Monday, October 01, 2007
Protestant countries have higher employment rates…
Right, this is certain to throw the cat in amongst the pigeons. Before you read it, can I just remind people of the site’s commenting rules. Dr Feldmann, a lecturer in Bath University’s Department of Economics and International Development explains why he thinks his research shows a gap between employment rates in Protestant and Catholic countries.
...the impact of religion may be indirect, for example, in helping shape the national culture of a given society.” He continued: “In its early days, Protestantism promoted the virtue of hard and diligent work amongst its adherents, who judged one another by conformity to this standard. Originally, an intense devotion to one’s work was meant to assure oneself that one was predestined for salvation. Although the belief in predestination did not last more than a generation or two after the Reformation, the effect on work ethics continued. “This was particularly conducive to the rise of modern capitalism. It stimulated entrepreneurial spirits and helped to assimilate workers into the factory system. Most protestants today are likely to work not in order to attain certainty of salvation but because their parents taught them the virtue of work. The Protestant virtue of hard and diligent work has become part of a national culture of the relevant countries.”
Of course this is just one possible conditioning factor. Traditional extended family structures, including higher marriage rates and low cohabitation rates also persist in Catholic southern Europe, whilst the largely Protestant Nordic countries have migrated far from traditional family norms.
Mick Fealty @ 02:44 PM
“We need to be comparing like-with-like here.” - Malcolm Redfellow
Isn’t that changing the goal posts? Why do the statistics that prove Ireland’s success need to be questioned, but no such need is perceived when those same statistics are used to show that other countries are successful? Different standards of proof or a hidden agenda?
It’s true that there are 1,200 foreign companies that employ 130,000 people in Ireland but it’s also true that there are a total of 2,250,000 in the labour market and that foreign companies account for only 5% of that figure, indicating that 95% of the ‘work ethic’ is a Catholic work ethic. It’s also true that Irish companies employ considerably in excess of 130,000 people in foreign countries. For example, Irish companies employ 80,000 people in America. You mentioned Dell as an example of an American company that created employment in Ireland. Well, Dell is owned by a catholic Irish American, Michael Dell, so that rather negates talk of a protestant work ethic being responsible for those jobs.
None of this, however, addresses why only sermons pertaining to the work ethic were acted upon by Protestants more so than sermons pertaining to other Christian values. Why did Protestants only hear that message, but didn’t, for example, hear the message to give more to charity such that it can now be claimed that protestant countries are marginally more charitable?
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 02:41 AMOne other point, Malcolm Redfellow. There is a mistaken assumption that the Irish property market is overvalued. It isn’t. Even a sharp correction of, say, 20% would have only a slight impact on the Irish economy, which is still growing at twice the European average. Okay, we’ve been spoiled with very high growth rates for a number of years such that we now see growth of 4% a year as akin to a recession when other European countries would kill for growth above 2%. The thing to keep in mind about this is that Ireland’s balance sheet is extremely healthy. As Pat O’Sullivan, Senior Economist with Bank of Ireland said “Assets currently outweigh liabilities by a multiple of six, with gross assets of €964 billion vs. household liabilities of €161 billion.” So, it would take a total collapse in the price of property to have a bankrupting effect. And that won’t happen, not least because property isn’t overpriced to begin with.
Other key points from the recent report: “The report outlines that personal disposal income in Ireland has doubled over the past ten years, and this figure is forecast to double again over the next ten years.
The annual level of personal savings stood at €10 billion at the end of 2006 and this is forecast to increase to €13.5 billion by 2010 and to €24 billion by 2015. The latter figure equates to 14% of disposable income, which contrasts sharply with the recent averages of 1% in the US and 5% in the UK. We have to look to Germany to find a similar attitude to savings, where it approaches 10%.
The report estimates that the number of millionaires in Ireland has increased from 30,000 to 33,000 in the 12 months, an increase of 10%. Bank of Ireland Private Banking’s definition of a millionaire is the sum of total assets excluding principal private residence. Of those, it estimates that there are approximately 330 individuals with a net worth in excess of €30 million, a further 3,000 with a net worth of between €5 million and €30 million, with the remaining having a net worth of between €1 million -€5 million.”
