Discursive Rationality and the Division of Labour: How Cooperation Emerges

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, Oct, 1999 by Jorg Guido Hulsmann

In the light of these considerations, the case for the violent-process explanation of the spreading of belief in God breaks together. It is true, to be sure, that the history of religions was also a history of bloodshed and brutality. However, the question is whether those crimes were an implication of the religion under consideration. Did the practice of this religion require that bloodshed and brutality be performed? If not, we should rather suppose that the crimes that have been committed in its name were imputable to specific individuals who used it as a vehicle to unite masses of people for causes that were, in fact, foreign to their faith. I contend that the latter is what a closer scrutiny of the historical record would reveal. Religions were often abused, a fate they shared with many other ideologies (for example, nationalism) which are not by their nature aggressive.

This issue brings us to a related question that Thalos neglects, namely, the question which religions or "beliefs in God" are suitable to perform the important public function that she has uncovered. Although I am no expert in comparative theology, it strikes me as evident that only those religions that accord a central importance to respect for private property--like Christianity, of a sort that is based on the Ten Commandments--can perform such a function. This is a prima facie refutation of Thalos' thesis that it does not matter whether our belief in God is right or wrong for it to perform its public function. [8] For if what we believe is not irrelevant then one cannot claim that the public function of our belief is unrelated to some kind of truth.

In the same context Thalos says: "Were God to fail to exist, this fact renders my belief false, but the falsehood of my belief does not weaken my bargaining hand in the least, provided you believe my faith genuine." (Thalos 1999, p. 357) strictly speaking, this argument does not concern the question whether God exists, but whether God always intervenes immediately. I might wrongly believe that God intervenes at once if I do violate other people's property, and still benefit from other people's noticing my public display of faith. However, the question whether God exists is a different one, for arguably God might exist without actually intervening before Judgement Day. The real question is, therefore, whether one needs the fear-of-God theory to substantiate Thalos' public-function theory of belief. I contend that this is not so because there is at least one other possibility, namely, to explain the respect of other persons' property with the psychological and intellectual costs of non-respect. [9] We will pur sue this approach in the next section.

To sum up, Thalos' contribution sheds much light on the public function of Christian faith and other religions that similarly emphasise private-property rights. However, it is not yet a complete account of why the division of labour is so widespread as it in fact is. And it clearly leaves much less scope for social reform through the enlightenment of one's fellows than did the utilitarian economic doctrines. For the practical offshoot of Thalos' theory is that violence, not rational argument, is the appropriate means to realise the benefits stemming from the public function of belief in God.