Can we do without God – in the sense of discipline? With a title that is a nod to Dante, the British Paul Seabright, professor at the Toulouse School of Economics, does more than just answer positively. Following on from Adam Smith, who was interested in the competition between religions and their relations with the political universe, and based on a vast body of academic work, he has published a fascinating book.
To be interested in the products and services, spiritual and material, that religions provide is to look at the business of salvation and souls. It is to deal with the voluntary, and often enthusiastic, commitment of believers who can go so far as to give their lives. It is, more prosaically, to analyze particularly robust models of organizations that adapt over the centuries. According to Seabright, religions are ultimately firms like any other, in competition. They are not only businesses, he specifies, but they are also businesses. Our author proposes an agnostic study to grasp these institutions not in their theological foundations but in their prosaic developments. To use his words, he studies their prose more than their poetry.
