We would have being better off
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Alec Horan
we fucked up by not turning protestant and staying with the empire- i mean how many poorly run protestant/ lutheran countries are there ?
Seriously.
if we had stayed with England.
lots of hassle prevented too,
Westside.
why are prod nations wealthier ?
Answer
Before we can answer the question correctly, first we have to determine what your understanding of "Rich Nation."
1. The Gross National Product?
2. The National Debt?
3. The ratio between Gross National Product against National Debt.
4. Average Annual Income of its citizen?
5. Average Income against Financial debt (Credit Cards, car payments, house payment etc.)
6.Disposable income of Citizen. etc...
7. National Economic Growth?
8. The value of money. Ex; How much can your $1 here in USA get, if you have to spend the same $1 in other country?
Let's take for example the USA;
1.What is the ratio between its Gross National Product against its National Debt?
2. What is the average disposal income of its citizen. (Take home pay minus debt payment.
3. What is USA's Economic Growth Rate compared to other country, let's say Red China?
There really is no one answer until we understand all of the above.
And we also have to determine who are the Protestant Nations and who are the Catholic Nations. USA is definitely neither one of this, because it's contitution forbids a creation of a national Religion..
The question would rather be are protestant nations richer than catholic nations ?
There is no evidence of this statement even if this idea was popularized by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Just take a look at the richest regions of Europe and their religious tendencies (here the regions by income by inhabitants according to Eurostat)
- London and the home counties = anglican
- Hamburg (Germany) = lutheran
- Brabant-Wallon (Belgium) = catholic
- Ile-de-France (France) = catholic
- Bavaria (Germany) = catholic (56,4%)
- Stuttgart (Germany) = protestant (33,7%) & catholic (27,4%)
- Zurich (Switzerland) = catholic (33,3%) & calvinist
- Genève (Switzerland) = catholic (39,5%) & calvinist (17,4)
- Lombardy (Italy) = catholic
- Oslo (Norway) = lutheran
- Vienne ( Austria) = catholic
There doesn't seem to be any correlation between religion and wealth in Europe...
On the contrary in Germany the catholic regions are wealthier than the lutheran regions and Bavaria, which is traditionaly the most catholic region of Germany, is also the richest.
Some protestant countries such as the Scandinavian countries were also relatively poor in Europe (at least Finland, Norway and Iceland) even if now they are amongst the richest.
However Estonia for instance is traditionaly very protestant (lutheran) and never has been a rich country and Ireland even if it was relatively poor during decades is now the richest country in Europe in terms of GDP per capita and is still at the same time one of the most catholic country in Europe.
There is both catholic and protestant states in the richest nations of Europe and the economic history of the continent proves that there is really no link between religion and wealth...
And in the Americas if the US is richer than Latin America oen can hardly say that it is because of religion but much more because of the cultural gap between the Western world and the Latin-American World.
In the US you can also observe the same phenomenon.
What are the richest parts of the US ?
The North-East and California. Both are predominantly catholics.
What are the "poorest" parts ?
The South, the "Bible Belt", strongly protestant...
So in conclusion don't make idle remarks until you research things properly - I'm glad I didn't.:D