by Jared Rubin
So many other people have influenced my work through events I regularly attend, especially the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture (ASREC) annual conference, Association for Analytic Learning about Islam and Muslim Societies (AALIMS), and Chapman’s Institute for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture (IRES) graduate student workshop. Since 2010 I have been a board member of ASREC, serving as both Executive Director and Program Chair along the way. I have made a great many friends in the process, but some really stand out, including Robbie Mochrie, Sriya Iyer, Sascha Becker, Dan Hungerman, Chris Bader, Jean-Paul Carvalho, and Mike McBride. I regularly see a great number of people at AALIMS who have helped shape my view on the role the social sciences can play in shedding light on various aspects of the Islamic world, including Cihan Artunç, Lisa Blaydes, Jean-Paul Carvalho, Eric Chaney, Murat Iyigun, Saumitra Jha, Timur Kuran, Avital Livny, Erik Meyersson, David Patel, Tom Pepinsky, and Mohamed Saleh. Regular graduate student workshops at IRES have also introduced me to a number of fantastic scholars. I am indebted to the “regulars” who show up to Chapman every year for our event: Jean-Paul Carvalho, Tony Gill, Mike McBride, Steve Pfaff, and Carolyn Warner. The John Templeton Foundation sponsored these workshops, numerous ASREC events, and various research projects through two grants I was awarded with Larry Iannaccone. Indeed, these grants funded course reductions that allowed me to focus on writing this book. For all of this I am very grateful to the John Templeton Foundation and especially to Kimon Sargeant, who has always been supportive of our work.
I have met so many others at workshops, conferences, or over coffee, drinks, and e-mail who deserve mention for influencing my thoughts. Many of these people have given me detailed comments on a book chapter or one of the papers that forms the backbone of this book. I know I will miss mentioning some of you, but it is not for a lack of appreciation. I consider many on the following list good friends; it is a pleasure to work in a field with so many genuinely nice people. These include Jason Aimone, Dan Bogart, Feler Bose (who brought me out for a great trip to Alma College to talk about the book), Davide Cantoni, Jeremiah Dittmar, Price Fishback, Andy Gill, Yadira González de Lara, Josh Hall (who sponsored a fantastic trip to Beloit College to talk about the book), Gordon Hanson, Phil Hoffman, Noel Johnson, Shawn Kantor, Elira Karaja, Mark Koyama, Deirdre McCloskey, Joel Mokyr, Julius Morche, Steve Nafziger, Gary Richardson, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, John Tang, John Wallis, and Ludger Woessmann. There are many more I am sure. Sorry if I left you out!
Claire Morgan organized an invaluable book conference at the Mercatus Center, which helped sharpen my arguments significantly. I am deeply indebted to all the attendees, all of whom took the time to read an entire early draft of the manuscript and give excellent feedback: John Wallis, Pete Boettke (also a coeditor of this book series), Carmel Chiswick, Metin Coşgel, Stephen Davies, Noel Johnson, Timur Kuran, Karen Maloney, Peter Mentzel, John Nye, Scott Scheall, and Mario Villarreal-Diaz. I owe a special thanks to Karen Maloney, my primary editor at Cambridge, who has been supportive of this project throughout. Scott Parris, my original editor at Cambridge, was also supportive from the beginning and helped get this project off the ground.
I owe a great deal of debt to a number of people at Chapman University. Few people have helped me advance in my career as much as Larry Iannaccone, who was the primary force in bringing me to Chapman in 2011. I treasure Larry’s friendship and insights. The institute we have built at Chapman, IRES, is a testament to the field he has revolutionized. Larry and I are not alone in building the institute; my IRES colleagues, Chris Bader, Beth Hofeldt, Andrea Molle, Celia Perez, and Linda Williams, have also been great friends. It is a fantastic environment to work in. Outside of IRES, I have greatly benefited from interactions with a number of my other Chapman colleagues. They include, but are not limited to: Gabriele Camera, Brice Corgnet, Lynne Doti, Dan Kovenock, Dave Porter, Steve Rassenti, Roman Sheremeta, Tim Shields, Vernon Smith, Nat Wilcox, and Bart Wilson.
