html5 可拖动进度条:宗教与经济的相关性

新教地区的欧洲人，认为他们情操高尚，且生活节俭，当他们为全力对付天主教和东正教的欧洲国家所带来的债务危机时，人们的这种观念：宗教信仰会影响人们储蓄，工作，以及消费，会比以往更深入人心。阿拉伯世界独裁者的倒台，也牵扯出一个类似的紧迫的问题：伊斯兰和伊斯兰教国家是否会允许建立一个以追求财富为目的的法律和社会条件？

Clearly many modern religious leaders have strong ideas about economics. In western Europe, organised Christianity often acts as a modest voice in the ranks of the egalitarian left. This month’s anti-banker protests in London initially found a friendly base for their tent city at Saint Paul’s cathedral. (In recent days, Richard Chartres, the bishop of London, has asked them to leave, while acknowledging that they had raised important issues.) In America religious voices both praise and decry the capitalist order. Also on the borderline between economics and ethics, many religious leaders have taken up the cause of climate change, and urged people to change their behaviour—though this week an Australian cardinal, George Pell, bucked that trend by addressing a group of climate-change sceptics in London.

很明显，当代的许多宗教领导人对经济学有自己独特的见解。在西欧，在平均主义的左派中，组织化的基督徒通常扮演的是一种温和的声音。持续数月的伦敦反金融家抗议者们起先在圣保罗大教堂搭起了帐篷，作为自己的抗议基地。（最近几天，当伦敦大主教，理查德.沙特尔认识到他们的抗议已给教堂带来很多严重的问题时，他曾请求他们离开）。在美国，来自宗教界的声音，既有赞扬也有抨击资本主义秩序的。在经济和道德伦理的界线中，许多宗教领导人已经开始从事与气候变化相关的事情，并督促人们改变自己的行为方式——虽然在本周，有一位奥地利红衣主教乔治.佩尔，在伦敦对一群对环境变化持怀疑态度的人士发表演说，反对这种做法。

But all the most interesting theories about religion and behaviour refer to unconscious influences. The best-known was devised by Max Weber, a father of modern sociology, who drew a connection between the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Noting that Protestant parts of Germany were doing better (in the 19th century) than Catholic ones, he thought the “inner loneliness” of Protestants—who can never be sure if they are saved in the eyes of God—made them work harder. Unlike many other forms of faith, Protestantism has no mystical rite to absolve sin.

Sascha Becker, a professor at Britain’s Warwick University who tests Weber’s theories against real life, says the German thinker was both right and wrong. Protestant Germany did prosper, but not because of theology or psychology. Protestants wanted boys and girls to be able to read the Bible; higher literacy led to faster development. But for a given level of education, Protestants and Catholics did equally well. “Whether people are Protestant or Catholic now makes no difference,” Mr Becker says. Besides, the Catholic bits of Germany such as Bavaria are the richest.

英国华威大学教授，萨沙.贝克尔通过实验确定韦伯的理论与实际生活有相悖之处，他认为，这位德国思想家的理论不能说正确，也不能说不正确。新教的德国曾经一度繁荣，但这并非源于宗教或者心理学方面的原因。新教徒希望自己的儿女能够读书识字，通读圣经，这种期望使新教地区的识字率较高，能以较快的速度发展。但在同样的教育水平下，新教地区和天主教地区的发展状况相当。贝克尔认为：“不管人们是新教教徒还是天主教徒，现在看来，对实际生活的影响并无多大差异。”除此之外，德国天主教的一些地区，例如拜仁，是德国最为富裕的地方。

Peter Berger, an American sociologist, has found that Weber’s theories have a certain plausibility in Latin America, where a Protestant, and especially a Pentecostalist minority, outperforms the Catholic majority. Both there and in Africa an individualist Protestant “prosperity gospel” which links financial success with divine favour seems more popular with the upwardly mobile than the recent Catholic stress on “liberating” the poor as a class. South Koreans (both in their homeland and as migrants to America) often convert from Buddhism to Protestantism as they rise economically. All this may reflect the fact that some kinds of Protestantism (like many strains of Islam) sit easily with a disciplined, reflective way of life. It would be odd if that had no economic effects.

美国社会学家，彼得.伯杰发现，韦伯的理论在拉丁美洲国家可以行得通，在拉美国家的新教人群，特别是信奉五旬节派的少数群体，他们在经济上的表现要优于占人口大多数的天主教群体。在拉美和非洲，新教的“成功福音”崇尚个人奋斗，其在经济上的成功似乎有如神佑，与强调“解放”穷人阶级的天主教相比，向上爬升的人群更热衷于新教的理念。韩国人（不仅指在韩国本土，还包括移民到美国的韩国人），一旦他们的经济地位得到上升，他们通常会转变自己的宗教信仰，去佛教而皈依新教。这些都反映了一个事实，某些新教教派（如某些伊斯兰教派）易于尊崇一种自律，沉思的生活。这样的生活方式如不产生经济效益，反而会是咄咄怪事。

But many attempts to link doctrine and economics have run up against exceptions and better explanations. In the Ottoman empire (and in some post-Ottoman places), Christian and Jewish minorities flourished in business. Yet this did not imply stereotypical “fatalism” or “backwardness” among Muslims; the main point was that desirable posts in public or military service were closed to non-Muslims.

