Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #42 - The Protestant Reformation and the Birth of Capitalism

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Civilization #42 - The Protestant Reformation and the Birth of Capitalism

Okay, so good morning. This morning we are doing the Protestant Reformation, and I will explain to you how it gave birth to capitalism. This class, it's going to be hard conceptually because we're going to take concepts we learned before and combine them to help explain the world we live in today. So if there's anything I'm saying that's not clear or confusing or debatable, please interrupt me, okay? So I want to make sure that you can follow the logic clearly. So first of all, what I will do is explain the three major differences between the Protestant

religion and the Catholic religion. So let's look at Catholic first. In many ways, the Protestant religion is a response to the problems created by the Catholic religion. So there are three main characteristics about this. the Catholic religion. The first is the idea of orthodoxy or dogma. So there's a set of beliefs in the Catholic religion that you must memorize. You're not allowed to question it. You're not allowed to interpret it. You must memorize it. And what maintains the orthodoxy is the idea of hierarchy.

priests and the ordain those sanctioned by the Catholic Church have access to the Bible. Only they can interpret the Bible properly. They are favored by God. The Pope is God's official representative on earth. Okay, so that's the idea of hierarchy. The last concept is the idea of justification by works. Okay? And the idea here is if you want to be saved, you have to engage in the proper rituals. You have to do what the church tells you. Your actions matter more than your beliefs.

Okay? Now, as we discussed in previous classes, these three main concepts that underpin the Catholic Church. They will create problems. Okay? So just for tradition by works, it creates a problem of hypocrisy. The idea here is, it'd be nice if you believed in God. It would be nice if you believed in what you were doing, but you don't have to. As long as you do what you're told, you can still go to heaven. It creates the idea of hypocrisy. And obviously, there are a lot of people who are opposed to this.

to this. Hierarchy creates a problem of corruption. There's no real mechanism to prevent the priest from abusing their powers. And as we discussed last week, the priests do engage in a lot of corruption and abuses. The problem of orthodoxy is it creates disconnection. And the idea here is that ever since the dawn of here, human history, we humans are fundamentally religious. Our fundamental, our first and foremost need

is to connect with God, to be with God, to work with God, and to access God. And because of these three problems, this connection, corruption, hypocrisy, there's always been dissent, there's always been rebellion against the Catholic Church in Europe. Remember last we discussed the Cathars, the Walthusians.

All right, so this has been an ongoing issue in the Catholic Church. So the Protestant religion was developed in a response to these problems. Okay, so let's look at the three major responses of the Protestant religion. The first response to orthodoxy is direct access. You don't need the priest to tell you what the Bible means. You can just read it by yourself. In fact, God wills that you. talk to them directly by reading the Bible okay if that is a case then the church

must be fundamentally egalitarian because if everyone can access God then everyone is equal in the eyes of God but the fundamental demand now is justification by faith you have to truly believe in God. You must develop your life around this faith in God, okay? So on one hand, the Protestant religion is solving a lot of problems created by the church, but on the other hand, it's also creating a lot of problems as well, okay? So let's go very quickly over some of the major problems. If it's justification by faith, it creates a problem of anxiety. Why? Because how do you know you truly believe in God?

Doesn't make sense. How do you really know you have faith? You have to constantly prove to yourself that you truly believe in God through actions, through works. You have to raise doubt in your mind. And this makes you anxious. It makes you antic, okay? So that's one huge problem created by the Protestant religion.

The second big problem is a problem of diversity. If everyone is equal, then everyone can start his or her own religion. And what we will see during the Protestant Reformation is an explosion of different religions, with all different sets of beliefs. There's only one Catholic Church, but there's like tens of thousands of prostit denominations. Okay? Does that make sense? All right.

So then with direct access, you are forced to have literacy, okay? You are forced to educate yourself. And this is a good thing, right? But it's also a problem because if you're poor, you may not have access to education. All right? So this is a problem for a lot of people and that's why in the beginning of the development of Protestantism most of the adherents to this new religion are actually the aspirational middle class. The people of some means there are people who want to aspire to more wealth. Okay, so this is the basic rundown of the differences between

the Protestant religion and the Catholic religion. All right? All right. Are you clear about this? Any questions so far? Is this clear to you? Okay. All right.

So now I'm going to go deeper explain the problems that this new religion creates in the minds of the faithful, okay? The faithful. All right. Okay. So the problem

that within the Christian religion, as we discussed in previous classes, is the idea of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity. The idea of the Holy Trinity is that Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit, these are different forces that are independent of each other, but they are equal to each other, and they are part of the same thing. Okay? So for the human mind, the way that our human minds are designed, it's impossible for us to understand this concept of the Holy Trinity.

It's like saying like this pen, it is here and not here. Your mind has to believe that this thing is here and not here. And you might can't do that, okay? Your mind has to believe in one thing and you cannot believe in contradictions. But this is inherently a contradiction. The only way that our mind can process this is by believing that this is a symbol. Okay? The reason why is that this is something, the only way that we can understand the Holy Trinity is to believe that it is both nothing and everything. Okay? And that's what a symbol is. A symbol is nothing that represents everything, depending on how you perceive it. The problem with this is that it creates the problem of anxiety. Right?

Anxiety. Why does it create anxiety? Because again, our fundamental need is to connect with God. And the concept of the Holy Trinity means that we can never truly connect with God. It is a symbol. It is an abstraction removed from us. We never be intimate with God. God. It's either away from us or through us, but we can never touch it. We can never feel it.

This creates anxiety. Before, this was not a problem because the church stood between you, the believer, and the Holy Trinity. All you did to do was believe in the church, and you were fine. But then what happens to give you to the church, now you have to grasp what try to grasp what the Holy Trinity is. And again, remember, one of the main ideas of the Protestant religion is that you must struggle with your faith. You must recognize and fully realize your faith in God. Otherwise, you'll be condemned to hell.

