Version from YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjntXYDPw44), March 5, 2014, modified from first-person to third-person:
Some time ago Harvard economist Clayton Christensen has a conversation with a Marxist economist from China. He was coming to the end of a Fulbright Fellowship in Boston. Christensen asked his friend if he had learned here anything that was surprising or unexpected. And without any hesitation he said, “Yeah - I had no idea how critical religion is to the functioning of democracy. The reason why democracy works,” he said, “is not because the government was designed to oversee what everybody does, but, rather, democracy works because most people, most of the time, voluntarily choose to obey the law. And in your past, most Americans attended a church or synagogue every week and they were taught there by people who they respected.” Christensen’s friend went on to say that Americans followed these rules because they had come to believe that they weren’t just accountable to society, they were accountable to God.
His Chinese friend heightened a vague but nagging concern Christensen harbored inside that as religion loses its influence over the lives of Americans, what will happen to our democracy? Where are the institutions that are going to teach the next generation of Americans that they, too, need to voluntarily choose to obey the laws? Because if you take away religion, you can’t hire enough police.
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Version from article:
I learned the importance of religion for the strength of democracy and capitalism in a conversation 12 years ago with a Marxist economist from China who was nearing the end of a Fulbright Fellowship in Boston. I asked my friend if he had learned here anything that was surprising or unexpected. His response was immediate and, to me, quite profound: “I had no idea how critical religion is to the functioning of democracy and capitalism.” Though de Toqueville also had observed this, I had never made this association between religion, democracy and capitalism in my mind. But it was like this scholar parachuted in from Mars – and this is what he saw.
He continued, “In your past, most Americans attended a church or synagogue every week. These were institutions that people respected. At church, from their youngest years, Americans were taught to voluntarily obey the law; to respect other people’s property, and not steal it. Americans were taught never to lie. Americans followed these rules because they had come to believe that even if the police or court systems didn’t catch them when they broke a law, God would catch them and hold them accountable. Democracy works here because most people most of the time voluntarily obey the laws.
“You can say the same for capitalism,” my friend continued. “It works because Americans have been taught in their churches that they should keep their promises and not tell lies. An advanced economy cannot function if people cannot expect that when they sign contracts, the other people will voluntarily uphold their obligations. Capitalism works because most people voluntarily keep their promises.”
My friend then invited me to look around the world at those countries where, in his words, “America had snapped its fingers at the country and demanded, ‘We want democracy here, and we want it now!’” Unless there was already a strong religious foundation in those countries, he asserted, democracy has failed miserably. There are religions in every country, of course. But he made clear that democracy-enabling religions are those that support the sanctity of life, the equality of people, the importance of respecting others’ property, and of personal honesty and integrity. Those religions also had to be strong enough that they held power over the behavior of the population. People had to believe that even if the police and court system do not catch them, God would hold them accountable if they do not follow the rules. He then gave some examples.
In Russia, for instance, there are religions – but few people are influenced by them. As a result many people avoid taxes, and the government cannot collect them. Murder, bribery and stealing are a part of everyday life. He noted that American foreign policy has been naïve in Haiti and the nations of Africa that have been torn by such brutal civil strife. “You just think that because democracy works for you that it will work everywhere. It only works where there is a strong foundation of religion.” In the course of researching the issue my friend posed I happened upon an elegant summary of what he was trying to teach me, penned by Lord John Fletcher Moulton, the great English jurist, who wrote that the probability that democracy and free markets will flourish in a nation is proportional to “The extent of obedience to the unenforceable.”
My Chinese friend heightened a vague but nagging concern I’ve harbored – that as religion loses its power over the lives of Americans, what will happen to our democracy? Our prosperity? We are living on momentum. The ethic of obedience to the unenforceable was established by vibrant religions, and some of these teachings have become a part of our culture. As a result, today there are many Americans who are not religious, who still voluntarily obey the law, comply with contracts, value honesty and integrity and respect other people’s rights and property. This is because certain religious teachings have become embedded in our culture. But is culture a stalwart protector of democracy’s enabling values? No – because culture has no mechanism for holding citizens accountable for obedience to unenforceable laws.
