Rulers, Religion & Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not

Abstract

Rubin, associate professor of economics at Chapman University in Orange, CA, has provided a sophisticated and nuanced analysis of social, religious and cultural factors which contributed to the economic ascendency of the West over the Middle East in the modern era. First, an acknowledgement. I possess no professional training or economic expertise beyond the level of financial literacy acquired through reading in the popular press. My review is written from the perspective of a student of religion and culture, not as a trained economist or expert in economic history and theory. Still, even with these caveats, I find this book to be a remarkable achievement. Rubin’s work falls into two major sections. In the first section, Rubin’s theoretical work, he seeks to understand “some of the necessary determinants for long-run economic success” and also “how and why an economy might stagnate if those determinants are absent” (xiv). In the second section, Rubin’s applied work, he seeks to explain why the Middle East, which was economically ahead of the West at the end of the Middle Ages, fell so far behind the West in the early modern era. For Rubin, any unnuanced effort to point toward Islam as the culprit behind the financial stagnation in the Middle East is “ridiculous” (xiv). On a macro-level, Rubin’s theoretical perspective presumes that economic development requires cultural constructs that allow for change. Cultures—and their governing authorities—which stifle creative adaptation stagnate economically; cultures which make provisions for change experience economic growth. In Rubin’s analysis, religions can both foster and inhibit such required change. In thewake of Islam’s rise,Muslim societies saw a few centuries of positive economic growth, largely due to the political stability and trade friendly practices of Mohammed and his immediate successors. However, during the Ottoman period, these same societies began to stagnate, not because of “an inherent feature” of these societies, but rather because of “a lack of incentive to change” (21). Rubin’s theory of economic development (which is nicely illustrated in graphic form, 34) assumes that the primary enabling and limiting forces behind long economic development are the ruling authorities who shape laws and policies. He presumes that societies with a consistent pattern of appropriate laws andpolicieswill, over time, prosper. Still, as a realist, Rubin acknowledges that the first real priority of any governing authority is to remain in power, a priority which he understands the authorities to actualize via some combination of coercion and legitimation. On the one hand, coercion is effected rather bluntly through military and policing units. On the other hand, legitimization is achieved through the more complex and less overt mechanisms of religious authorities, local leaders, economic elites and other opinion leaders. Economic growth occurs, according to Rubin, when the key agents of legitimatization are economic elites who influence policy makers toward policies that aid economic growth.