But as we are already discussed, there's Holy Trinity is impossible to understand. So this creates anxiety. Now the thing about anxiety is it creates the problem of like OCD, obsessive, compulsive behavior. anxiety comes about because of confusion okay what you want to do is remove this anxiety by ordering your physical world right people with obsessive compulsive behavior what do they do they like to clean houses they like to buy things they like to lose weight they're trying to order the word we use is rationalized just trying to rationalize the world or

around them in order to reduce your anxiety. All right, does that make sense? Have you studied obsessive compulsive behavior? OCD? It's caused by anxiety, and this anxiety forces you to try to rationalize the world. Now, there's also a third problem in the Protestant religion. And it's the idea of double three,

destination all right okay so this is a big concept but but it's very easy understand if you remove the church because the church is too corrupt the problem arises like how do you know if you're going to heaven or not who's gonna decide and so a man a theologian by the name John Calvin he proposed the idea of double predestination and the idea here is this God at the beginning of time has already decided and this decision is final you cannot persuade him that he is wrong because he is perfect eternal and immutable and only a few the elect will be saved only only these people will be allowed to go to heaven everyone else

will be condemned to hell and who are the elect are those who truly believe that they have been saved or only those who truly believe in God's mercy and God's grace will be saved okay if you think about it this creates even more anxiety because how do you know if you're one of the saved you have to work hard now to solve this problem okay so let's summarize because of the Protestant religion You have three new problems created. The first is the individual believer cannot understand the Holy Trinity, but they must. That's what the religion demands.

That's the first problem. Second problem is the anxiety causes OCD, which makes them want to rationalize the world. It makes them want to order the world according to their faith. That's the second issue. The third issue is the idea of double predestination, which says that if you do not truly believe in God, if you do not actually figure out the grace of God, then you will be condemned to eternal damnation. So these are the three major problems created by the process of religion.

And so over time, and this is a process that will take decades, centuries, they figure out a solution. They figure out a solution. And the solution is this. The solution is money. money okay the solution is money that's how you resolve these three paradoxes or three contradictions three anxieties all right so first of all let me explain what money is okay money all right so in the world we are all

different we have different perspectives okay um so each individual is unique each individual is different each individual sees the world differently and this creates confusion this creates problems okay and I ask you while you're in school you might say oh I'm here to learn mathematics I might ask someone else like oh I want to go to America for college another person might be like I want to learn okay each person is different okay but what happens is this if I introduce the concept of money what it does is is it standardizes, systemizes, clarifies, and simplifies everyone's understanding into one concept,

into a coherent whole. So let me use an experiment to show you why this is true. All right, so some experimenters, they gave everyone a wine test. They put three different bottles of wine in front of each person, ask each person to taste a wine and then ask each person which wine is the best and most people could not tell the difference they were different there are different there these are different parts of wine but they didn't know which one was better okay then what the experimenters did was they put price tax on each bought of wine okay ten dollars

twenty dollars fifty dollars and then when the experimenters did this everyone knew oh of course the fifty dollar bottom of wine is better okay so that's what money does money allows us to simplify the world to in order to understand it okay so all our beliefs our values our judgment now is placed into this one simple money but then what happens is we then take this money and we reshape the world a according to money. Okay, does that make sense?

Now I ask you, why are you going to school? Everyone's like, to make money in the future. Everyone agrees on this. Okay? So that's what money is. Money is a system to sterilize everyone's thought. And then once the sterilizing happens, it reshapes reality into a rational order.

Okay, does that make sense? All right? Okay, so let's go back. Okay, now that we understand what money is, we can now explain how money reduces the paradoxes, right? Money is a way for people to rationalize the world. You're anxious? What do you do to reduce this anxiety? Make money.

Make more money. Don't stop until you make the most money. Then money is a way to resolve the God issue. Because money is also a symbol. So what you can do mentally is conflate God with money. Money is God. God is money. That makes sense to people.

Right? And now, because you've conflated God of money, you can now solve the predestination problem, which is like, oh, how do I know I have faith in God? Because I have a lot of money. Because I spend my entire life accumulating money. And how do I know I'm going to have it? because I'm rich. But my wealth shows that I have true faith in God.

If I have true faith in God, then I must be one of those predestined by God to be the elect, and therefore I have nothing to worry about. All right? And because of this, the beauty of the system is this. It creates a concept of capitalism. Never before in human history

have people believed that this is a good thing, that you should go accumulate money for the sake of accumulating money, okay? Before it was always about accumulating money in order to increase your social status. So wealthy people would always spend their money holding community fees, okay, on giving money to the poor, on helping the community. So remember Julius Caesar when he died, who was the wealthiest man in the world, but he gave a third of his money to the poor people of Rome. He gave a third of his money to building parks. for Rome and the final third went to is adopted here Octavian okay all right

but now what's important is that you try to accumulate as much money as possible don't waste it because if you waste it it's corruption it shows you lack the faith in God all right and that's why we have capitalism because of the anxiety created by the Protestant Reformation all right and again This is a process that will take centuries. It doesn't happen right away. But it's a process that takes centuries, and it's a process that will define the world we live in today.

Even though today, most people are actually not Protestant, most people do not believe in double predesimination. Most people don't really understand the Holy Trinity. most people don't want to rationalize the world, we have absorbed this mentality. We believe that we should accumulate money for the sake of accumulating money. That's why we worship people like Jack Ma,

Ellen Musk, Jeff Bezos. Even though if you think about it, they've just accumulated a symbol, right? The money is actually nothing. But we worship them because we believe that money is reality itself. That's what capitalism is. capitalism is to believe that money is reality in itself all right so I know conceptually this is hard and this is a lot but and now what I will do is

explain historical context explain the evidence for this argument but first I want to make sure that this argument is clear to you this this is a thesis okay this is this is an explanation as to why have capitalism today all right so So, any questions before I explain the historical context? This is all clear? Okay, good. All right. So now what I'm going to do is explain the historical context

as well to provide the evidence, okay? All right. So the Protestant Reformation. All right, so the Protestant Reformation is a process that took place from 1517. 1517 is when a theologian Martin Luther published his 95 thesis. The 95 thesis is a direct criticism of the Catholic Church, the corruption of the Catholic Church. And it ends really in the year 1648. This is after decades of violent warfare between the

Protestants and the Catholics. And at this point, Europe is completely exhausted. They just finished fighting something called a 30-year-'s war, which is before war, one, the deadest war in European history. It kills at most about 8 million people. So all of Europe is completely devastated. In certain parts of Germany, which is where the war was fought, they lost about half of their population. Okay? And this war ended in something called the Treaty of Westphalia, the peace of Westphalia, which guarantees religious freedom to everyone in Europe. And this ends the process of reformation. Okay? All right. Again, historians state the beginning of the Protestant Reformation to Martin Luther.