Those who seek to minimize the role that religions can play in the public stage are making two very serious mistakes – the consequence of their not having asked the right questions. First, they are seeking to minimize the very institutions that have given us our civil liberties in the first place. And second, the debate swirling in judicial discourse about the separation of church and state is a false dichotomy. If we broadly define them as philosophical traditions, there are two classes of religions: theistic religions and atheistic ones. Zealots of atheistic religions who assert that theistic religions must be swept off the democratic stage are knitting the doctrines of their religions into our legal and regulatory fabric. But the adherents to the religions of atheism and secularism haven’t rigorously asked the right question, and are therefore giving us an answer that may well prove to be toxic to democracy.
My Chinese friend’s insight has helped me understand what the valuable question really is: “Because democracy is possible only when most people most of the time voluntarily obey the laws, what institutions can we rely upon to inculcate this instinct amongst the American people? And how can we strengthen those institutions, so that they do this better?”
When the instinct of even a minority of people in a society is to steal what belongs to others, lie when it suits their selfish purposes, evade taxes, demand bribes and disregard the rights of others, then capitalism won’t work, either. Just look at our economic crisis in 2007-8. It didn’t take many financiers whose instinct was to take what belongs to others and to stretch rather than obey the rules, to cause capitalism to very nearly collapse.
When the extent of disobedience to the unenforceable grows, not just democracy, but prosperity becomes in jeopardy. We treasure democracy because it gives us freedoms of speech and the press. But democracy without near-universal obedience to the unenforceable strips from us other crucial freedoms, which include the freedom from want and the freedom to be employed. I again ask what I believe is a crucial question for America: Because capitalism and the prosperity it brings are possible only when most people most of the time voluntarily obey the laws, what institutions can we rely upon to inculcate this instinct amongst the people, before they arrive in our executive suites and on Wall Street? And how can we strengthen the institutions that teach these things, so that they do it better?
When a nation lacks the requisite foundation of extensive obedience to the unenforceable, what form of government will work? Unfortunately democracy and capitalism won’t. It requires the rule of someone who can define good laws and then wield the power required to compel obedience. Living proofs of this hypothesis cover the globe. Just run this experiment. The next time you’re in a taxi with a Haitian cab driver, just ask whether things are better now under democracy than they were under the corrupt rule of the Duvaliers. I guarantee that every one of them pines for the day when there was an iron-fisted ruler who had the instinct and ability to stomp his heel into the chest of those who didn’t follow the rules and force compliance.
It’s not a coincidence that the countries that have transitioned from poverty to prosperity in the last 50 years – including Korea, Chile, Taiwan, Singapore, Portugal and the Dominican Republic – all were led by iron-fisted rulers, who had the instinct and ability to wield power quite ruthlessly, in some instances, to break the vested interests of those that profited from the corruption that had trapped those nations in poverty. Impoverished countries with democratic governments such as the Philippines, in contrast, struggle to prosper because imposition of democracy has simply democratized corruption to the point that capitalism won’t work: The investments that would stimulate economic growth simply cannot be made, because you can’t bribe enough people to make anything happen.
Those who assume that the atheistic religions of secularism are a better backbone for freedom and prosperity than the theistic ones that they are trying to push under the back seat, have a huge burden of proof which they’ve not had the intellectual fortitude to discuss, let alone propose as viable solutions. What institutions are they proposing to establish that have enduring power to teach the next generation of Americans to enthusiastically obey unenforceable laws?
I have been carefully listening for 12 years for a cogent response to these questions from a disciple of atheism and secularism. So far, at least, they seem to have nothing to say.
I invite you to comment on this blog but these are the rules for participate in this discussion: We respect each other. We try to teach each other and learn from one another. That means we assess and comment on the ideas.
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Some comments from readers:
Mark Pickering
February 11, 2011
I am sympathetic to the arguments you make. But I doubt a reasonable atheist would be persuaded. Consider the following objections he or she could make questioning the relationship between morality and religion:
1. The argument that religion makes people moral falsely assumes that religion encourages only moral behavior. But in many cases religion encourages immoral behavior. Further, different religions contract one another about what is moral and what is immoral, and people within a given religion also sometimes disagree.
2. The argument that atheists are morally worse than theists is false. Atheists are, for example, less likely to go to prison. While this could be due to sociological factors (e.g., atheists are more likely to be educated, and educated people are less likely to go to prison), it at least casts doubt on the claim that religious people are more moral than atheists.
