Posted on 08/14/2003 9:15:41 AM PDT by NYer
Capitalism, it is usually assumed, flowered around the same time as the Enlightenment — the eighteenth century — and, like the Enlightenment, entailed a diminution of organized religion. In fact, the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was the main locus for the first flowerings of capitalism.
Max Weber located the origin of capitalism in modern Protestant cities, but today’s historians find capitalism much earlier than that in rural areas, where monasteries, especially those of the Cistercians, began to rationalize economic life. Entrepreneurial Monks Jump-Starting a Millennium of Progress
It was the church more than any other agency, writes historian Randall Collins, that put in place what Weber called the preconditions of capitalism: the rule of law and a bureaucracy for resolving disputes rationally; a specialized and mobile labor force; the institutional permanence that allows for transgenerational investment and sustained intellectual and physical efforts, together with the accumulation of long-term capital; and a zest for discovery, enterprise, wealth creation, and new undertakings.
The people of the high Middle Ages (1100—1300) were agog with wonder at great mechanical clocks, new forms of gears for windmills and water mills, improvements in wagons and carts, shoulder harnesses for beasts of burden, the ocean-going ship rudder, eyeglasses and magnifying glasses, iron smelting and ironwork, stone cutting, and new architectural principles. So many new types of machines were invented and put to use by 1300 that historian Jean Gimpel wrote a book in 1976 called The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages.
Without the growth of capitalism, however, such technological discoveries would have been idle novelties. They would seldom have been put in the hands of ordinary human beings through swift and easy exchange. They would not have been studied and rapidly copied and improved by eager competitors. All this was made possible by freedom for enterprise, markets, and competition — and that, in turn, was provided by the Catholic Church.
The church owned nearly a third of all the land of Europe. To administer those vast holdings, it established a continent-wide system of canon law that tied together multiple jurisdictions of empire, nation, barony, bishopric, religious order, chartered city, guild, confraternity, merchants, entrepreneurs, traders, et cetera. It also provided local and regional administrative bureaucracies of arbitrators, jurists, negotiators, and judges, along with an international language, "canon law Latin."
Even the new emphasis on clerical celibacy played an important capitalist role. Its clean separation between office and person in the church broke the traditional tie between family and property that had been fostered by feudalism and its carefully plotted marriages. It also provided Europe with an extraordinarily highly motivated, literate, specialized, and mobile labor force.
The Cistercians, who eschewed the aristocratic and sedentary ways of the Benedictines and, consequently, broke farther away from feudalism, became famous as entrepreneurs. They mastered rational cost accounting, plowed all profits back into new ventures, and moved capital around from one venue to another, cutting losses where necessary, and pursuing new opportunities when feasible. They dominated iron production in central France and wool production (for export) in England. They were cheerful and energetic. "They had," Collins writes, "the Protestant ethic without Protestantism."
Being few in number, the Cistercians needed labor-saving devices. They were a great spur to technological development. Their monasteries "were the most economically effective units that had ever existed in Europe, and perhaps in the world, before that time," Gimpel writes.
Thus, the high medieval church provided the conditions for F. A. Hayek’s famous "spontaneous order" of the market to emerge. This cannot happen in lawless and chaotic times; in order to function, capitalism requires rules that allow for predictable economic activity. Under such rules, if France needs wool, prosperity can accrue to the English sheepherder who first increases his flock, systematizes his fleecers and combers, and improves the efficiency of his shipments.
In his 1991 Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II points out that the main cause of the wealth of nations is knowledge, science, know-how, discovery — in today’s jargon, "human capital." Literacy and study were the main engines of such medieval monasteries; human capital, moral and intellectual, was their primary economic advantage.
The pope also praises the modern corporation for developing within itself a model of relating the gifts of the individual to the common tasks of the firm. This ideal, too, we owe to the high medieval religious orders, not only the Benedictines and the Cistercians, but the Dominicans and Franciscans of the early thirteenth century.
The new code of canon law at the time took care to enshrine as a legal principle that such communities, like cathedral chapters and monasteries before them, could act as legal individuals. As Collins points out, Pope Innocent IV thereby won the sobriquet "father of the modern learning of corporations." In defending the rights of the new Franciscan and the Dominican communities against the secular clergy and lay professors at the University of Paris, Thomas Aquinas wrote one of the first defenses of the role of free associations in "civil society" and the inherent right of people to form corporations.
The Catholic Church’s role helped jump-start a millennium of impressive economic progress. In ad 1000, there were barely two hundred million people in the world, most of whom were living in desperate poverty, under various tyrannies, and subject to the unchecked ravages of disease and much civic disorder. Economic development has made possible the sustenance now of more than six billion people — at a vastly higher level than one thousand years ago, and with an average lifespan almost three times as long.