Three people deserve extended thanks. The first is Ran Abramitzky, one of my dissertation advisors at Stanford. Ran has been one of the most positive forces imaginable on my career. When I embarked in graduate school on research in the economics of religion, I knew this was not likely to yield me a top job like many Stanford graduates expect to get. But I was never in it for the name brand of the university I worked at, the salary, or any other perks. I was in it because I loved the topic and I felt I had something significant to contribute. Ran never wavered in supporting my research. From the beginning, he advised me to do what I find interesting. Even if it were not the most mainstream of topics, he consistently told me that if done well, others will come around to my view that my research is interesting and important. It has been vital to hear such words of encouragement from a scholar as excellent as Ran. I do not think I have let him down, and I hope he views this book as a testament to that.
I do not know where my career would be without the friendship, mentorship, advice, comments, and encouragement of Timur Kuran. Timur was also on my dissertation committee. Timur’s work is one of my primary sources of inspiration, and I think it really shows in this book. From the first time I met him when he was visiting Stanford in 2004, Timur has been a top advocate of mine. I am not sure what I did to deserve this honor, though I will gladly accept it. At every step in my career path Timur has been there with advice and support. It is difficult to put into words how important this has been for me, both for my confidence as a scholar and for providing me with opportunities I otherwise might not have had. Indeed, he is the primary reason this book is being published with Cambridge. He went through numerous drafts of the manuscript in his role as editor. Each draft improved substantially from his comments. Simply put, this book is leagues better than it would have been without Timur’s supervision. I am deeply honored to call Timur a collaborator, mentor, and (most importantly) friend.
I would also be nowhere near where I am today without the mentorship, advice, and encouragement of Avner Greif. Avner had no idea at the time I first introduced myself to him, while taking his class in my second year, that I was on the precipice of leaving Stanford’s Ph.D. program. The first year of the program was disillusioning; graduate economics was not what I was expecting or hoping it would be. This all changed when I took Avner’s class. I always had an interest in religion – not out of personal conviction, but simply from its power to affect decision-making. Indeed, I minored in religion at the University of Virginia simply out of interest in the topic, not because I planned on doing anything with it in my career. Avner introduced me to the possibility that the very thing I was interested in was something that economists actually studied and provided insights deeper than I thought possible. Overnight I changed my mind from almost certainly leaving Stanford to almost certainly pursuing this line of research for the rest of my life. I vividly remember going to Avner with my first half-baked ideas about the role that religion and politics play in economic outcomes. He told me flat out something that is not so easy to hear as a second-year graduate student: it will be hard to get an academic job pursuing this topic. However, he also encouraged me to tackle the topic head on if it were something I was passionate about. This is precisely what I needed to hear. I did not need to have illusions about what the market might hold for me, but I did need to know that I would have support if I decided to pursue it. And Avner’s support has not wavered to the present day. Along with Timur Kuran, Avner’s work has been the primary inspiration for my own work. And, as with Timur, I am deeply honored to call Avner a collaborator, mentor, and friend.
The greatest supporters I have had throughout my life are my parents, Thom and Linda Rubin. I have the incredible luck to have the greatest father one could imagine – he is supportive, caring, loving, and kind. I aim to emulate him every day now that I am a father. He was dealt an incredibly difficult hand when my mother passed away, but he somehow managed to raise me, my sister Samantha, and my brother Tyler into well-adjusted,
interesting, and caring adults. I am constantly amazed at the father he is to me and my siblings and the grandfather he is to my children; and so is Debbie, my loving and caring stepmother. I miss my mother, Linda, dearly; not a day goes by that I do not think of her. Although her time on Earth was way, way too short, she managed to instill in myself, Samantha, and Tyler so much about what it means to be a good human being. I cannot imagine being anything close to who I am today had she not been a part of my life. Samantha and Tyler also deserve much credit for me being the person I am today; I certainly do not take it for granted how lucky I was to grow up in such a loving family.
