5 ms·
I hate to put the blame on to any "one" reason for Southern Europe doing badly, but I came across an article that probably gave a better reason why there was so
by nashashmi 11y ago
I hate to put the blame on to any "one" reason for Southern Europe doing badly, but I came across an article that probably gave a better reason why there was so much difference between North and South Europe, and the theory it presents is religious difference between Protestantism and Catholicism. Protestant (read the bible) & Catholic (follow the pope). This gave the north literary rise, and literary history, and advanced them above their southern neighbors.
Corruption could be fallout of illiteracy, or maybe, lack of corruption could be a fallout of advancing literacy.
- mercnet 11y agoSounds like an interesting read, do you have link to the article?
- gauthr 11y agoThe article was probably based on this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_S...
- nashashmi 11y agoMy introduction to this was: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/the-chosen-few-a-new-explanati/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/the-chosen-few-a-ne... http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/jewish-literacy-as-the-road-to-riches-the-chosen-path-of-the-chosen-few/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/jewish-literacy-as-the-r...
- saint_fiasco 11y agoIf that is the case, Southern European corruption should reduce in the future, because now Catholics are literate too. India still has terrible public education, so it may take them longer to catch up.
- discardorama 11y ago> India still has terrible public education, so it may take them longer to catch up. India is a _very_ big country; as big as all of Europe, if not bigger. There are parts of India that are highly educated; in fact, the southern Indian state of Kerala has nearly 100% literacy. And corruption is plentiful there too.
- devdas 11y agoIndia also has to dismantle the social systems and institutions set up by the British, which were designed to make people at the top rich, instead of running for the benefit of society. Dismantling this is hard work, and you cannot simply destroy a bureaucracy without having a replacement ready (or chaos). WWII was good for Europe in some ways, because it massively destroyed the aristocracy and a lot of bureaucracy along with it. It was effectively a reboot of society, backed by a lot of cheap funding.
- stuxnet79 11y agoYes, a lot of change cannot be done without massive upheaval - this is the dilemma we face in Africa.
- defiblep 11y agoIt could go back even further than that - Rome ran on patronage, and maybe the southern states didn't fall as far as the northern ones.
- gosub 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber#The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber#The_Protestant_Ethic...