No other part of the world outside Europe (and its overseas offspring) has achieved so powerful and so sustained an economic performance, raised up so many of the poor into the middle class, inspired so many inventions, discoveries, and improvements for the easing of daily life, and brought so great a diminution of age-old plagues, diseases, and ailments.
The economic historian David Landes, who describes himself as an unbeliever, points out that the main factors in this great economic achievement of Western civilization are mainly religious:
• the joy in discovery that arises from each individual being an imago Dei called to be a creator;
• the religious value attached to hard and good manual work;
• the theological separation of the Creator from the creature, such that nature is subordinated to man, not surrounded with taboos;
• the Jewish and Christian sense of linear, not cyclical, time and, therefore, of progress; and
• respect for the market.
As the world enters the third millennium, we may hope that the church, after some generations of loss of nerve, rediscovers its old confidence in the economic order. Few things would help more in raising up all the world’s poor out of poverty. The church could lead the way in setting forth a religious and moral vision worthy of a global world, in which all live under a universally recognizable rule of law, and every individual’s gifts are nourished for the good of all.
I believe this is what the pope has in mind when he speaks of a "civilization of love." Capitalism must infused by that humble gift of love called caritas, described by Dante as "the Love that moves the Sun and all the stars." This is the love that holds families, associations, and nations together. The current tendency of many to base the spirit of capitalism on sheer materialism is a certain road to economic decline. Honesty, trust, teamwork, and respect for the law are gifts of the spirit. They cannot be bought.
Michael Novak holds the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of many books, including, Tell Me Why: A Father Answers His Daughter’s Questions about God (Pocket Books), which he wrote with his daughter, Jana. This essay originally appeared in the December 23, 1999, Wall Street Journal.
(This article is a product of the Acton Institute — www.acton.org, 161 Ottawa NW, Suite 301, Grand Rapids, MI 49503 — and is reprinted with permission.)
Free traders have no clue how the civilization is being built. All they know is how to make a quick profit by wasting the cultural/social capital accumulated through centuries.
Yes. The thesis is that the reason that science arose in a Christian culture, and not in a culture like China which was clearly sophisticated, is this: science assumes that there are LAWS that exist that can be discovered. The assumption is that the universe is orderly, not random. Fundamental laws underlie it. But why make this assumption? Most cultures have not made this assumption. Christianity, however, postulates a single monotheistic God who created the universe and imposed his will upon it. Other cultures believed in multiple gods, quarreling, squabbling like some kind of inbred hillbilly incest fest (the Greek gods are typical of this breed). But the Judeo-Christian God imposed order and established laws by his will (this was the assumption). Therefore, scientists could discover those laws, so they went looking. And lo, they found them. Of course today many scientists are materialists and believe no God is necessary -- but at the dawn of science, when no one knew whether there were fundamental laws of nature or not -- the assumption that there were was itself an act of faith.
Western Civilization is a 'tapestry' of many elements, each having played off the other to evolve the current level of sophistication and sheer diversity (used here in a good sense) of thought and action. People are not taught anymore to value those 'threads' in that 'tapestry' that are the bedrock and foundation of the whole. The Church is one of those threads and has contributed much to where we are today. Removing some of the threads causes the fabric to fall apart. This then is purpose of the left with regard to religion: To destroy the fabric of our society by removing some of its greatest underpinnings and 'threads'.
As an aside, I hope the European Union doesn't forget their history and exclude their heritage in the writing of their 'Constitution' as John Paul II has reminded them recently.
If you notice, Christianity in countries such as Ethiopia, souther Sudan (both ancient Orthodox), southern Idia and other areas not produce sciences. Also, Renassaunce start AFTER fall of Constantinople and fleeing of its learned men to west.
See, this is what I'm talking about. A.Pole was perfectly civil to you in his message, but you have to respond like this. After all, a Good Democrat Underground disruptor needs to foster division any time she can.
I did not say "technology", I said "science". China had technology (ie gunpowder, etc.) Ancient Greece had technology -- they even had a working (albet primitive) steam engine). Japanese swords are technology.
Science is different than technology. Science arose because of a belief that there are natural laws underlying the universe, and that those laws can be discovered. The belief that this is the situation arose in the Christian culture that believed in a God who created those laws. Science does not equal technology, do not mistake my point.
No. Science is a methodology. Technology can be developed by a series of 'ad hoc' discoveries, which in fact is how technology was developed for most of human history.
Definition: \Sci"ence\, n. [F., fr. L. scientia, fr. sciens, -entis,
p. pr. of scire to know. Cf. {Conscience}, {Conscious}, {Nice}.]
