Religion and the Rise of Capitalism

Harvard political economist Friedman (Day of Reckoning) delivers an ambitious intellectual history of Christian influence on the development of economic thought, from the Enlightenment to the present day. Focusing particularly on the theological ideas that influenced Adam Smith—whose work is considered the foundation of modern economics—Friedman argues that Smith’s understanding of economics was “shaped by what were then new and vigorously contended lines of religious thought within the English-speaking Protestant world.” As a result, Friedman writes, Enlightenment-era Protestant understandings of human nature still inform ideas about economic theory. Friedman digs deeply into the theological debates about human nature, free will, and depravity, and the possibility of human progress that shaped Adam Smith’s belief that “the key driver in this progression, from each stage to the next, was scarcity.” Friedman then surveys Christians’ influence on American economic policies from the colonial period to the present, explaining that “public awareness of... economic improvement and the expanded opportunity that came with it further reinforced the tendency toward non-predestinarian thinking within American Protestantism” and allowed Americans to believe in an “economic destiny.” Unfortunately, Friedman skims the surface of such topics as slavery and the New Deal in the book’s final third, and fails to paint a clear picture of how U.S. economic policies have been shaped by Protestant beliefs. This dense work will be of most interest to scholars of political economy. (Jan.)