We have a new participant here, and he's clearly chomping at the bit. He wanted to discuss, 'does religious morality slow economic growth'.

Take it away, PushBarToOpen.

First of all i would lke to open with the fact that all morality stems from relegious belief. This isn't to say that you need to be religious in order to be moral or have morals. But all forms of morality stem from a code of beliefs. This code is individualised but history shows us that they all come come from religion (although this is starting to relax now).

Many practices that have been set down in law originally draw their roots from these beliefs. Some of which have become outdated and repealed but some are still hot topics visciously debated. In order for an ecconomy to grow and for the population to be happy, i believe modern practices need to be implimented and update with the times and climate at hand. Religion by its nature will struggle to do this and as such will hold back such change. By ding this also halts ecconomic growth and prosperity.

As an example. the current worlds resources cannot sustain the population growth seen in the past decade or so. Sooner or later there will not be enough jobs for everyone, or even more importantly not enough food energy or even landspace. The only way to stop this is by forcably limiting population growth, even to the point of aiming to reduce the population. the only country such a policy to my knowledge is China (one child policy) and although it has its flaws it can be seen as a step in the right direction towards solving the upcoming population crisis. As if such a policy was to come to fruition the short term benefits would be things such as less goverment expenditure on near enough everything from hospitals to schools meaning more money in their coffers to stabalise the ecconomy.

Now i believe most people would not be ok with such a policy being implemented where they live. This is due to the morality handed down from our relegious history. Catholics would prohibit the abortions nessicary to keep such a policy in control, Athiests would insist it infringes on their personal freedoms (which if deffinatly a belief if not a religion in itself). So i say that it is likley religios morality is holding society back and slowing future ecconmic growth.

Firstly, I'm going to make a twist to your argument.

An increase in the population generally results in greater wealth for the nation and a healthier economy overall. Abundant labor is necessary for economic growth. However, population growth reduces the average wealth of individuals. Remember that economic theory views labor just like any other intangible good. Fewer people means I pay more for the same amount (or less) labor available. But for the individual person, it means they get paid more for doing the same amount of work.

HOWEVER, we do see there are specific cases where abortions are a positive factor for the economy, especially among the poor. More children earlier in life means women can't attend school, which reduces the availability of skilled labor necessary to grow. Lots of kids combined with the moral choice to not let people starve also creates a burden on the economy in the form of taxes for welfare. And in many cases, kids (and parents) in poorer families turn to crime, which is another drain on welfare. So I would argue that abortion in those specific examples is beneficial to economic growth, but an overall 'one child policy' is not, except in very limited circumstances (in the case of China, they already have a glut of human labor, so more labor isn't necessary.)

I would argue there are plenty of 'religious morality' issues which are harmful to the economy, though. Welfare is a great example. In the US, more than a third of government spending goes to welfare programs (and this is expected to rise). This number is much higher in most other countries. While education has a clear economic benefit, social security is pretty clearly economically detrimental. Eating old people (or even just not supporting expensive medical care for them) would ease our tax burden by almost 30% right off the top, resulting in billions every year in available capital for re-investing. However, I suspect most people, religious or not, would find that morally questionable.

We are in a climat where unemployment figures are rising. thus we must assume that we have ore than the required manpower for the job. But that is  not the key point to the discussion.

Should we be prepared to make these dificult choices and cut back on moral spending just because we have been raised in a society that says we should?

Healthcare for example. If it were to become privatised there would be a huge uproar (speaking from a UK perspective here), it would become a luxury few could afford (like my understanding of what its like in America) the morals we have been taught are to look after people. this is costing us a lost of money that is a huge waste. Should we be prepared to sacrifise the ties that bind us in order to improve the lives for the majority.

Also how far should this go. If religious doctrine was outlawed it would detriment society in more ways than one. But if we continue to relay on these old modlels for how to run soceity it will also be ground into dust. Where is the line?

Of course that's exactly the point of Ayn Rand's philosophy. The best way for me to take care of you is for me to take care of me.