1. Knowledge; knowledge of principles and causes; ascertained truth of facts.
2. Accumulated and established knowledge, which has been systematized and formulated with reference to the discovery of general truths or the operation of general laws; knowledge classified and made available in work, life, or the search for truth; comprehensive, profound, or philosophical knowledge.
3. Especially, such knowledge when it relates to the physical world and its phenomena, the nature, constitution, and forces of matter, the qualities and functions of living tissues, etc.; -- called also {natural science}, and {physical science}.
4. Any branch or department of systematized knowledge considered as a distinct field of investigation or object of study; as, the science of astronomy, of chemistry, or of mind. Note: Science is applied or pure. Applied science is a knowledge of facts, events, or phenomena, as explained, accounted for, or produced, by means of powers, causes, or laws. Pure science is the knowledge of these powers, causes, or laws, considered apart, or as pure from all applications. Both these terms have a similar and special signification when applied to the science of quantity; as, the applied and pure mathematics. Exact science is knowledge so systematized that prediction and verification, by measurement, experiment, observation, etc., are possible. The mathematical and physical sciences are called the exact sciences.
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae was a Greek mathematician and astronomer. He was born in 499 B.C. and died in 428 B.C. in Lampsacus, Mysia. After Pythagoras, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae dealt with many questions in geometry... Anaxagoras was an Ionian, born in the neighborhood of Smyrna in what today is Turkey. We know few details of his early life, but certainly he lived the first part of his life in Ionia where he learned about the new studies that were taking place there in philosophy and the new found enthusiasm for a scientific study of the world.We should examine this teaching of Anaxagoras about the sun more closely for, although it was used as a reason to put him in prison, it is a most remarkable teaching. It was based on his doctrine of "nous" which is translated as "mind" or "reason". Initially "all things were together" and matter was some homogeneous mixture. The nous set up a vortex in this mixture. The rotation system is present. Anaxagoras also shows an understanding of centrifugal force which again shows the major scientific insights that he possessed. Anaxagoras proposed that the moon shines by reflected light from the "red-hot stone" which was the sun, the first such recorded claim. Showing great genius he was also then able to take the next step and become the first to explain correctly the reason for eclipses of the sun and moon. His explanation of eclipses of the sun is completely correct but he did spoil his explanation of eclipses of the moon by proposing that in addition to being caused by the shadow of the earth, there were other dark bodies between the earth and the moon which also caused eclipses of the moon
The brilliant Greek scientist Archimedes was born in Syracuse, Sicily in 287 B.C. His best-known invention was a machine for raising water, called Archimedes' screw (this is technology). He is also famous for his work on buoyancy, or floating bodies, which led him to develop Archimedes' principle. Archimedes also studied how levers worked and how geometry could be used to measure circles.
Aristarchus of Samos (310-230 B.C.), was a astronomer often referred to as the Copernicus of antiquity, laid the foundation for much scientific examination of the heavens. According to his contemporary, Archimedes, Aristarchus was the first to propose not only a heliocentric universe, but one larger than any of the geocentric universes proposed by his predecessors. Though some of his reasoning was a bit out of place in his time, Aristarchus nevertheless was able to adapt to the conventions of society and use the methods of known geometry to explain other phenomena. His treatise On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon, written from a geocentric point of view, was a breakthrough in finding distances to objects in the universe, and his methods were used by later astronomers and mathematicians through the time of Hipparchus and Ptolemy. Aristarchus introduced six hypotheses, from which he determined first the relative distances of the sun and the moon, then their relative sizes: 1) The moon receives its light from the sun. 2) The earth is positioned as a point in the center of the sphere in which the moon moves. 3) When the moon appears to us halved, the great circle which divides the dark and bright portions of the moon is in the direction of our eye. 4) When the moon appears to us halved, its [angular] distance from the sun is then less than a quadrant by one-thirtieth part of a quadrant. (One quadrant = 90 degrees, which means its angular distance is less than 90 by 1/30th of 90, or 3 degrees, and is therefore equal to 87 degrees.) (This assigned value was based on Aristarchus' observations.) 5) The breadth of the earth's shadow is that of two moons. 6) The moon subtends one fifteenth part of a sign of the Zodiac. (The 360 degrees of the celestial sphere are divided into twelve signs of the Zodiac each encompassing 30 degrees, so the moon, therefore, has an angular diameter of 2 degrees.) Although he proved many propositions (eighteen to be exact), the three most well-known are the following: 1) The distance of the sun from the earth is greater than eighteen times, but less than twenty times, the distance of the moon from the earth. 2) The diameter of the sun has the same ratio (greater than eighteen but less than twenty) to the diameter of the moon. 3) the diameter of the sun has to the diameter of the earth a ratio greater than 19 to 3, but less than 43 to 6. In his determination of these three factors, Aristarchus developed the Lunar Dichotomy method and the Eclipse Diagram, the latter of which became a much-used method of determining celestial distances up until the seventeenth century. _____________________________________________________________ NOTE: Only few examples.