You should note that the figure of 33,000 millionaires in Ireland excludes the primary family asset from the calculation, i.e. the house. If the house was included in the calculation, we’d have an astromical number of millionaires in Ireland.
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 03:12 AMWell, if we’re going with the ‘religion is good for you’ theme, I’d like to point out that Jews account for 37% of all American Nobel Prize winners despite accounting for only 1.4% of the American population and account for 22% of all worldwide Nobel Prize despite accounting for only 0.25% of the world’s population. Ergo, we’re clearly smarter than either Protestants or Catholics. Indeed, you’ll also find that Jews punch way above our weight in American business, making the claim that America is an example of a country with a ‘Protestant’ work ethic highly suspect. So, in sectarian terms, be glad that you work hard but remember that your grandchildren will probably end up working for us. ;)
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 04:44 AMBad example The Dubliner.
Everyone knows that the Jewish people did not achieve their economic strength through hard work but did so via some evil conspiracy that made everyone else less capable. That and eating Christian babies and thereby absorbing their innate capabilities.Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 05:39 AMSpeaking of jews, I was under the impression that Michael Dell was one.
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 08:05 AMI would jst like to thank Dr Feldmann fr bringing this up and giving us the opportunity to discuss another important religious impact on our daily life.
Those of you familiar with The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster will no doubt be aware of the dramatic climatic cosequences we are currently experiencing as a direct result of our persecution of his divine beings, the pirates. One need only consult the incontravertible evidence to see that the anti-piratic rhetoric and actions of narrow-minded sectarians has caused this global catastrophe. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:FSM_Pirates.jpg)Now what was that about statistically significant correlations implying a causal relationship?
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 08:11 AMGood old Protestant work ethic, you can’t beat it!
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 08:57 AMPosted by The Dubliner @ 03:41 AM & 4.12 AM:
A couple of starter thoughts:
1. The Sluggerettes, like rust, never sleep.
2. As I have repeatedly said elsewhere, I wish I could be as certain of anything as these people are of everything.
No, The Dubliner @ 03:41 AM & 4.12 AM:, I did not disrespect the flag and spit on the deck. I merely suggested that the “evidence” presented so far was open to different interpretations.
As for the original issue, there are long-distant but good historical reasons why Protestant countries had an earlier economic and industrial lift-off than others. The Medicis invented double-entry book-keeping, which was significant for the rise of Italian enterprise and culture in the 13th century (one up to Catholicism). Then Calvin approved lending-at-interest, or rather his follower, Salmasius, suggested a set of rules for lending (An equaliser from the Prods). The Catholic Church took until the 19th century to turn a blind eye to “usury” (and, I believe, has never yet given a final doctrinal OK to the theory).
That’s created some kind of mercantile infra-structure. Now one is looking for other reasons. Frequently such studies start from observing why England went from an almost-exclusively agricultural economy in the mid-16th century to a largely-industrial one (and the first in the world) by the 19th-century. The reasons change, pending on which historian, with which prejudices and ideology, one chooses. None seem to be satisfied with a simple matter of chance and circumstance. Fortunately, it is a game that anyone can play by giving some logical pattern to events. For examples:
1. The new Protestant grammar schools of Edward VI had to be invented to replace the lost-and-gone monasteries. Coincidentally,
the Antwerp stock-market collapsed in 1553, devastating the English wool-trade. This forced a change in trading practices, and a more aggressive economy. So barely-literate Stratford butchers (John Shakespeare) and Canterbury shoemakers (John Marlowe) felt it a good idea to have educated sons to keep the books. In those two cases, of course, Dad got precious little help from either young William or Christopher: they should have spent their money educated the daughters, who at least would have stayed at home.
2. (and much simpler) The proximity of iron-ore and coal in Shropshire, at a time when local timber supplies had been depleted.However, that does not explain the work habits of different populations. I suggest that a lot may depend on which end of the whip one was. The “navvies” who built England’s canals and the “tarriers” who built the American railways were, to a large extent, Irish Catholics. Their productivity was stupendous, but the credit seems to go to the WASP bosses.
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 09:38 AMCircles
ARGGGGGGGGGGHHHH I have been thinking of giving up my non-protestant, non-catholic work ethic and doing my biut for global warming by taking up piracy and helping to cool the planet
Why work 70 hours a week at a desk when I could be swinging through the rigging with a dagger clenched firmly between my teeth and searching for booty.