Last week, we discussed the Crusades, and we discussed how there were many thinkers, theologians, who opposed to Catholic Church. People like John Wycliffe, Jerry and Haas, and they were eventually condemned his heretics, and the rebellion was stumped out by the Catholic Church. But Martin Luther, he's fortunate in that he has powerful political patrons. the various princes of the Holy Roman Empire want more autonomy from the Catholic Church. And Martin Luther gives them a proper pretext in order to financially divorce themselves from the Catholic Church. So as I discussed, what is most famous for is something called the 95 Thesis,

which is a direct criticism of the corruption of the Catholic Church. At this time, the Catholic Church wanted to build St. Peter's Basilica, a church in the Vatican. And they want this to be a gorgeous building. So to finance the building of this church, the Catholic Church, so it's something called indulgences. Indulgences are basically like tickets or special letters that will reduce the punishment of your relatives

in purgatory, okay? It's basically to reduce the number of sins you're going to the number of sins you committed. It's basically driving God to reduce your penalty. And this was a very popular thing, and allow the Pope to build St. Peter's Basilica, which is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world today. But as you can imagine, if you are a true Christian,

you are insulted, you're offended, you're angered by the idea of this corruption. So the 95 thesis are the 950s, 95 sentences in which Martin Luther lays out his case against indulgences and as such against the authority of the church and the Pope. And this is the argument he makes, okay? So let's look at some sentences. So the 36 sentence is, every truly dependent Christian has a right to full remission of penalty

and guilt even without letters of pardon. And what he's saying here is the idea of salvation by faith. You don't have to spend this money. You don't have to do what the church tells you. If you're a true Christian, if you truly believe in God, God will forgive you. You have direct access to God. So he's denying the authority of the Pope, which makes him a heretic. He also says Christians are to be taught that the Pope in granting pardons needs and therefore desires.

Their devout prayer for him more than the money they bring. This is the right insult to the Pope. He's saying, like, the person that most offends God in this world is the person. Pope because the Pope is insulting God by telling the world that God can be bribed by money. So let's play for the Pope because clearly the Pope has offended God. He also says, why does not the Pope, whose wealth is today greater than the richest of the riches? He's saying the Pope is the richest man in Europe. Why doesn't the Pope spend this money and build the church himself?

build just this one church of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers. Why is he exploiting the poor when he is the richest man in the world? And as you can imagine, the church is furious with him, and they deem him a heretic and they want to burn him at the stake. But again, he's protected by powerful political patrons, and they fight a war over the war over the this issue and it ends with something called a piece of Augsburg which divides the Holy Roman Empire Germany into Lutheran areas where they are free to believe in Lutheran and Catholic areas where they still adhere to the Pope. So this is the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther starts this doctrinal debate and John Calvin also continues.

to it by introducing the idea of double predestination. So Martin Luther, he wants to reform the church, and then he eventually realizes that he needs to build another church. But John Calvin, with his idea of double predestination, he's trying to deny the authority of the church. He's telling people that, because God has already decided who will go to heaven at the beginning of time, then the church is lying to you.

you. The church is fooling you, deluding you. Okay? All right. So he's a Frenchman. He went to the Sorborn, the University of Paris. And as you can imagine, he's deemed a heretic and he flees to a place called Geneva in Switzerland. And Switzerland is one of the birthplaces of the Protestant Reformation. The reason why is there are a lot of independent towns in Switzerland. And as I mentioned, the first believers in the Protestant religion are actually talents people, that's aspirational middle class. They want to be connected with God, and they want a religion that encourages them to achieve more in life. And that's what the Protestant religion is about.

There's also another famous theologian that's really not discussed today, but he's considered one of the three major founders of Protestantism. His name is Erich Zingli, and he's based in Zurich. And he's probably the most extreme of the three. All right. So the present Reformation, it opens a kind of warms. It opens a penderous box. Because before, the ultimate authority was the Pope who represented God.

But now you're free to believe whatever you want. So there are lots of peasants who rebelled against nobility because they thought that feudalism was evil in the eyes of God. So this is a proto-communist movement. These are people who wanted totally equality and democracy and freedom in the world because they believe that is the will of God. So they rebel against the feudal laws and kill them. And then the entire monarchy unite, the aristocracy,

because they see these peasants as a threat. Now, there are lots of these peasants. We estimate maybe about 300,000 joining this rebellion, but they are not educated, they are not organized, they have no weapons, and they have no centralized authority. And therefore, they're all massacred by the erostatic armies, okay? So this is a peasant's war. And this is important because eventually we'll discuss communism. And communism will be developed in. response to the peasants war. So this is the deadliest massacre of peasants before the

French Revolution. 1534 is the act of supremacy. That is when the King of England, Henry the Eighth, declares his independence from the Pope, okay? But because there's such a strong Catholic contingent in England, Henry the Eve maintains Catholic practices. But rather than have Pope be at the head of the church, he himself is now head of the church okay it's called a church of England now and the religion is called anglican religion okay the Anglican religion all right so the thing that we should observe about the Protestant Reformation is that first of all it's extremely diverse okay there are lots of different denominations the Lutherans

are those who believe in Martin Luther okay the Calvinians are those who believe in double predestination. The Anglicans are English who still follow Catholic rituals, but rather than follow the Pope, they follow the King of England. The Hussites are those who adhere to Jane Huss in Bohemia. The Unitarians are interesting. Unitarians are those who deny the divinity of Jesus. They deny the Holy Trinity.