Wow, lots of stuff going on here, I'll try to take them in order:

1.  I disagree that all moral codes come from religious belief.  Doesn't seem like you're hanging your argument on that premise yet, so I'll just leave it at that.  But if that's an axiom necessary for your position, it'll need further justification, I think.

2.  You say the only way to stop population growth is by 'forcibly' limiting it.  I'm not entirely convinced of this.  In much of the westernized world, population growth has slowed to just barely (or not even) the level of sustaining the current levels.  I think an argument can be made that lifting people out of poverty can be an effective way to limit population growth.  For most people (though certainly not all, Mormons being a very good counter example), when they become wealthy enough to be in control of their own reproduction (there's an angle of this that includes legal access to birth control, as well as just economic ability to afford it), they tend to bring their reproduction rates way down.  I think a strong case can be made that it'd be more ethical to get people to the place where they could limit their own birth rate by choice rather than forcing it upon them.

3.  I think we might need to firm up what we mean by "economic growth," since most people might off the ball think "oh yeah, that's good, we need to pursue it," but as katisara eludes to, there are ways to get economic growth without anyone actually being any better off.  Growth for growth's sake isn't something I think we necessarily should pursue (if it were, we might as well just say population growth for population growth's sake is something we should pursue, and end the discussion there).  If people will be better off on average that's a probably a good thing, though other measures (such as making the worst-off person better off) might be better.

4.  While healthcare is expensive, I'm not sure that it's true that getting rid of socialized healthcare in the uk would make "the majority" better off.  The cost wouldn't go away, they'd just be shifted on to others, in many cases people who couldn't afford to pay for healthcare, which could easily lead to crime and other problems.  It's not as simple as "how much to do we pay now?  Okay, let's just not pay it, and we'll have that much more money!"  It's the old economics saying that there's no such thing as a free lunch.  Every decision, even decisions not to spend money, will come with some cost.  And it's possible that those costs will be greater than the money saved by not paying for healthcare.  Now, some individuals will obviously better off, and some will obviously be worse off.  Saying we'd be better off 'on average' is a tough call on that one, I'd argue, and again, other measures may be better (for example, if we took everyone's money and gave it to me, we'd still have the exact same amount of money on average as we all did before, but pretty much everyone would be worse off).

I don't believe even remotely that morality stems from religion.  If you read about Natural Law, and if you study ethics of professional groups, you will find that morality is a humanistic quality.

One that is embraced, expanded, and supported by religion, yes, but not wholly in the realm of religion.

If you remove all morality and the money spent on it from society you could very well have the most powerful nation on earth.  Of course most of your society could become slaves that you control and use as cannon fodder to take over the rest of the planet, but in a society that removes morality who cares.

I think one needs only to look at a society like the Mongols who were ruthless in the way they treated people, even their own, and see that free from the constraints of morality (yes the mongols had their own version ... but I am thinking a more western version of morlaity), you are free to completely destroy your own people and others around the world in the quest for power, riches and glory.  However at what cost?

Remaining civilized and treating others with respect and kindness is quite costly economically, but I think very few would see the other extreme as being better.

If you remove morality, you have chaos.  No morality means violent crimes, no regulating force to keep people in check (and honest), and a lack of safety, honor, and trust.  You would be the weakest nation on earth, if you even survived.  You would be a country like Kenya or some of the other African nations have become, where the only rule of law is the rule of power.

The Mongol society was ruthless, but the Mongols, by the way, did not survive.  Their standard of living was also, by today's standards, extremely poor, even if they had looted riches.  It is morality that lets us advance technologically and make life easier on everyone because we all advance with expectation and a conscious understanding of risk.

Laws (which admittedly are a little different than morality) create a certain path that limits risk.  When you limit risk, you are willing to do more because the risks are all defined.  Lack of morality brings a higher risk, so companies and people will not do as much.  Hence, lack of morality is a much greater economic cost.

No great nation, regardless of morality or a lack of, has remained at the top of the heap.  The great USA is going to be reduced to a shadow of itself at some point, history is very clear on this. That's not a morality issues, that's just the way things work throughout history for a variety of reasons.