Consider also some empirical challenges to some of the other claims you make.
3. Americans have become less religious than they were 300 years ago. But capitalism and democracy have, if anything, become stronger, not weaker. The economic crisis of 2007-2008 is hardly the first economic crisis in American history. Consider the financial crises of 1792, 1796-1797, 1819, etc. Or consider the undemocratic restrictions on the civil rights of Native Americans, African-Americans, and women. They were lifted only later, as the country became increasingly secular.
Consider also ways in which religion works against democracy or capitalism:
4. It is possible that a democracy will pass laws that contradict the tenets of a religion. In such cases religions sometimes work to undermine democracy. Consider, for example, Iran or Saudi Arabia.
5. Religion often works against capitalism by discouraging the accumulation of wealth, discouraging working on the Sabbath, discouraging women from working, and sometimes seeking to supplant it entirely (in the case of the United Order or other communes).
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Jeff
February 8, 2011
Interesting theory. I would love to see some social scientists test it. I had several thoughts.
First, you mention that democracy and capitalism work when most of the people voluntarily obey the law and keep their promises. You state that a strong religious foundation is prerequisite. Is there any data that non-religious people do not voluntarily obey the law and keep their promises? You seem to suggest that if non-religious people actually do voluntarily obey the law and keep their promises, it is because they were raised in a country which has a strong religious foundation built into the culture.
Second, you mention that democracy-enabling religions are “those that support the sanctity of life, the equality of people, the importance of respecting others’ property, and of personal honesty and integrity. Those religions also had to be strong enough that they held power over the behavior of the population.” Which religions does this refer to? For example, you list Portugal as an example of developing because of an Iron-fisted ruler. It is now democratic and capitalistic, yet interestingly it shares the same religious tradition with countries like France, Italy, and Austria.
Finally, like Tim, I immediately thought of European countries as a counter-example. Many European countries have robust democracies, capitalist economies, but also are more secular than the U.S. Maybe like Tim suggested the religious values you talk about are built into their institutions. However, while thinking about that theory — I cannot help but think of Eastern European countries like Estonia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia which are some of the most secular states. Interestingly, they are democratic and capitalistic (arguably more capitalistic than some Western European countries). Maybe their democratic and capitalistic experiences will not endure, or maybe they modeled their institutions after Western European countries (which had their religious foundation built in.) Maybe they are just an anomaly
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Clayton Christensen responds
February 9, 2011
Thanks for each of you for your thoughts. It was a treat, Melanie, to read Roosevelt and Lippman weighing in on this issue!
I thought I’d respond to your thinking collectively. You’ve helped my see possibilities and problems that I hadn’t thought much about — so thanks to each of you.
This is what I’m thinking. It is true that to some degree in America and a stronger degree in northern Europe, culture, not religion, keeps most people in line. I refer you to a marvelous book from Edgar Schein on where culture comes from: “Organizational Culture and Leadership.” He shows that culture doesn’t just autonomously emerge. Culture is the result of a group following a process or a set of rules, which led to success, over and over and over. I suspect that religion is the factor that resulted in the culture. Culture of nations does not spontaneously emerge from chaos.
There is a second way to get a culture whose ethic is that everyone must follow the rules — and that is a dictator who articulates the rules, and hold citizens immediately accountable if they don’t follow the rules. Singapore was blessed with such a ruler — Lee Kuan Yew. As Singaporeans prospered by following his rules, a culture emerged which dictated that everybody all the time should follow the rules.
Just as culture has moved into the fore and religions have become minor factors in Europe, the culture of Singapore will sustain capitalism even after democracy supplants the prime ministers.
But if you have a dictator who is corrupt because he doesn’t believe that he will be held accountable for following the rules, capitalism and democracy do not thrive. Corruption becomes rampant, as in Argentina and Russia. There are, unfortunately, not a lot of Lee Kuan Yews around.
In both cases, however — religions or honest dictators — I submit that culture doesn’t have a self-sustaining mechanism to make it so strong that the vast majority of people will always follow the rules. Without strong religions that keep instilling these values, culture atrophies — as if there is a second law of thermodynamics at work. Culture is a temporary factor that keeps capitalism and democracy viable for a time. But that is all.
If you have questions about this, just look at Mexico, a magnificent nation and magnificent people, as it falls off the cliff into chaos over the next 20 years.
