histofthought1

142 Economic thought before Adam Smithin abundance. To the Puritans, this was idolatry; even Christmas was notsupposed to be an occasion for sensate enjoyment.There has been considerable dispute over the 'Weber thesis', propoundedby the early twentieth century German economic historian and sociologist,Max Weber, which attributed the rise of capitalism and the Industrial Revolutionto the late Calvinist concept of the calling and the resulting 'capitalistspirit' . For all its fruitful insights, the Weber thesis must be rejected on manylevels. First, modern capitalism, in any meaningful sense, begins not with theIndustrial Revolution of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but, as we haveseen, in the Middle Ages and particularly in the Italian city-states. Suchexamples of capitalist rationality as double-entry bookkeeping and variousfinancial techniques begin in these Italian city-states as well. All were Catholic.Indeed, it is in a Florentine account book of 1253 that there is first foundthe classic pro-capitalist formula: 'In the name of God and of profit'. No citywas more of a financial and commercial centre than Antwerp in the sixteenthcentury, a Catholic centre. No man shone as much as financier and banker asJacob Fugger, a good Catholic from southern Germany. Not only that: Fuggerworked all his life, refused to retire, and announced that 'he would makemoney as long as he could'. A prime example of the Weberian 'Protestantethic' from a solid Catholic! And we have seen how the scholastic theologiansmoved to understand and accommodate the market and market forces.On the other hand, while it is true that Calvinist areas in England, France,Holland and the north American colonies prospered, the solidly CalvinistScotland remained a backward and undeveloped area, even to this day. 6But even if the focus on calling and labour did not bring about the IndustrialRevolution, it might well have led to another outstanding differencebetween Calvinist and Catholic countries - a crucial difference in the developmentof economic thought. Professor Emil Kauder's brilliant speculationto this effect will inform the remainder of this work. Thus Kauder:Calvin and his disciples placed work at the center of their social theology... Allwork in this society is invested with divine approval. Any social philosopher oreconomist exposed to Calvinism will be tempted to give labor an exalted positionin his social or economic treatise, and no better way of extolling labor can befound than by combining work with value theory, traditionally the very basis of aneconomic system. Thus value becomes labor value, which is not merely a scientificdevice for measuring exchange rates but also the spiritual tie combiningDivine Will with economic everyday life. 7In their extolling of work, the Calvinists concentrated on systematic, continuingindustriousness, on a settled course of labour. Thus the English Puritandivine Samuel Hieron opined that 'He that hath no honest business aboutwhich ordinarily to be employed, no settled course to which he may betake