God is God and Jesus is just the Messiah. He's just a prophet of God. So they affirm the moral teachings of Jesus, but they deny His divinity. You also have the Anabaptists. The Anabaptists are interesting as well because they believe that to truly believe in God, you must choose to do so. Therefore, you must not baptize infants. when you do so, you force children to believe in God, even though they themselves lack the capacity,

lack the reason to believe in God. Okay? So only adults can join the faith, and they must do so voluntarily. All right? So as you can see, there's tremendous divergence, there's tremendous diversity within the Protestant faith. And it still continues today, okay? Every day you have new denominations opening up because people are interpreting the Bible differently. Another thing that you will notice is that most of Protestants

are actually located in Northern Europe. So the countries of England, Germany, the Nordic countries, Switzerland, they will go Protestant. And in the South, France, Spain, Italy, they will remain Catholic. The only exception is this, the South of France. The South of France. The South of France will turn Protestant. It's interesting for us because if you look at a map, the Protestant French are heavily centered in the South of France. And if you remember from last week, that's where the Cathars are also located.

So some historians believe that Protestantism and caffarism, they sort of mingle together. They combine and became conflict. together. Other historians believe that it's because that culturally the south of France, because it's like surrounded by mountains, it's always been culturally independent of the rest of French. They speak a local language called Provenco which is different from French. These Protestants in French, sorry, these Protestants in France, they're mainly in the middle class they're extremely well-educated, they become very prosperous, and they're joined by the nobility.

And as such, the King of France, and France is right now the most powerful country in Europe, the King of France sees them as a threat. And so what he'll do is he'll kill some of the nobles, which launches the St. Barframu-Dadez massacre in 572. That's a day when tens of thousands of French Protestants called Huguenots were killed. And this was sort of process by which he's Huguenots, extremely well-educated, and extremely hardworking, extremely wealthy, they will move to processing countries like England and the Netherlands and Germany and they will help these countries jump start the Industrial Revolution. They will bring their expertise and they will help these countries jump start the Industrial Revolution.

So this is a tremendous loss for France, tremendous gain for the other Protestant nations. Okay, so eventually Europe is divided in terms. two major factions, the Catholic faction and the Protestant faction. And these two factions will eventually engage in something called the 30-year's war. Okay, between the Hatsbergs, the Holy Roman Empire, which is supported by the Pope versus basically the independent states of Germany, okay? And this is a war that will last exactly 30 years, and again, it will kill at most 8 million people. It's a deadliest war in European history up until World War I.

What's interesting about this war is that France, which is Catholic, chooses to join the Protestants in this war, because they see the Holy Roman Empire as an imperial threat. They're afraid that if they allow the Habstarchs to take over Germany, then eventually they will swallow up France. So it was a religious war, but it was also a geopolitical and imperial war. And again, this war ends with the Treaty of Westphalia, which guarantees religious freedom in Europe.

in Europe. So the religious wars will end and Protestant religion will now be free to develop independently. So this is called the Peace of Westphalia. Okay, so now let's summarize and let's discuss the evidence for my argument that the Protestant Reformation gave birth to capitalism. So these are the three major differences between a Catholic religion and a Protestant religion. The question then is why is it that the North will become really Protestant in the south of Europe will become will stay mainly Catholic okay so one thing that we discussed in this class is the persistence of culture so it's it so again no one knows why this is the case okay and you'll hear different arguments it

could have been weather it could have been personality it could have been a lot different factors okay but one possibility I want to present to you today is the cultural factor which is that the south of France and the north of France are culturally different all right so let's look at self of France some sorry south of Europe the seven Europe countries of Spain France and Italy were heavily influenced by Roman culture that's where the woman empire was based right the Roman Empire eventually became an imperial bureaucracy there are three core values to the Romans

Right? Liberty. Now, liberty, this is really important, it means obedience to the law. Because only by obeying the law can people be free to do what they want, okay? Secondly, it's the idea of republica. Republica means public virtue, to serve the public good,

which basically means obeying what the Senate tells you to do, okay? Obeying authority. Now last is idea of piety, which is to respect the customs and history and traditions of Rome. So these are the three major values of the Romans. And we can believe that they become embedded

in the South of Europe. Now, let's look at the Viking culture, okay? And when I say Vikings, I don't really mean Vikings per se. What I really mean are those proto-Indo-Europeans that never really assimilated into Roman culture. So what are their values? Well, they believe in courage, they believe in loyalty, and they believe in resourcefulness, okay?

And we discuss this when we discuss the Vikings. Now, what we're going to do is this. We're going to map Catholic belief with Romans, and we're going to map liking belief with the Protestants and see what happens. Okay, so the Catholics, they believe in orthodoxy, right? Well, the Romans also believe in orthodoxy. They call it liberty, right? Obedience to laws.

Don't question laws, just obey them. Catholics believe in hierarchy. Well, Romans believe in hierarchy as well. They believe in obeying the Senate. The Senate is the ultimate authority, right? Catholics believe in justification by works. The Romans believe in piety, respecting tradition. You don't have to believe in these traditions, but you must respect them.

So this is pretty close. I mean, it's not perfect. All right. But this suggests that Roman culture had a tremendous influence on development of the Catholic Church. Now let's look at the Protestants, okay? They believe in direct access to God through the Bible. Well, the Vikings believe in curate. The Vikings believe in courage.

What is courage? Courage is self-experation. To go out into the unknown and figure out things for yourself, okay? And that's what the Bible is. That's what faith is. To read the Bible for yourself and to interpret the Bible in your own way. And you have to do so using emotional and spiritual courage. All right?

You got a terrorism. So the Vikings had a concept of loyalty. And loyalty is basically the idea of mutual love. I'm loyal to you and your loyal to your loyal back to me because we love each other. All right. And the last concept is justification by faith. And the individual struggle

to come to terms with what God means to you individually, okay? And the Vikings believed in resourcefulness, right? Which is also the idea of individual struggle. You can figure out by yourself if you work hard enough. If you will yourself, you have the courage to do so. Okay?

So again, I leave this as a possibility. Don't treat this as a historical fact. I just suggest it as a way to think about why the Protestants became Protestants, the Catholics became Catholics. And a lot of it has to do with the cultural residue from the past. Okay. All right. So this is just a thought experiment.