Finally, this book – and everything else I do on a day-to-day basis – would be unthinkable without the support of the three loves of my life: my wife Tina, my daughter Nadia, and my son Sasha. Tina has always been there for me since we met in 2004. We have been through so much together: job changes, location changes, and the births of our two beautiful children. I do not have the words to convey how much Tina means to me. The same is true of Nadia and Sasha. The best part of my day is the time I spend with the three of them and our dog, the ever-loyal Watson. I cannot imagine what my world would be like without them. Tina, Nadia, and Sasha: this book, and everything else I do, is for you.
1
Introduction
By almost any available metric, there is a wide gap between the economic and political fortunes of the Middle East and the West.1 Even after accounting for oil wealth, which benefits only a small portion of Middle Easterners, Westerners are on average about six times wealthier. They can also expect to live, on average, eight additional years and have nearly twice the education (see Table 1.1). One cause – and consequence – of Middle Eastern economic retardation is poor governance and violence. The average Middle Easterner lives in a much more fragile and autocratic state and is subject to much more civil and ethnic violence than the average Westerner. This is undoubtedly the primary reason for the political tensions between the Middle East and much of the rest of the world, and it is at the root of the political and economic grievances espoused by Islamists.
Table 1.1 Economic and Political Health, the “West” and Middle East/North Africa (MENA), 2012–2014 (weighted by population)
The “West” MENA Interpretation/Notes
Per Capita GDP $48,269 $8,009 In 2013 US Dollars
Life Expectancy 80.4 72.6 2013 Life Expectancy at birth
Mean Years of Schooling 12.1 6.8 2012 data
State Fragility 1.42 11.11 0–25 (25 is most fragile)
Civil and Ethnic Violence/War 0.00 1.03 0–10 (10 is most violent)
Autocracy 0.00 3.58 0–10 (10 is most autocratic)
Sources: GDP – World Bank (2014); Schooling – UN Development Program (2014); State Fragility, Violence, Autocracy – Marshall and Cole (2014); Population – CIA World Factbook (2014); all data weighted by 2014 population; GDP and Fragility are in 2013; Violence and Autocracy are in 2014.
Western Europe includes Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
MENA includes Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, West Bank & Gaza, and Yemen.
This gap between the West and the Middle East – indeed, the West and the rest of the world – is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the preindustrial period, Western Europe was not obviously ahead of the rest of the world, and it was not so far ahead of the Middle East that the Ottoman Empire (the leading Middle Eastern state) felt economically or politically inferior. Over time, a vast economic, political, military, and technology gap emerged between the two. This divergence allowed Europeans to dominate the rest of the world economically and politically, a fact most clearly manifested in their colonization of a large portion of the world’s inhabitable land. Meanwhile, by the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was considered the “sick man of Europe” – a once mighty empire on its final legs. The leading Western European powers ultimately carved up the Middle East into states with artificial boundaries that suited European geopolitical needs.
It is undeniable that the fortunes of the Middle East diverged wildly from those of the West. But what caused this divergence? The difference in fortunes is more puzzling than it might seem from a twenty-first-century perspective. For most of the last millennium or two, Westerners had more contact with Middle Easterners than they did with the rest of the world. Cross-cultural learning between Western Europe and the Middle East occurred more frequently than it did between Western Europe and the rest of the world. The similarities between the two regions and their relative integration make the relative success of the West even more mysterious: What allowed Western economies to succeed where Middle Eastern ones stagnated?
This is the question addressed in this book. At its core, this book is about why some economies succeed and others stagnate. It is tempting to ask whether Islam is to blame for the relative poverty and poor governance of the Middle East. It is impossible to avoid this question, even if it may be offensive to some; it is simply bad science to reject a hypothesis because it is offensive. And there is reason not to dismiss this possibility offhand. The famed scholar of Islamic history Bernard Lewis seemed to suggest just this late in his career,2 and there is a long Orientalist tradition ascribing bad consequences to Islamic doctrine and practice. This is also a common trope of the Western media, where simplistic associations between Islam and “bad” socio-political-economic events are all too common. Even if most stories in the media are easy to dismiss upon only slightly deeper inspection, it is not so easy to dismiss the more intelligently construed arguments of the Orientalists. Lewis and others knew a lot about the Middle East and Islamic history. And indeed, Islam harbors numerous rules relevant for trade and governance.
