Religion and Economics

One of the building blocks that Machiavelli discusses for building an effective form of government in Discourses is religion. Numa Pompilius introduces religion into Rome to be a medium to create a more domesticated citizenship. “So he turned to religion because it is essential for the maintenance of a civilized way of life, and he founded a religion such that for many centaury’s there was more fear of God in Rome than there has even been anywhere else” (Pg.65). I have some confliction about this perceived necessity of religion to create a “civilized way of life”. I don’t believe that religion is necessary to maintain or create a civilized society, I think that respecting everyone’s right to practice their own independent religion is very important in a society. This passage got me thinking about accountability and how religion can add quite a bit of accountability when people are beyond the immediate perception of a kingdom’s authority.

An argument can be made that technology makes us very accountable to our government’s authority since monitoring individual citizens does not require direct interaction between a government’s law enforcement and that individual citizen. Machiavelli seems to have religion as an answer as that authority that doesn’t require direct human presence. “…you will find that the citizens of Rome were a good deal more afraid of the consequences of breaking their oaths than of breaking the laws, for they were more afraid of God’s power than man’s (Pg.65). So was religion necessary to create that fear before technology could be used in a similar manner? I would like to think that religion in government wasn’t necessary back then and it still isn’t today. But try as I might I can’t think of another great organizer that would keep a populace accountable even when direct government intervention isn’t possible.  

            Machiavelli also makes a few comments on human nature. “It is in man’s nature to be able to want and to desire all things; it is in the nature of his circumstances that he can only realize a few of his desires.” (Pg. 75). This quote to me seems to reflect how many would define economics: deciding how to allocate resources with an infinite amount of wants with a finite amount of resources.  I personally do not believe that all people’s wants are infinite and therefore not able to be completely satisfied. I actually believe a lot of a person’s internal happiness is contingent on making sure that they do not have an unlimited and unachievable amount of wants.

            This outlook is carried on in modern day economics in our assumptions about humans and their inherent nature. This leads me to believe somewhat that it is an affective assumption about human nature and perhaps I’m being more of an idealistic person than a realistic person. I cannot help but wonder however if a society was built on the premises that people would be satisfied if given enough of their crucial wants how the paradigm of thought in such a society would differ from our own.