All right. So let's now talk about why is it that the Protestant Reformation won out. Again, they were up against the whole. Roman Empire they were up against Catholic Church there were more people in Catholic Europe Catholic Europe was wealthier and stronger but they still won okay and the reason why they won is due to the invention of three things the first thing is the printing press which allowed for mass literacy and education now everyone could read the Bible before you couldn't do so you couldn't afford a Bible but now

everyone can read the Bible but not only that but everyone can not become self-educated you can read all the classics by yourself okay and the Protestant religion compelled you to be literated and to be educated and as such the Protestants as a whole were more well educated than the Catholics okay that's the first reading a printing press second reason is the musket this is really important before the main weapon the ultimate weapon was a knight the armor knight and the armor knight was a professional soldier right And that's where the knights were the nobility,

because they spent all the time training for war, going to war, fighting wars. And it's very expensive to be a knight. But now eventually you have the gun, the musket. And it takes about 60 days for anyone to learn how to use the musket. And the musket is, the thing about the musket that's really important is it's able to pierce

the armor of the knight, which makes the knight, which makes the knight useless in war now, okay? It's a musket that is important. So in other words, anyone who has courage in devotion, mainly the Protestants, they're able to fight a war. And the musket will be vital.

It will be crucial for both the American Revolution and the French Revolution, okay? And we'll discuss the musket when we get to the American Revolution and the French Revolution. The last thing is that the back notes, okay? Before people use gold or coins that were minted with gold in order to trade goods.

Not only you can use banknotes, which is just money, okay? And you can now monetize your hard work and frugality. You can now channel your hard work and frugality into banknotes. What's really important now is there's only a finite number of gold and coins, right? But there's an infinite source of banknotes. so you can work infinitely hard okay so what this means is um before the process of reformation it was really hard to get people to work hard because let's just say that you are an employer and you want to be like okay i'm going to pay people more right but when you pay people

more they actually work less because they can't spend that money you're like well you know if i have to work eight hours a day to make a hundred dollars but now i just work two dollars a day to work to make $100, I'll just work two hours. So we actually work less. And in this system, slavery makes sense, because the way to get people to work hard is to force them into eternal debt, which is what slavery is.

But in this new Protestant system, then slavery is an evil, which you're denying people the capacity to be with God, right? You are with God if you work hard. But if you're a slave, how do you measure the hard work? You're not able to work hard. And that's why after Protestant Reformation, one of the main things that they did was eventually outlawed slavery.

So there are lots of good things about the Protestant Reformation. You have the Industrial Revolution, you have the end of slavery, you have the rights of capitalism, you have the rise of the middle class. You have lots of really good things. But there's also no denying that there are some bad effects as well.

Okay? All right. So this is a printing press invented by Gutenberg. This is what a printing press looks like. You have the musket, okay? So before people had bows, right? And the bows were used by train archers, and they weren't that powerful.

But now with the musket, you're able to pierce night armor, because there's more energy. 3,100 joules within the bullet. And then you have banknotes as well. And banknotes really is the exception of wealth, which means that in theory now, you could have infinite wealth. Why we're so wealthy today? Because we abstracted wealth. Before, wealth was limited because gold was limited. But now with banknotes, with money, in theory, wealth can be...

Okay. Okay. So this is John Wesley who is the founder of the Methodist Church, okay? And he summarizes the idea of Protestant really well. We ought not to prevent people from being diligent and frugal. We must exhort all Christians to gain all they can and to save all they can. That is in effect to grow rich. So Protestant believed that it is God's calling. It is your mission to get rich. And that's how you know that you're favored by God. All right? And the way to get rich is by working hard and not spending any money.

Okay. So what I'm going to do now is present the evidence for my argument that the Protestant religion gave birth to capitalism. Okay? And to do so, I'm going to refer to three major thinkers. Max Weber, Imel, Dorkimel, and Jorik Simmel. They're all sociologists. They're considered three major founders of the social sciences. And they're all contemporaries.

They were all writing about the year of 1900. Why this is important is the year 1900 is really when the Protestant religion is most tri-inphant. This is when capitalism is most dominant. Even though most people are not Protestants, Protestant, the work ethic, the belief system, has conquered the world. Germany, Britain, the United States are the three most powerful countries in the world at this time. They're the three largest empires and they're all Protestant nations and as such they can impose Protestant beliefs on everyone else.

And the year 1900 is also before World War I. So at this time everyone thinks that this is the greatest thing in the world. Protestantism, Industrial Revolution, capitalism are all divinely sent by God to bless humanity. And what Max Weber, George Simmel, and Imel Dorkim are trying to do is figure out what's really going on, and to see if there are any consequences to the system. And what they will show us is, in fact, there are a lot of problems in this system. Okay? So let's first look at Max Weber, who in 1904 to 1905, from 1905, he wrote something

called the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. He's trying to explain why is it that pronds are a lot of wealthier than Catholics in general. Okay? And this is what he has to say. So far as predestination was not reinterpreted, toned down, or fundamentally abandoned, okay? So remember, double predestination, right? The belief that God has already selected those who will go to heaven and you must prove to yourself that you are one of them, two principal, mutually connected types of pastoral advice appear. Okay, so there are two consequences to the idea

of predestination. On the one hand, it is held to be an absolute duty to consider oneself chosen, Okay? So when a minority are going to heaven, the odds are you're not going to heaven, but you must believe you're going to heaven. Otherwise, you lack faith in God. Otherwise, you don't truly believe in God. And then therefore, you be truly damned, condemned by God. And to combat all doubts as temptations of the devil, since lack of self-confidence is the result of insufficient faith, hence of imperfect grace. To prove that God is perfect, to prove that God loves you, you must truly believe that you are chosen by God. If you doubt yourself, then you'll be condemned to hell. Then you become a servant of the devil. The exhortation of the Apostle to make fast one's own call is here interpreted as a duty

to attain certainty of one's own election and certification in the deadly struggle of life. Okay, so you need to prove that you are one-elect by focusing on this world. Focus your energies on conquering this world. On the other hand, in order to attain that sub-confidence, intense worldly activity is recommended as the most suitable means. It and it alone disperses religious doubt and gives the certainty of grace. So this idea of all that you have anxiety, how do you do with anxiety? work work work okay OCD observes a compulsive behavior what kind of work do you do make money because the money is proof of God's grace right okay so he continues

this worldly Protestant asceticism okay a sudden just means like you're actually not spending any money okay not only are you compelled to make a lot of money but you also compelled not to spend any of it not to enjoy it because that leads to corruption, that leads to decadence, acted powerfully against the spontaneous enjoyment of possessions, it restricted consumption, especially of luxuries. So no one's spending any of this money, where's this money going? It's going to the bank. And who's using this money in the bank?

