Tyler Cowen: belief

Transcript context

…By the time of the Renaissance, anti-Semitism was picking up. One myth that a lot of people believe is that there was a tremendous amount of religious persecution that was going on during, say, the early Middle Ages to the late Middle Ages, up until, say, 1200 or 1300. By the time you get to the Renaissance, there is more tension that’s emerging in Europe, in part because of states growing more powerful, rising state capacity. States are expanding their territory. States are attempting to impose themselves more in different parts of life, and this is starting to generate certain tensions. This is sometimes called the rise of the persecuting state. If I think of the Renaissance as, overall, more capitalistic than the Middle Ages, then there’s a kind of paradox that arises in my mind. It seems that across countries, at any point in time, the more capitalistic countries seem to be more tolerant: the Dutch Republic, later the Netherlands; England; United States. But when you view it as a time series, it seems that you get more capitalism or more advanced state structures, and then more anti-Semitism. How do I square those two tendencies? Or am I wrong? No, I don’t think you’re wrong. Part of this whole process, as we go through in the book . . . I like to think of it as three phases that Europe is going through. And they’re not necessarily the same phases that every other part of the world has to go through. But in Europe, you have an initial phase where individuals are being categorized according to identity rules. They’re being placed into legal categories and social categories, that it’s based on things like their religious identity. Jewish communities are one of the easiest groups to identify this with. They’re forced to live in the same place. They’re forced to wear different kinds of clothes. They can do different sorts of occupations. This is an equilibrium, at first. And during this time, you observe relatively little persecution of these groups. One reason is because they’re in their place, so there’s not the same tension that’s being generated there. Also, they’re serving a purpose. And it’s often, for Jews, for example, in the sense that they are raising money for non-Jews. For towns, they might grant Jews the monopoly right to lend money. Then, of course, Jews make monopoly profit from lending out at higher interest rates. But of course, the Jews don’t get to keep this money. It’s taken by, say, the town burghers. And then they’re taxed. This is actually a rather pernicious equilibrium because you also get a cultural byproduct, which is that Jews are perceived as Shylocks lending at excessive interest rates. And this generates anti-Semitism, which in turn makes it easier for them to be taxed by the secular authority or by the Christian authorities. So that equilibrium — you don’t necessarily see a tremendous amount of persecution yet. However, every now and then, that breaks down, and you do. But then what starts to happen as you get into the Renaissance, and especially as you get more towards the Reformation, you have states expanding. This is the next phase, where you’re moving out of these identity rules, where, importantly, you don’t have to have strong states in that world. You can rely on — you mentioned capital. You can rely on market mechanisms, often, in order to run your state. Tax farming, or subcontracting to Jews to raise money for you — these sorts of things. This puts them in a precarious position, but there’s not a tremendous amount of persecution that comes out of it. As you have the states expanding their role, these sorts of institutional arrangements start to break down at the same time. And this is often when you see the largest amounts of persecution that are taking place.…

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