But the Mongol Empire completely destroyed everyone they encountered and were the greatest empire at the time, and were morally VERY suspect (again, according to western morality).

Also, the quality of life was only low for those who did not have power.  For those who did they enjoyed all sorts of women, slaves, treasures etc.

My point isn't that I would personally choose a system in which morality was cast to the side, but that doing so could easily lead to a system in which a very few set of people control massive wealth and power and dominate everyone else.

However, if you want to create a society in which a larger number of people have wealth and quality of life, then treating each other with a degree of respect etc, while very expensive financially, is the only way to do so.

I'm not quite on track with you here.  It seems like you are looking at a society without morality or a society where the powerful get away without morality even in an otherwise moral society; or maybe you are looking at morality as a subjective agent, not objective.

And whether a nation will eventually fall could have many causes; my point is that lack of morality is a huge factor in ensuring the demise of a nation.

The Mongol Empire may have been successful, but it did so through conquering nations, not through innovation, which is why it could only last so long.  I don't know your definition of "greatest" Empire, but I suspect the U.S. could take out the Mongols on any given Sunday.  ;)  We have 5000 nuclear warheads, after all; we just have the morality to avoid using them on our enemies.

But my point is that all societies have morality as their basis; likewise, all religions have a moral code as a foundation; so do professional organizations; so do businesses.  The moralities may differ from each other, but they are there.

I think Heath's point was that the Mongol empire was not sustainable. They didn't really begin producing anything, engage in trade, establish governments, etc. They were like a bacteria; they expanded as fast as they could to consume the available resources, then collapsed.

The Roman Empire was relatively immoral by our standards, however they did have a set of morals which were necessary to maintain stability; namely valuing honesty, the rule of law, (at times) an understanding of democracy, common civility between neighbors, etc.

I think the hypothetical situation here requires a few points of clarification: are we saying that the individuals don't have morality, the society doesn't enforce morality through laws, or both; and are we saying the society is eschewing ALL morality, or only those items which can't be justified economically?

A society that rejects ALL morality (i.e., including laws against fraud or murder) is simply anarchy. If the society fails to institute these laws, but the people are moral, we have a successful anarchist commune, with a maximum size in the hundreds. If the people are immoral, you have mad max. Even a rich individual can't survive for long because eventually his guards will conspire against him.

If the society rejects programs and laws which are 'strictly' moral, i.e. a program based on morality or common decency that lacks a clear economic or political advantage, I do think this society would be very effective at achieving its goals, but the question is, what goals would those be? Wealth and wellbeing for the average citizen is a moral goal, after all.

Seems to me laws exist to keep the immoral people in line. Every society is going to have some moral and some immoral people, and if you don't reign the immoral ones in with fair laws, they will ruin the society for everyone.

Incidentally, in the wake of the Mongol invasions, the silk road reopened to its largest trading volume since the battle of Talas in 751AD. It brought in significant revenue. So saying "the Mongols only source of wealth was pillaging" is a modern misconception of what they were like.

The Mongol Empire will likely last longer than the American one, despite it's lack of morals.  I just don't see morality being an issue here, or if it is, it's a hindrance to being awesome, not a help.

In reply to Doulos (msg # 14):

I disagree with this.  Morality/ethics/etc. can, in certain instances, hold an individual back from getting something they might otherwise just take, but most of us exist in continuing societies, and have multiple social interactions.  "winning" at any particular one of them might be easiest by acting in an immoral way, but in the long run that strategy tends not to pay off.  It's the old prisoners dilemma thing once again.  If you only had to ever play one game of it, yes, the best strategy is to defect.  But if you're playing multiple times with people who can remember what you've done in the past, doing so will leave you worse off than the "suckers" who cooperate.  This is the reason why morality has continued to exist through so many years of evolution.  If all it did were harm individuals, it would have been been bred out of us long ago.  We continue to have moral instincts because on the average its beneficial for us.  I should point out that genetics isn't the ONLY source of our moral codes, but it is a big part of it.  Also, genetics doesn't justify one moral code or another, but it can in part explain where parts of them came from.
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:04, Sun 09 Sept 2012.