The government is. And what are they doing? They're using to fight wars, right? And that's how England, the Netherlands became empires. is it access to all this surplus wealth that the process weren't spending. On the other hand, it had a psychological effect of freeing the acquisition of goods

and inhibitions of traditionalist ethics. Okay, so the idea here is this. Before, if you're wealthy, you were expected by everyone around you to support the community. Usually by organizing fees on religious festivals, you were to share your wealth. If you had too much money, it shows

that you were against a community. It showed that you were selfish. But now people believe that if you're wealthy, it means God favors you. The more wealthy you have, the more people respect you, okay? It's going to be inverse from the historical case. Historically, we believe that those who have too much money are evil. Now we believe that those who have too much money are inherently good. It's complete reverse. It broke the bonds and the impulse of acquisition in not only legalized it, but looked upon it

as directly willed by God, okay? So before it's embarrassing to have too much money, now it is prestigious to have too much money. The campaign against the temptations of the flesh and the dependence on external things was not a struggle against the rational acquisition, but against the irrational use of wealth. So what's evil is not to make a lot of money.

What's evil is to use that money to enjoy yourself. Okay. So now he discusses problems with this ideology, okay? The Puritan want to work in a calling. So the Puritan wants to be close to God. We are forced to do so. We're not Puritans. Most of the world is not peritans.

We were stuck, we are in prison in their world. They create this world and were stuck in it. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, so the idea was in the Catholic Church, if you wanted to be an ascetic, if you wanted to deny the world, you went into a monastery. The Puritans made the entire world into a monastery, okay? And began to dominate worldly morality.

It did its part in building the tremendous cosmos, the modern economic order. He's talking about capitalism. So capitalism was created by the Puritans in order to rationalize the world. This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions on machine production, which today determine the lives of all the individuals

who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition with iristible forced. So they create this system, which is industrial production. This industrial production has made us all into slaves. And the soul of this industrial production system is capitalism. Wealth for the sake of wealth. And there's no denying this system.

You can never free yourself from the system. You're stuck inside the system. But not only that, but this entire industrial production, it has permeated into all aspects of life. It's permeated into the family. It's permeated into the school. okay why do you have grades why do we have what do we have tests because of this industrial economy right grades tests are another form of money

perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt okay what he's saying here is that this system will keep on going until we destroy the planet okay and until we run out resources because that's what capitalism is It's the expectation of the environment. In Baxter's view, the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment. So the idea of Protestantism is, listen, external wealth, wealth is just a measure of your faith in God. That's not what's important.

What's important is your faith, right? But the faith decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage. Okay? Money was supposed to be a tool. Money was supposed to be a mechanism for us to connect with God. But now money, capitalism, industrial production, it's become our prison. There's no denying it. No one can now escape this. Okay? Okay. Does it make sense to you? All right. So now he makes predictions. No one knows who will live in this cage in the future or whether at the end of this tremendous development entirely new profits will arise, or there will be a great rebirth of old ideas and ideals of neither mechanized petrification

embellished with a sort of convulsive self-importance. Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry, I read this wrong, okay? Let me do this again. No one knows who will live in this cage in the future, or whether at the end of this tremendous development, entirely new profits will rise, or there will be a great rebirth of old ideas. Okay, so what we're saying is this. As capitalism conquers more and more territory, as it becomes more embedded into everyday life,

there will be a nostalgia for the Catholic Church. And there may arise new prophets who will rebel against capitalism, just like Martin Luther rebelled against the Catholic religion. And these new ideas will happen. They're called fascism and calming. All right? So capitalism will give rise to the Nazis as well as the communists, the Bolsheviks. So this is the future. Okay, so he's making a prophecy. But if these things don't happen, then what will happen is this. Mechanize petrification embellished with a sort of convulsive self-importance. We believe today that we have achieved divinity. We have achieved heaven on earth. Capitalism is the greatest good. But if you think about it, our civilization has become a zombie civilization it is about soul it is about spirituality it is about heart it's all machine it's all money it's all obsession nothing else okay so I'm sorry that

this is not appearing properly okay but but that's what he's saying here for of the last stage of this cultural development it might well be truly said specialist about spirit okay we have scientists who lack purpose They have no sense of divinity. They have no sense of mission, okay? They're just doing technical work. Scientists just do technical work. Sensualist, well, heart.

There's nobility, imagine that it has achieved a level of civilization never before achieved. All right? So that's what he's saying. He's saying like, our civilization, it is a zombie civilization, it is nothing, it is nihilistic. is nihilistic but we believe this is perfection okay and if you think about it he's describing perfectly the world we live in today it's perfect okay he wrote

this in about 1900 he predicted this would happen and he's right we live in a zombie civilization all right okay so this is George Simmel who is a friend of Max Webb the contemporaries, the colleagues, their friends, and he's trying to explain where money comes from. And I explained previously, money now has become a substitute for the idea of God. It's become reality itself. And why is that? Here explains it. The projection of mere relations into particular objects is one of the great accomplishments of the mind. So we're able to take an idea and transpose this idea onto a thing.

We're able to take the idea of God and turn it into money. We can do that, and that's a great thing. When the mind is embodied in objects, these become a vehicle for the mind and doubt with a livelier and more comprehensive activity. When we do this, we turn God into money, our understanding of reality becomes much more vibrant. We're able to understand reality much better.