但许多尝试把这些教条和经济的关系联系起来的人，会遇到例外的情况，或者是更好的解释。在奥斯曼帝国（及后奥斯曼帝国的一些地区），占少数的天主教徒和犹太教徒在商业上繁荣昌盛。这并不是老套的“宿命论”的说法，也不是暗指穆斯林”愚昧落后“，造成这一现象的主要原因是在政府部门或军队中的好职位是拒绝非穆斯林人进入的。

Similarly, contemplating Greece’s economic woes, it is easy to dream up some theory that connects Orthodox Christianity (and its comparatively charitable attitude to human weakness) with corruption or cronyism. Orthodoxy has a less pessimistic view of “original sin” than the Christian West—and its prayers for the dead emphasise “no man lives who does not sin”. Does that imply winking at misdeeds? Possibly—but then try explaining why Greek-Americans, who are at least as devout as their motherland kin, do so very well in business, education and public service. The plausible reason lies in America’s institutions which make it easier to prosper in an honest way.

与此相似，反思希腊现在的经济窘境，很容易可以臆想出一些理论，将正统的基督教（及其对人性弱点的相对包容）与贪污或者任人唯亲的问题相关联。正统的基督教对人的”原罪“没有西方的基督徒那么悲观，他们为逝去的人的祷告词会强调“无人是清白之身“。这是否意味着他们对别人的恶行会睁一只眼，闭一支眼？也许如此，但希腊裔美国人，和他们在母国的亲人们在宗教上都是一样的虔诚，但他们在商业，教育和公共服务上的表现却要优于他们的亲人们，这又如何解释？一个看似合理的解释是，只要诚勉行事，人们更容易在美国的制度之下得到富足。

Intriguingly, research on Turkey’s devoutly Muslim heartland finds a strong positive link between Islamic piety and capitalist success. The term “Islamic Calvinist” has been used to describe the devout businessmen of central Turkey, who use religious networks to accumulate capital and extend their activities. Of course, none of this proves anything about how Muslim beliefs make people behave. Like all great religions, Islam is a complex system of beliefs, and people usually emphasise the features which appeal to them. Turkey’s pious producers like the bits in the Koran that favour honest trading. Yet Timur Kuran, a professor at America’s Duke University, argues that the inheritance rules in Islamic family law may have slowed development in the past by making it harder to accumulate wealth. If that is true, then modern Turkey may provide a uniquely favourable arena: secular law combined with the diligence and sobriety (in several senses) of Muslim Calvinists. Mr Kuran’s latest research looks at India over the last two centuries. He thinks the poor-ish showing of Muslim businessmen reflects Hindu practices that allow the build-up of family wealth, while Islam dissipates it by mandating legacies to distant kin. This gap emerged under the Raj, and seems to persist in modern India where different faiths still use different family law.

很有趣的是，对土耳其虔诚的穆斯林腹地的研究发现，对伊斯兰教的虔诚度和资本主义的成功之间存在着很强的相关性。“伊斯兰加尔文主义者”被用来形容土耳其中部虔诚的商人，他们利用宗教的关系网络来集聚资金和扩大他们的商业活动。当然，这并不能证明穆斯林信仰是如何塑造人们的行为的。如所有伟大的宗教，伊斯兰教是一个复杂的信仰体系，人们通常只会强调那些对他们感兴趣的教义。土耳其虔诚的生产者喜欢古兰经中推崇诚实交易的教义。然而，美国杜克大学的Timur Kuran教授认为，伊斯兰家庭法律中关于遗产继承的规则，会让人们难以积累财富，使得其过去的发展放慢。如是这样，现代的土耳其可能提供一个独特的有利的展示场：世俗法律与伊斯兰加尔文教中所倡导的勤勉，节制相融合。Kuran教授最新的研究观察了过去两个世纪的印度。他认为，穆斯林商人的表现不佳反衬出印度教义在积累家庭财富方面的做法——伊斯兰教义授令把财富分配给远房的亲族。这种差距在英国统治印度时开始显现出来，而且在今日的印度社会仍在延续，印度家庭因为信仰不同，对家庭财产的分配方式也不同。

One problem, says Mr Kuran, is that religiously-inspired institutions change more slowly than religious dogma. Even text-based creeds, based on one-off divine revelation, can be quite flexible in reacting to new economic circumstances. But the world of Islam, in his view, has been held back by institutions like the waqf, a sort of Islamic charity which people sometimes use to create jobs for their families. In the end, laws and institutions seem to make more difference to people’s worldly chances than the arcana of theology.

Kuran教授说，有一个问题是宗教激发的社会制度的改变要比宗教本身教义的变更来得缓慢。即使是在以一次性的神启为基础的文本上的教义，在应对新的经济环境是，也非常具有灵活性。但在伊斯兰世界，这些改变却因瓦克夫法之类的制度而受到肘制，瓦克夫法是伊斯兰的一种慈善体制，目的是为亲族创造工作机会。最后，我还想说的是，与宗教的深奥相比，法律和制度在应对人们对周遭环境做出变化时的改变，看起来像是大同小异的。