Ancient Chinese Science:
The Twenty-eight Mansions system first emerged in the period between the early Zhou and the Han (206 B.C. - A.D.220) Dynasties. Insertion of seven intercalated months for every 19 years was also established in the compilation of calendar. In the Han and the Tang (618-907) Dynasties, people discovered that the Sun did not move at a constant pace. They then determined the solar terms according to 24 equal distances travelled by the Sun on the celestial sphere. People also defined the conjunction of the Sun and the Moon as the first day of a lunar month. By observing the variant motion of the Moon, they were able to obtain the lunar syzygy. During the Song, the Yuan and the early Ming Dynasties (960-1460), numerous sophisticated astronomical instruments were invented and long-term celestial surveys were conducted. Outstanding achievements in calendar theory, calendar calculations and astronomical documentation were thus obtained.
Numerical notation, arithmetical computations, counting rods Traditional decimal notation -- one symbol for each of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 100, 1000, and 10000. Ex. 2034 would be written with symbols for 2,1000,3,10,4, meaning 2 times 1000 plus 3 times 10 plus 4. Goes back to origins of Chinese writing. Calculations performed using small bamboo counting rods. The positions of the rods gave a decimal place-value system, also written for long-term records. 0 digit was a space. Arranged left to right like Arabic numerals. Back to 400 B.C.E. or earlier. Addition: the counting rods for the two numbers placed down, one number above the other. The digits added (merged) left to right with carries where needed. Subtraction similar. Multiplication: multiplication table to 9 times 9 memorized. Long multiplication similar to ours with advantages due to physical rods. Long division analogous to current algorithms, but closer to "galley method."
Zhoubi suanjing (The Arithmetical Classic of the Gnomon and the Circular Paths of Heaven) (c. 100 B.C.E.-c. 100 C.E.) Describes one of the theories of the heavens. Early Han dynasty (206 B.C.E -220 C.E.) or earlier. Book burning of 213 B.C.E.. States and uses the Pythagorean theorem for surveying, astronomy, etc. Proof of the Pythagorean theorem. Calculations including with common fractions
The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art (Jiuzhang Suanshu) (c. 100 B.C.E.-50 C.E.) Collects mathematics to beginning of Han dynasty. 246 problems in 9 chapters. Longest surviving and most influential Chinese math book. Many commentaries. Ch 1, Field measurement: systematic discussion of algorithms using counting rods for common fractions including alg. for GCD, LCM; areas of plane figures, square, rectangle, triangle, trapezoid, circle, circle segment, sphere segment, annulus -- some accurate, some approximations. Ch 2,3,6 on proportions, Cereals, Proportional distribution, Fair taxes. Ch 4, What width?: given area or volume find sides. Describes usual algorithms for square and cube roots but takes advantage of computations with counting rods Ch 5, Construction consultations: volumes of cube, rectangular parallelepiped, prism frustums, pyramid, triangular pyramid, tetrahedron, cylinder, cone, and conic frustum, sphere -- some approximations, some use pi=3 Ch 7, Excess and deficients: false position and double false position Ch 8, Rectangular arrays: Gives elimination algorithm for solving systems of three or more simultaneous linear equations. Involves use of negative numbers (red reds for pos numbers, black for neg numbers). Rules for signed numbers. Ch 9, Right triangles: applications of Pythagorean theorem and similar triangles, solves quadratic equations with modification of square root algorithm, only equations of the form x^2 + a x = b, with a and b positive.
Sun Zi (c. 250? C.E.) Wrote his mathematical manual. Includes "Chinese remainder problem" or "problem of the Master Sun": find n so that upon division by 3 you get a remainder of 2, upon division by 5 you get a remainder of 3, and upon division by 7 you get a remainder of 2. His solution: Take 140, 63, 30, add to get 233, subtract 210 to get 23.
Liu Hui (c. 263 C.E.) Commentary on the Nine Chapters Approximates pi by approximating circles polygons, doubling the number of sides to get better approximations. From 96 and 192 sided polygons, he approximates pi as 3.141014 and suggested 3.14 as a practical approx. States principle of exhaustion for circles Suggests Calvalieri's principle to find accurate volume of cylinder Haidao suanjing (Sea Island Mathematical Manual). Originally appendix to commentary on Ch 9 of the Nine Chapters. Includes nine surveying problems involving indirect observations.
Only few examples. Metallergy was developed as science by all civilizations to some degree. So was basic animal husbandry. Engineering as science was developed by all great civilizations how else they build things? By developing science of materials and then transfer to technology they build large buildings and through development of science of geometery they know how to build buildings without collapse.
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