Purity condemns filth; piety disparages corruption. Amassing riches offered to a transcendental world, the priests of ancient faiths found themselves trapped in contradiction. By loaning out their resources to merchants, they made themselves pariahs to true prophets. Before Islam squared the circle, bringing capital mobility and credit creation into coexistence with devotion, religion stymied merchant capitalism. Spread through trade, Islam's innovations in commerce soothed the path to coexistence of credit and faith globally. Had a second form of capitalism - technological capitalism - not emerged, binding science to innovation, harmony between faith and capitalism would have prevailed. However, scientific advances deepen on empirical evidence that is buttressed by critical debate, which is anathema to powerful elites in countries saturated with religious nationalism. Consequently, easy cooperation between capitalism and religion is blocked in these lands, and so their potential for economic progress withers. Thus, many of these states, trapped in the invidious stranglehold of religion, are condemned to sustained poverty.
By:
Carl Mosk (University of Victoria Canada) Imprint: Routledge Country of Publication: United Kingdom Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 362g ISBN:9780367348953 ISBN 10: 0367348950 Series:Routledge Studies in Modern History Pages: 238 Publication Date:05 July 2019 Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format:Paperback Publisher's Status: Active
Carl Mosk is Emeritus Professor at the University of Victoria, Canada.