Especially the booty contained in wee string bikinis stretched out on a warm tropical beach
May his noodly appendage spread his benevolance in your life
RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMENNNNNNNNN
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 11:14 AMAHARRRRR Sean-Lad,
Well splice me thon main-brace and shiver-me-timbers cos none of them lnd-lubbers will outdo our pirate work ethic and we’ll bring back them white christmases for all those not yet tickled by his noodly appendage.
ARRRGGGGHHHRamen
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 11:37 AMDubliner
Interesting point on the Jewish economic success story (I suppose more accurately the ashkenazi success story). I have heard various reasons for this - one of the more convincing dated it to the requirement for Jewish adults to read in the diaspora - ensuring a much higher-than-average literacy rate.Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 12:44 PMSam Hanna: “How can you only include ROI and Lithuania in your list of Catholic countries? Have you forgotten about France, Spain , Belgium and old Papa’s Home place in Italy?”
Because France, Spain, Belgium and Italy are not in Northern Europe. If you re-read the pos, this is explained pretty clearly.
I was demonstrating that the difference is between Northern Europe and everywhere else, not between Protestant and Catholic countries. Within Northern Europe (Protestant countries occur nowhere else), Catholic countries have a lower unemployment than Protestant ones.
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 02:44 PMBut Max Weber did not come up with the theory that academics said he did.
Academics did.Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 02:56 PMWhat’s the unemployment rate in Poland?
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 03:07 PM‘Interesting point on the Jewish economic success story (I suppose more accurately the ashkenazi success story). I have heard various reasons for this - one of the more convincing dated it to the requirement for Jewish adults to read in the diaspora - ensuring a much higher-than-average literacy rate. ‘
The Ashkenazi Jews (central and eastern european ancestry probably have the highest average IQ of any group of people on the planet . As a people they had to survive centuries of exclusion and discrimination from their ‘Christian ‘ neighbours in Poland , Russia or Germany etc etc. They could not own land , join the military and were forbidden to engage in a whole line of occupations . Forced to live in overcrowded shetls (Ghettos) in the time before modern medecine their people succumbed in great numbers to plagues and urban diseases brought about through lack and ignorance of sanitation . Thus those Ashkenazim who survived were the strongest at least in terms of resistance to many pathogens . Ashkenazim also suffered from periodic pogroms when the local King or Tsar needed rescuing from having to repay the monies loaned by jewish bankers so that the former could indulge in territorial expansion etc etc.
As Ashkenazim were forced into occupations such as retail /banking /money lending etc etc they quickly became adept at using their financial acumen as a tool for cultural and religious survival . The daughters of prosperous jewish bankers and businessmen were married off to the most ‘educated’ of the people i.e the rabbis . Rabbis traditionnally had larger families and were supported by the whole community . Thus there was cultural bias to promoting ‘academic ‘ intelligence and business acumen skills in this community .
Contrast that with the rest of medieval and pre reformation Europe where the ‘academically’ gifted /educated went into the ‘priesthood’ and were removed from the ‘gene’ pool through ‘celibacy’.
Scientists with an Ashkenazim background have proportionately won more Nobel Prizes in the sciences than any other population group on the planet. Israels success as a State is not just due to the huge financial backing it gets from the USA but is also due to the huge influence exerted in it’s economy by the Ashkenazim who make up 40% or so of it’s population.
Proof positive perhaps that ‘discrimation’ while seemingly injurious to people may at least in some cases be a positive boon for later generations ?
RC’s in NI take note . You’ve nothing to lose but your priests !
Greenflag
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 04:18 PMInteresting stuff Greenflag. Some good observations (esp. re: Israel - indeed their support by the US came about through good statecraft rather than unconditionally - ie through the application of intelligence).
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 04:22 PMNI must be the world’s capital for the application of non -intelligence :)
In the never ending debate between nature versus nurture the Ashkenazim provide an interesting example of how ‘nature’ overcame ‘nurture’ or was it the other way around? Every human being on the planet inherits both ‘nature’ and also ‘nurture’. Major environmental /political/economic change has an impact on our individual natures eventually. There were no electrical engineers on the banks of the Rhine in 100 AD . And a medical or engineering degree in Ireland in the 19th century gave the recipient a 60% chance having to emigrate as the population and economy was too small to absorb them .
