Since their emergence in ancient times, Christian monasteries have proven to be among the most durable of all human institutions, and in the medieval centuries made enormous contributions to the emergence of Western civilization. They are organized internally on socialist lines: monks own no property and owe total obedience to the abbot, making the monastery a miniature ‘centrally planned economy.’ A puzzling contrast exists between the longevity of monasteries and the transience of secular socialist communes. This paper presents a theoretical model which shows why voluntary socialist communes might be viable despite ‘shirking’ problems, yet fail due to turnover, and how worship, which induces people with high ‘spiritual capital’ to self-select into the monastery and then grows that spiritual capital through ‘learning-by-doing,’ can solve the turnover problem and make a worship-based socialist commune—a monastery—stable. Monasticism, like the market, is a form of ‘spontaneous order,’ but unlike the market, it does not depend on third-party enforcement (e.g., by a state) to function: this explains why monasticism (unlike capitalism) was able to thrive in the anarchic Dark Ages. Monasteries, in principle and largely in practice, are a form of society based on consent of the governed, unlike liberal states which preach but do not practice consensual governance, and it is interesting to juxtapose the real, live ‘social contracts’ of the monasteries with the notional social contracts of liberal political theory. - Nathan Smith, Department of Economics, George Mason University
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
The Economics of Monasticism
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Featured Post
Dagens demokrati kan ikke redde oss fra klimakrisen
Politikerne tror at løsningen på klimakrisen er å forsterke naturkrisen, ved å grave i filler naturen vår, for å plassere vindkraftverk på h...
-
Introduction in Norwegian: Denne artikkelen av Stefano Serafini ble skrevet som en introduksjon til International Society of Biourbanism ...
-
Hadde nesten ferdig et hjørne med hulkillister i dag, men så fikk jeg somlet meg til å kappe 2 mm for mye. Da var dagen over og rett hjem og...
-
Tenk det, snart skal de til her. Rendalsølen i oktober. Hvordan klarer nordmenn å gå på jobb og feire jul, med sitt sedvanlige forbrukersm...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.