants (e.g. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, among others) is bound to get its share of critics. This study by sociology professor Lisa Keister of the Ohio State University was no exception.
Keister believes that the religion a family chooses to practice can influence a lot of factors that determine whether their children grow up wealthy or not: the schools they attend, the professions they choose, their views on money and property, and their social connections.
Going by Keister’s theory, next time you wonder why you’re poor, don’t just look at your grasp of technology or technical skill. Check your theology too.
Does your faith say it’s okay to live the good life without jeopardizing your chances in the afterlife? Is it wrong to want to be rich? A New Testament quotation is frequently mangled by those who want to blame money for all of humankind’s woes. But the correct quotation bears reading: “The love of money is the root of all evil.” (1 Timothy 6:10) “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” according to the Beatitudes. Note that it doesn’t say, “Blessed are the poor,” period.
By some stroke of luck (or, perhaps more appropriately, divine intervention?), I got invited over a week ago to a forum on “Religion, Culture and Economic Performance” hosted by the Eduardo Aboitiz Development Studies Center.
The visiting scholar, Marcus Noland of the Institute for International Economics, pointed out that while the literature is rich in theories of how religion influences a country’s economic performance, there is no “robust” evidence that shows this relationship at work. For one thing, Noland pointed out, it’s difficult to isolate the effects of religion on the economy, from the effects of culture. And there is a host of other factors—geography, history, the quality of institutions—to consider when one tries to find out why some nations are richer than others.
The afternoon yielded no tabloid-worthy headlines (“Economist urges mass conversion to save RP economy”) but plenty of food for thought. It may not show up on econometric models, but religion’s influence on policy and prosperity is apparent, from “sin taxes” to birth control—just as religion’s failures are reflected by various signals, from tax evasion to corruption.
What we believe determines how prosperous we can be, as individuals and communities, in at least three ways: (1) our views on wealth and poverty; (2) our habits, among them thrift, charity, self-discipline and responsibility; and (3) the extent to which we allow our religion to affect our transactions. (Is Sunday piety reflected in workaday practice?)
Prosperous Jain merchants on the northern coast of India were said to have benefited from a belief system that saw wealth creation as morally neutral, neither evil nor good in itself, for as long as “one labors that many may enjoy what he earns.” (Halfway around the world and several centuries removed, the economist Fritz Schumacher echoed the thought: “Management is not an economic question, but a moral one.”)
This exercise, as you can see, can lead to all sorts of interesting ideas, including the good old chicken-and-egg combo: Am I poor because of what I believe? Or do I believe what I believe because I am poor?
(First published 13 October 2003 in the Op-Ed pages of Sun.Star Cebu)
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