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Most people will agree that a
society that tolerates various religious and non-religious persuasions is
ethically superior to a society that does not. The advent of religious
toleration in the West illustrates the indispensable role of free markets in
broadening civilized human interactions. The bloody religious wars and
political persecutions of the 16th and 17th centuries resulted
from attempts by European governments to centrally plan their subjects’
beliefs. “Traditionally, France (along with most other European nations) had attempted to
enforce a homogeneous system of values upon its people in the belief that
common values were necessary to ensure peace and harmony.”(11)
But, in the early 18th century, a different pattern began to emerge
in England despite official protections for Anglicanism as the established state religion. The growth of commercial freedom in England triggered an unprecedented degree of religious toleration. Voltaire, in his “Letters Concerning the English
Nation,” observed this phenomenon:
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Go into the Exchange in London, that place more venerable than many a court, and you will see representatives of all the
nations assembled there for the profit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the
Christian deal with one another as if they were of the same religion, and reserve the name of infidel for those who go
bankrupt.(12) |
Because
they were free to trade with one another and perceived commerce’s mutual
benefits, individuals of all religions in
England were willing to overlook intellectual disagreements and
focus on areas where they could gain from associating with one another. This
case exemplifies Hill’s insight that “participants in a market economy – buyers
and sellers – continually look for areas of agreement where they can get along,
rather than concentrating unproductively on areas of disagreement.”(13)
Religious toleration and
unprecedented intellectual freedom emerged in 18th-century England while continental regimes such as the French monarchy
continued to pursue both commercial and intellectual homogeneity. Wendy McElroy
notes that “[a] key to the difference between England and France lay in the English system of commerce and in the
comparatively high regard in which the English held their merchants. In France, aristocrats and the other elites of society regarded
those in commerce, or in trade, with unalloyed contempt.”(14)
The French economy was characterized by virtually ubiquitous central planning –
imposed by Jean-Baptiste Colbert under Louis XIV. Colbertism(15) consisted of manifold economic restrictions – including government-protected
monopolies, punitive taxation, enormous tariff barriers to trade, limitations
on economic mobility, and minute government oversight of the quantity and
quality of output. Under Colbertist central planning, religious toleration’s
economic benefits did not become obvious – because individuals were prohibited
from freely trading with one another anyway. Thus, it was easier for France’s government to crack down on religious dissent and
forcefully impose Roman Catholicism – culminating in Louis XIV’s 1685 Edict of
Fontainebleau(16), which revoked religious toleration for the Huguenot Protestants.
On the other hand, in England, because freedom of commerce made the advantages of
inter-religious cooperation obvious to many, Voltaire observed that "the
Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist, and the Church of England man accepts the
promise of the Quaker."(17) While France was engulfed in perpetual religious strife and bloodshed, England – with its far greater diversity of faiths – flourished peacefully.
Voltaire was among the first to recognize that enforced homogeneity of values undermined a moral social order. He
noted, "If there were only one religion in England, there would be danger of tyranny; if there were two, they
would cut each other's throats; but there are thirty, and they live happily
together in peace."(18) Voltaire’s observations regarding England are echoed in James Wilson’s view that in free markets,
“religion must coexist with human freedom, and this relationship, of necessity,
requires religious freedom. With such freedom, many sects will prosper, and
none will be the sole state church.”(19)
A free market entails not only freedom to exchange physical commodities, but
also to exchange religious or secular ideas. Commercial and intellectual
freedom are inseparable; where one exists, the other surely follows. In late 18th-century
England, religious toleration existed de jure, not just de facto.
Free markets not only facilitate official religious toleration; they also enable individuals of diverse
belief systems to be nice to one another in
their private interactions. Being an atheist sufficed to get one imprisoned
anywhere in 17th-century Europe; it sufficed to get one burned at the stake during the
Middle Ages. Even immediately after legal sanctions against atheism were lifted,
non-religious individuals were subjected to widespread social stigma. But today,
virtually everywhere in the Western world, an atheist can walk into a store or
restaurant and be served with the same courtesy and respect as can a member of
one of thousands of religious denominations. In free markets an atheist’s money
is as good as a Christian’s or a Hindu’s; prudent businessmen recognize this.
Similarly,
any individual’s money is good, irrespective of that individual’s race, gender,
or country of origin. Thus, Wilson observes, free-market capitalism “will find racial discrimination burdensome,
thus helping put an end to it… [Bigotry] shuts a firm off from many potential
customers and… potential workers, thus lowering sales and raising labor costs.”(20)
Once laws upholding segregation in the American South were repealed, racism’s
social incidence plummeted – just as once state-sanctioned religious mandates
and prohibitions were removed, social toleration quickly emerged. As
free-market commerce encourages individuals to treat one another with kindness
and respect, people begin to actually deem one another worthy of such treatment. What may begin as a prudential policy for
cultivating more customers and sales becomes ingrained into people’s habits and
worldviews; Wilson observes that free-market incentives to treat customers with
respect “produce more than mere pretense; they actually change behavior.”(21) A majority in today’s Western world genuinely believes
that race does not affect a person’s character and that atheists or
practitioners of a religion different from one’s own are most often good,
interesting, valuable people.
Free markets are the foremost institution for human moral improvement. Throughout
most of history, people lived in a zero-sum world of widespread plunder,
oppression, poverty, and stagnation. Only through commercial freedom and
private property rights have there emerged societies where individuals can keep
most of what they have created and centralized authorities do not violently
impose homogeneous beliefs on the population. Free markets in the West have created
an environment where tens of thousands of competing religions and philosophies
can thrive and race and ethnicity no longer determine individuals’ socioeconomic
standing. Free markets’ tremendous victories over enforced homogeneity enable our
comfortable, prosperous, civil everyday lives.
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