So, why isn’t Islam to blame? The answer is simple: even if one accepts the idea that religious doctrine matters for economic performance, the facts simply do not line up. The histories of these regions in the millennium prior to industrialization do not align with the idea that Islam is antithetical to economic growth. The most important fact to account for in any theory of why the modern economy was born in Western Europe and not the Middle East is that the Middle East was ahead of Europe economically, technologically, and culturally for centuries following the spread of Islam. From the seventh through twelfth centuries, Islamic empires dominated Western Eurasia. For its first four or five centuries, Islam was associated with positive economic growth.
The worldwide distribution of wealth was much different eight to ten centuries ago than it is in the twenty-first century, both within and across economies. Western Europe was a relatively poor area – the rule of law existed only in small, settled regions, little interregional commerce existed, populations were small and scattered, and science and technology were far behind other regions. By almost any available economic measure, the Middle East was ahead of Europe. It had access to far more advanced science and technology, its trade flowed in higher volumes and over longer distances, and it employed more complicated financial instruments. There is plenty of evidence to support this assertion. Major advances in mathematics, medicine, philosophy, art, and architecture were hallmarks of the Islamic world through the thirteenth century. The data are of course sparser the earlier back in time one travels, but one indication of wealth in the premodern setting for which we do have data is urban population size. Urban population works as a metric of premodern economic performance because large urban populations meant there was enough food to feed people who were not producing for their own sustenance, and urbanites generally produced and consumed the luxuries of life. In short, greater urban populations generally meant greater wealth.3
Urban population data confirms the suspected trend, showing a slow but clear reversal of economic fortunes between Western Europe and the Middle East over the last 1
,200 years. Figure 1.1 indicates that in 800, the urban share of the population of the Islamic world was much greater than in Christian Europe.4 Fourteen of the twenty-two largest cities in Europe and the Middle East, including by far the largest city – the Abbasid capital Baghdad – were under Islamic rule. The Umayyad (Cordoba) Caliphate in modern-day Spain and the Abbasid Caliphate, centered in modern-day Iraq, ruled the most populous and wealthiest areas. Seven of the eight most populous cities were Muslim-ruled, with only the Byzantine capital Constantinople containing a large urban population of Christians. In fact, the combined population of the top thirteen cities of Christian Western and Central Europe (Naples, Rome, Verona, Regensburg, Metz, Paris, Speyer, Mainz, Reims, Tours, Cologne, Trier, and Lyon) was less than the population of Baghdad in 800.
Figure 1.1 Twenty Most Populous Cities in Europe and the Middle East, 800 CE
Source: Bosker et al. (2013).
Fast forward 500 years. The scene described in the preceding paragraphs certainly changed by 1300, but even so the Middle East was far from a laggard, in spite of the decimation of some urban populations by the Mongols. By 1300, the economies of Western Europe were again thriving following the long post-Roman downturn, especially in Northern Italy, and many parts of Western Europe were well on their way to recovery. Figure 1.2 suggests that the balance of power between the Christian and Islamic worlds was more equal, with twelve of the top twenty cities ruled by Christians (including the most populous city, Paris). The center of European growth was located in Italy – six of the twelve Christian cities were Italian, with four of those located in the wealthy northern region. The city-states of Northern Italy, especially Venice, Genoa, and Florence, were among the wealthiest places in the world, birthing many aspects of modern banking, finance, accounting, and trade. Northwestern Europe was only slightly wealthier in per capita terms in the early fourteenth century than the wealthiest Muslim region (Egypt), while Italy was about twice as wealthy as any other part of Western Europe, let alone the Middle East.5
