Lec 8: Legitimization of Pursuit of Wealth

This lecture is based on RH Tawney: Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. A summary of the book is attached to this page (at bottom).

An extensive collection of materials on this topic is collected here: Pursuit of Wealth

For short posts on diverse topics, see my author page at LINKEDIN

The accumulation and pursuit of wealth has always been considered a bad thing. The Bible states that the love of money is the root of all evil. Through a sequence of historical events, Europeans came to believe that “lack of money is the root of all evil.” This can be called the “great transformation”, and it has affected all of us. Once the pursuit of money become a virtue instead of a vice, only then is it possible to have banks, interest and other paraphernalia of a capitalist society. Several people have analyzed how the pursuit of money became desirable in the west. One analyst is Tawney, whose work we shall study in depth in this lecture. Understanding this is crucial to understanding the spirit behind the financial and ownership structures of a capitalist society. This in turn, is crucial to understanding economic theory.

FOR Additional Material and Related Readings, follow LINKS below:

1. Legitimization of Greed [Draft of Ideas for research papers on this topic]

2. Generosity Versus Greed: {Empirical Evidence that people are generous, not selfish}

3. Crisis in Capitalism: Excessive Greed has led to current financial crisis