Good review. From what I’ve read, the root of the great divergence is the Catholic church’s ban on cousin marriage (for its own reasons), which supposedly lead to less clannishness and a higher-trust society in much of Western Europe.
That might be too quick a dismissal given the importance that is typically assigned to trust for well functioning economies and economic development. But I think the view of some top three regardless of what the three are is a difficult to accept as an unqualified statement.
Seems like we’re talking about a very complex and complicated area that will not distill down to some simple map of that territory. I think we will find that the map will need to have a larger number of layers that can be applied than just three.
Which layers one will need or find most informative will depend a good bit on what focus or specific question or framing one starts with. I thought that type of view was implied in your conclusion so was a bit surprised to see that parenthetical statement.
Trust is important, but… the Church banning cousin-marriage as the primary cause of a high-trust society? I find it hard to believe. No time now to elaborate on my reasons but if people are really interested maybe I will write something up later
The state of cousin marriage at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the UK seems to have been more about the actions of King Henry VIII than about the actions of the Catholic church.
Good review. From what I’ve read, the root of the great divergence is the Catholic church’s ban on cousin marriage (for its own reasons), which supposedly lead to less clannishness and a higher-trust society in much of Western Europe.
That is one of many hypotheses. (I haven’t studied all of them yet, but I’d be surprised if I ended up ranking that even in the top three causes.)
That might be too quick a dismissal given the importance that is typically assigned to trust for well functioning economies and economic development. But I think the view of some top three regardless of what the three are is a difficult to accept as an unqualified statement.
Seems like we’re talking about a very complex and complicated area that will not distill down to some simple map of that territory. I think we will find that the map will need to have a larger number of layers that can be applied than just three.
Which layers one will need or find most informative will depend a good bit on what focus or specific question or framing one starts with. I thought that type of view was implied in your conclusion so was a bit surprised to see that parenthetical statement.
Trust is important, but… the Church banning cousin-marriage as the primary cause of a high-trust society? I find it hard to believe. No time now to elaborate on my reasons but if people are really interested maybe I will write something up later
The state of cousin marriage at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the UK seems to have been more about the actions of King Henry VIII than about the actions of the Catholic church.