The ability to construct such symbolic objects attains its greatest triumph in money. Money becomes a placeholder for everything. For money, it represents peer interaction in its pure form. How do we know if we're working hard? How do we know if we are succeeding? How do we know if we have friends? Through money, okay?

For capital accumulation. It makes comprehensible the most abstract concept. It is an individual thing whose essential significance is to reach beyond individualities. It centersize everything, okay? Everyone agrees on money. Thus, money is the adequate expression of the relationship of man to the world, which can only be grasped in single and concrete instances. Yet only really can see when a singular becomes the embodiment of the living mental process, which interweaves all singularities and in this fashion creates reality.

Okay? So at the beginning of class, I talk about money, right? How money takes all our different perspectives and converges into one thing, right? And then it redesigns reality through this lens. That's what he's saying here. The last person I want to talk about is Emil Dirkham. And he's a French sociologist. And his most famous book is called On Suicide.

He's trying to discuss why is it that Protestants are much more likely to kill themselves than Catholics. Okay? And his answer is it's because Protestants believe you have to struggle individually with faith. Whereas Catholics don't believe that. Catholics believe that you just follow community rituals and you're good. So Protestants feel that they're alone and abandoned in this world and they must struggle out of this darkness. and that leads to tremendous energy, okay? It also leads sometimes to self-defeat.

It leads to hopelessness, and that's why they kill themselves. Okay, so let's not read this, but that's what he's saying, okay? Okay, but I want to read this. This is really important. He's talking about the fact that Protestants transfer this anxiety in the accumulation of wealth, right? They're anxious about what God is. They're anxious whether or not God loves them.

And they focus on the community of wealth. And this is a problem because over-excited ambitions always exceeds the results that they achieve, whether these may be because they have not been aware that they should not go any further. Okay, right? Let's just say that you want to lose weight. Your obsession is to lose weight. It's possible that you may die in the process because, you don't know how much weight you should lose you don't know what the proper equilibrium is

okay you just want to lose as much weight as possible that's a problem with accumulating money you try to get more more money to prove your worth to God but you can't stop you don't know when to stop okay consequently nothing satisfies them and all this agitation perpetually sustains itself by reaching any form of satiety you cannot You look at Jack Ma, the richest man in China at some point, right? He has all this money, $50 billion. What is he doing with it? Nothing.

All he wants is make more and more money. Why? Because only the acquisition of money brings him happiness. Nothing else does. It's a disease. Above all, as this race towards an unattainable goal can give no satisfaction, but the race itself. If that can be called satisfaction,

satisfaction should anything chance to get in its way then one is left empty-handed okay You're so focused on the opinion of wealth that if you lose this process, okay? You stop this process You will feel devoid of everything okay. You could have 50 billion dollars in a bank, but you lose but you drop out of this race You stop the communication of money you will fall into anxiety and depression right now it so happens that at this time the struggle becomes more violent and more painful both because it is less regulated and because competition is fiercer all right so it's talking about capitalism how because it's all about the condition of wealth and the contribution of wealth can only bring about more anxiety and more stress it's bringing out all social bonds okay it's bringing all traditional morality it's bringing out all customs and norms all classes are caught up in it because there's no longer any established classification you're rich if you're poor you're stuck in the system no matter how rich you are you're

still playing this game you can never escape it so the effort is all the greater at the moment when it becomes more unproductive how can the will to live not be weakened in these conditions okay so Like, I know this is hard, and I know what I'm saying is going to be depressing, but what Max Weber is saying is we live in a zombie civilization. Okay, that's what he's saying. What Imel Dorkman is saying is that this civilization is on a path to suicide. It's on a path to self-destruction.

There's no purpose in a civilization. It's all, we exist for the sake of accumulating, nothing of value and eventually we'll just recognize this and we'll often die our civilization is on a path to suicide and you know what they're right their profits think about this never before in human history have we been as wealthy as technological progress right we're the internet as more connected we can fly around the world you can go to the United States and study and then come back and work okay you have more opportunities than ever before but again think about this okay

never before in human history have there been more depression anxiety more suicides more feeling of disconnection okay so think about this let's do a thought experiment let's just say that I have anxiety in the way that I I deal with this anxiety is I collect newspapers. Every day I'm out collecting newspapers. I fill this room with newspapers, and then I go next room and I fill up newspapers. Everyone would say that I am hoarding, okay?

The word is hoarding, and it is a disease, right? It's a disease. We all know it's a disease. If I were to go talk to a psychologist, he would say, I have a disease, I need to take some anxiety medication, I need to relax, go on vacation, whatever, okay? But let's just say this. Let's say I have anxiety. And all I want to do is make money.

I make a million dollars. I don't spend it. I put in the bank and I go make two million dollars. And then I go make three million dollars. And I'm not spending it. It's all in the bank, okay? How is that different from hoarding? How is that different from me collecting newspapers and just putting it in the house? It's not. There's no difference, right? But everyone would think I'm a great person. I am a good person because I'm working hard and I'm saving money. Right? It's a contradiction in our society. It's a contradiction that exists because our society, our civilization is incapable of recognizing that we are a zombie civilization that is on the path to civilization of suicide.

All right. Okay. So this was depressing, but I feel as though we, needed to discuss this okay and again this thing ideas that we learned previously we're combining it and we are going to use these ideas to understand the future development okay all right so any questions great yep you're absolutely right okay you're absolutely right that so in the Catholic religion suicide is the worst sin that you can commit okay and in the Protestant religion

there are also mechanisms against suicide. But let's go back to the theory. The theory is double predestination. God has already decided who will be burned in hell and who will go to heaven. And only a minority can go to heaven, right? And there's nothing you can do to change this. You understand?

So if you follow the logic, you can commit suicide, you're doing God's will. because you commit suicide because you don't believe in God or you don't have enough faith in God, which means that you were condemned anyway. Okay? So suicide, it's not a sin. It's a sign of weakness.

Doesn't make sense. Okay? But also what's important for us to remember is that suicide, it's also a feeling of this connection. It's a belief that no one cares if you die or not. No one supports you in your life, and therefore you're better off dead. If you die, you're not actually impacting the community.

