Religion and the Rise of Capitalism by Benjamin M. Friedman

Author:Benjamin M. Friedman [Friedman, Benjamin M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

Interior of a powered textile factory (1844).

Powered by steam, rods running below the ceiling used belts to impart rotary motion to large numbers of machines in a single location, making possible mass production of textiles.

Most importantly, economic growth could continue, indefinitely, because technological advance not only could continue but would if God so willed—which Wayland, embracing the era’s postmillennialist outlook, was fully prepared to believe. He therefore saw the new technologies driving the expansion of economic activity not as a one-time occurrence but an ongoing process. “What reason have we,” he challenged any doubters, “to assume that the gifts of God are exhausted, or that there are not other and more excellent natural agents to be discovered, or other modes of using those we are already acquainted with, that shall produce yet more surprising results than any which we have yet witnessed?”56

Looking back, he understood how people had failed to foresee the progress that had now become reality. Before the discovery of such advances as electricity and the steam engine, “the most vivid imagination could never have conceived of the benefits which they have already conferred upon society.” But the doubters had been wrong—because of their limited imagination and, more fundamentally, because they had not understood the practical import of God’s benevolence. Doubters would likewise be wrong about the future as well. “There is no reason,” he concluded, “to suppose that we are now more capable of fathoming the goodness of God, than our ancestors were, three or four hundred years ago.”57

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