In NI today a similar trend has been noted given the too high reliance on public sector (low productivity) employment .
Presumably people in NI can longer term look forward to an even greater application of non intelligence by their elected representatives :(
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 04:43 PM‘What’s the unemployment rate in Poland? ‘
A lot higher than the unemployment rate for the Polish minority in Dublin. And it has nothing to do with religion . Under communism the people pretended to work and the government pretended to pay them .When the day came that Communist Poland’s ‘Zloty’ was found to have less purchasing power than soft ply toilet tissue the game was over .
Any modern day Zimbabwean refugee will tell you what it’s like to have to pay for a roll of toilet tissue with a wad of notes bigger than said toilet roll !
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 04:55 PM‘RC’s in NI take note . You’ve nothing to lose but your priests !’
The antithesis of the above would then be
‘Prods in NI take note ! Keep discriminating against Fenians and RC’s for two very good reasons .
1) It’s good for them i.e the RC’s. Toughens them up no end .
2) When the Prods lose out you’ll only have yourselves to blame and not the Taigs !Isn’t history a riot :)
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 05:02 PM‘Protestantism also encouraged a healthy distrust of hierarchical structures, a questioning disposition, and a distaste for tradition ‘
So where does this leave Queenie as Head of State and Head of Church in the UK ? Is the ongoing Princess Diana saga another symptom of distaste for tradition or is it just a distasteful tradition ?
Methinks Marty Feldman would have done a better job on this subject than Dr Feldman :)
The poorest ‘whites ‘ in the USA are found in those parts of the country i.e Kentucky/West Virginia /where the Scotch Irish /Protestants and their descendants predominate . Is their relative poverty due to their protestantism ? their ethnic group ? or their environment or what ?
Answers on a postcard please to
Professor Marty Feldman
Faculty of Neo Creationism
University of Hard Knocks
Bush Baptist Campus
Greenville
North Carlolina
God’s KuntryPosted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 05:57 PMJews apply the same moral standards and work ethic that Protestants do from the Bible (albeit only the OT). That is why the richer Western countries use the expression “Judeao-Christian Tradition” - that is far removed from the Bible -burning Catholic superstition faith of the Dark Ages.
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 06:06 PMAnyone care to explain why those states in the U.S. with higher proportions of Catholics tend to be richer (New York etc) while those with higher proportions of Protestants tend to be the poorest states (Alabama etc) in the Union? So much for the good Professor’s theory! Of course this will no doubt be explained by the fact that black Protestants are of course inherently less productive than their white coreligionists!
http://www.adherents.com/maps/map_us_romcath.jpg
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 07:39 PMGreenflag,
you cite the existence of the Royal Family today, gelded by Cromwell centuries ago, as evidence of Protestant regard for hierarchy?
Their existence is all to do with being an historic bulwark against Catholic Europe, their powers (despite what Al-Fayed thinks) are minimal.
Posted by on Oct 02, 2007 @ 11:24 PM“Speaking of jews, I was under the impression that Michael Dell was one.” - Fraggle
So he is. I don’t know where I got the info that he is catholic - probably an assumption because his surname name is Irish (O’Dell - with many early Irish emigrants to America dropping the ‘O’ from their surnames). He also claimed to be Irish-American in an interview in the SBP a few years ago.
“Fortunately, it is a game that anyone can play by giving some logical pattern to events.” - Malcolm Redfellow
I think that’s right. I think claims of superiority based on religion and genetics are two games that are best left unplayed: if someone is deemed superior on that basis, then someone else is deemed inferior. History shows where those kind of games lead.
“What’s the unemployment rate in Poland?” - Fraggle
As dire as you’d expect it to be in a country that only discovered the free market after generations of communist occupation.
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 02:07 AM““What’s the unemployment rate in Poland?” - Fraggle
As dire as you’d expect it to be in a country that only discovered the free market after generations of communist occupation.”
Nothing at all like Lithuania then?
Posted by on Oct 03, 2007 @ 07:45 AM
