The Political Economy of Polytheism: the Indian Versus the Greco-Roman Religions
- PDF / 773,053 Bytes
- 29 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 0 Downloads / 264 Views
The Political Economy of Polytheism: the Indian Versus the Greco-Roman Religions Atin Basuchoudhary1 · Mario Ferrero2 · Timothy Lubin3 Received: 2 October 2019 / Revised: 4 September 2020 / Accepted: 7 September 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract While most ancient polytheistic religions died out under the impact of monotheism, Hinduism stands out as a lively exception. Why was the Indian variety of polytheism more resilient than the Greek and Roman variety? This paper—the first to subject classical Hinduism to modern economic analysis—argues that the theological structure and the organization of priesthoods, which together determine the form of competition within the religious system, may help explain the different historical outcomes of these polytheistic systems. Keywords Greco-Roman religion · Indian religion · Polytheism · Priests · Sects · Religious competition JEL Classification Z12 · D71
1 Introduction In the ancient world, most religions were polytheistic. Today, with a few notable exceptions, most of the world subscribes to some monotheistic religion. In particular, most polytheistic religions descended from ancient Indo-European religious traditions have long since died out (or have been stamped out); a remarkable exception is Hinduism. Today, Hinduism is a major world religion despite centuries of competition from Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. What explains the singular resilience of the Indian variety of polytheism as against the impermanence of, for example, the Greek and Roman variety? We will argue that two factors go a long way toward explaining the different historical outcomes of Indian and Greco-Roman * Mario Ferrero [email protected] 1
Department of Economics and Business, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington (VA), USA
2
Department of Humanities, University of Eastern Piedmont, Vercelli, Italy
3
Department of Religion, Washington and Lee University, Lexington (VA), USA
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
Homo Oeconomicus
polytheistic systems: the theological structure and the organization and role of the priesthood. There is an extensive social science literature taking a rational choice approach to religion, which naturally speaks to economists (see, for instance, Young 1997 for an extensive review). The strand most related to ours highlights the dichotomy between religious monopolies and religious competition. Berger (1969) talks about religious monopolies in terms of a sacred canopy. He claims that monopolies are necessary to maintain religiosity. Nevertheless, religious monopolies end. In an older analytical paradigm, the space vacated by either the absence or demise of religious monopolies was thought to be filled by competitors that are pale replicas of each other and are finally replaced by secularism (Gill 1998). In a newer paradigm, the vacated space creates room for a vibrant multiplicity of religions (Warner 2002). In any case, religious rent-seeking is the norm (see, for example, Jelen and Wilcox 2002, or Soper and Fetzer 2002). We use a
Data Loading...
