Can we do without God – in the sense of discipline? With a title that is a nod to Dante, the British Paul Seabright, professor at the Toulouse School of Economics, does more than just answer positively. Following on from Adam Smith, who was interested in the competition between religions and their relations with the political universe, and based on a vast body of academic work, he has published a fascinating book.
To be interested in the products and services, spiritual and material, that religions provide is to look at the business of salvation and souls. It is to deal with the voluntary, and often enthusiastic, commitment of believers who can go so far as to give their lives. It is, more prosaically, to analyze particularly robust models of organizations that adapt over the centuries. According to Seabright, religions are ultimately firms like any other, in competition. They are not only businesses, he specifies, but they are also businesses. Our author proposes an agnostic study to grasp these institutions not in their theological foundations but in their prosaic developments. To use his words, he studies their prose more than their poetry.
For the economist, transactions marked by the seal of the sacred can be examined trivially, from the supply and demand sides. Entrepreneurial prophets have succeeded. Managerial ministries of worship bring rituals to life. Client believers adhere. Religions have strategies regarding the services to provide and the audiences to target. Concretely, religious movements must develop and bring to life messages and structures in order to persuade people to devote time and money to them. In a context of competition reinforced by globalization, they must recruit, retain, and motivate.
Rival platforms
Seabright goes, if we may use the expression here, further. He dissects models. Above all, he studies religions as rival platforms. These produce services. Above all, they allow contacts, shared experiences, the strengthening of communities around doctrines and practices. More effective and more solid than the secular platforms of the digital world (which they know how to use) and much older (acting, with the first virtual realities painted in caves, since prehistory), they can contribute to the common good. They can also, when they are instrumentalized, fall into authoritarianism.
Seabright sheds light on important questions, first on an intimate level: what human needs do these beliefs and cults meet? Then, on an organizational level: how do religions unfold? How do they succeed in producing meaning in life? Finally, from a political perspective: what are the religious uses and abuses of power? Why do poor believers give to rich members of the clergy? This important work first proves the prophecy ritually attributed to Malraux right: the 21st century is religious. Religions, overall, are not declining. They are, in many ways, more powerful than ever. The secularization announced in the 19th century in the West is not really on the horizon. The expert, well aware of the difficulties in measuring religiosity, relies, in particular, on a close reading of international surveys on values. It also recounts the colossal financial flows and deciphers the strength of major political and economic institutions, both domestically and diplomatically.
To sum up, in a figurative way, the author’s point, we can allow ourselves to recall a clever joke that is contained in two quotes: “God is dead” (Nietzsche, 1882), “Nietzsche is dead” (God, 1900). Our author underlines the importance of trust and credit for institutions whose relations with public authorities are based on a mutual attraction. He insists on the need for transparency, particularly from the point of view of sexual scandals but also, more broadly, from a simple accounting point of view.
Seabright succeeds in producing a panorama that is captivating in many ways on such a dense subject. Full of interesting developments (” Gods are gendered “), it addresses all beliefs, making a special case for the two most globalized religions, with their various branches and brands, Islam and Christianity. The subject and the results, in a France singularly attached to its secularism, are sometimes surprising. Elsewhere in the world, in fact, political leaders are turning more and more towards religion, either because they have faith or because they have noted the importance of acting as if. This original and hard-hitting work, on economics but also on sociology, deserves to be translated.