And that's in Mount Durkine's argument. You're always going to have people kill themselves in all religions. You can't really stop that. But Protestants are more likely to kill themselves because Protestant is a much more individualistic religion than Catholic. All right. Does that make sense? Great. Okay.

Next question? Okay. So these three are not philosophers. These three are sociologists. So they're social scientists. They're Max Weber, who is considered the founder of sociology, Gioric Simmel, and Imelork Dorca. These are the three major sociologists

that really created modern social sciences. Okay, that's a great question, okay? So these are social scientists. And the thing about social scientists is they feel their responsibility is to diagnose problems. And once they diagnose problems, then it's up to us to figure out the solution, okay? So let's figure out what they're saying, okay?

So Weber is saying that this anxiety, which leads to capitalism, will ultimately lead to civilization on decline. Okay? That's his main argument. Okay. So again, like he's not writing at the beginning of Protestant where Protestant was a persecuted religion and where it really gave hope to a lot of people and it really empowered them to transform the lives, okay? He's really talking about late Protestantism when it's really conquered the world and he's seeing a lot of issues.

And so he's looking at this. He's looking at anxiety, which causes capitalism, which causes civilization, which causes civilization and So he says there has to be a response. And there's going to be three possible responses, okay? The first possible response is nothingness, okay? In which case, guess what? We become a zombie society. A zombie society just means that we just go on day-to-day doing whatever, but we don't know why.

We don't really care. We have no soul, we have no spirit, we have no energy, okay? That's what a zombie society is. And that's what he's afraid of. But it's also possible that there is a reaction, okay, which will lead to the return of the Catholic Church, which was basically a theocracy. Does that make sense? That's the second possibility. And then another possibility is the idea of new prophets, or people who are trying to channel this discontent with capitalism in order to form new movements in the way that Martin Luther and John Calvin did.

right and in the 12th century there were two major responses to the problem capitalism the first of course is called communism the second is called fascism here are the Nazis all right so the 20th century was really about defeating these two critics of capitalism right that's what the 20th century really was about you first had World War II which defeated Nazism and then you have the Cold War which defeated communism. So this is out. So right now, our true paths ahead of us is either a Zomian society

or a return to a theocracy. And so, if I'm a betting man, what a future looks like, I think it is most likely the world becomes a theocracy. And there are thearchies that exist today. So, for example, let's look at North Korea. North Korea is a theocracy where people are not allowed to think for themselves. People must do what they're told. And it's all a very heavily rich-lized society which worships the divinity of the supreme leader.

We may hate the society. We may be discussed by the society, but guess what? This is really important. People in North Korea, even though they're poorer, even though that's freedom, they are an average happier and more fulfilled and more energetic than most societies. You compare North Korea or South Korea, okay? In South Korea, no one's having kids. That's a sign of complete hopelessness in their society.

North Korea, they're having a lot of kids. That's the sort of faith in a society. So that's what Max Weber is predicting. He's predicting these three possible paths. We tried the new profits path didn't work. We don't want to become a zombie society. So the only path ahead of us is to become a theocracy. A return to the tyranny of the Catholic Church.

But the tyranny gives us meaning, purpose, and spirituality, a connection with God that we are lacking into the society. But, okay, let's just say, for the sake of argument, you know what? I like my individual freedom, right? I don't want to go to a freocryocracy where everyone's a slave. What can we do about this? Okay, so one issue that Max Weber doesn't really address, because he doesn't recognize the problem is,

all these problems we're talking about is a problem of mass society. Okay? When you have mass society, your options are much more limited. In our mass society, you need to feed millions and millions of people. You need to organize them. You need to give something to do. Therefore, your political flexibility doesn't really exist. So, in other words, okay, thinking ahead, there are two solutions.

Either you become a theocracy or you figure out the problem of mass society. If society becomes, I mean, like, I'm sorry to say. this but like if most people in the world died then we would have more freedom in this world okay but if but if we choose to continue the system we have eight billion people struggling on this earth then you're stuck with moving towards a theocracy okay so that's what Max Weber is saying he's basically giving us a prophecy about our future all right now okay having said that let's look at Durkham okay Durkim what's he saying he's saying this okay this is

really important okay it's a hard argument but this is what he's saying all right why do you have suicide suicide suicide is the result of this connection we do not think we are valuable in the world if we think that we are alone in this world we don't want to be part of this world we kill ourselves okay it's very simple idea right but then the question then is why is your disconnection because of anxiety right it's it's a belief that if I don't work hard God will not favor me right why is anxiety important because it leads to capitalism so in other words these four concepts are interconnected all right this connection leads to

suicide we have disconnection because of anxiety but anxiety is what feeds capitalism if people weren't anxious they wouldn't go out and work so hard to make money right to be like you know what I'm pretty happy making my ten dollars a day and set at home eating noodles because I don't care right your society will collapse capitalism will collapse okay so you understand capitalism creates suicide that's why we have the highest suicide rate in the whole in entirety of human issue okay more anxiety more depression more suicide one happiness more lonely

than ever before in human history. Okay? So, you can't say capitalism is the issue, but if you work out the logic, capitalism is the issue. And that's why, today in the United States, and elsewhere in the world, they're talking about a return to a theocracy. Because the direct response to capitalism is a theocracy. Let's all obey the church, and we're good.

Okay? Now, women will have to stay at home and give birth to kids. Oh, and also, like, if you're homosexual, we're going to have to kill you. But, you know, that's the price we're going to pay, okay? So it's a terrible world that we're going to. But what Durkim is saying is, if we continue on the path of capitalism, people are going to choose the path of theocracy. Theocracy is almost a natural outcome of capitalism.

because of the problem of this connection. Okay? But are you going to be able to defeat capitalism ever? And the answer is no, okay? We tried in the 20th century. It led to the death of tens of millions of people. Okay? Good luck trying to defeat capitalism.

You can't do it. It can't be done. It's too powerful. Does that make sense? Any more questions? Okay, great. So next Tuesday, we do the time of revolution, okay? All right.