It’s well worth reading: the Calvinist equation of elect status with outward signs (ie prosperity) keeps coming back in more and more virulent forms through the various religious revivals of the 19th century until you get to televangelists telling people to “seed” money with them so that it grows like a crop and is returned to them by God one hundred-fold. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
Growing up and living in a country where the general perception is more "if they are rich, that's because they stole it (or their ancestors stole it, not their fault then, though they still don't deserve it)", this way of seeing the world is rather alien. As you may guess, the Protestants lost here. Also we prototyped Communism v0.1 alpha (was somewhat stable, but still ended up with a crash-to-desktop) and the Soviet Union Political Antenna - I mean the Parti Communiste Français was surprisingly powerful for much of the XXe Century. Not saying that it works any better, only that the contrast feels weird...
Lotteries: every C- math student thinks they're going to win the lottery because they can't do math. So they object to the rich being taxed because they're going to match that one number string in 2 billion with their dollar ticket.
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cf. Max Weber: en.m.wikipedia.org - The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism - Wikipedia
ReplyDeleteIt’s well worth reading: the Calvinist equation of elect status with outward signs (ie prosperity) keeps coming back in more and more virulent forms through the various religious revivals of the 19th century until you get to televangelists telling people to “seed” money with them so that it grows like a crop and is returned to them by God one hundred-fold.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
Growing up and living in a country where the general perception is more "if they are rich, that's because they stole it (or their ancestors stole it, not their fault then, though they still don't deserve it)", this way of seeing the world is rather alien.
ReplyDeleteAs you may guess, the Protestants lost here. Also we prototyped Communism v0.1 alpha (was somewhat stable, but still ended up with a crash-to-desktop) and the Soviet Union Political Antenna - I mean the Parti Communiste Français was surprisingly powerful for much of the XXe Century.
Not saying that it works any better, only that the contrast feels weird...
Lotteries: every C- math student thinks they're going to win the lottery because they can't do math. So they object to the rich being taxed because they're going to match that one number string in 2 billion with their dollar ticket.
ReplyDelete