UNIVERSITY OF THESSALY
2nd International Conference on Economic and Social History
"Markets" and Politics
Private interests and public authority (18th-20th centuries)
Volos, 10-12 February 2012
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Abstracts
- Polycarpos Karamouzis Religious morality and economic behaviour: the ideological uses of philanthropy in the official discourse of the Greek Church
The religion in the Modern Greek society created the content of a concrete moral behavior, related immediately with a line of social variables, as the political economy. Studying the content of religious speech, we understand its contribution to the formation of an economic moral theory and afterwards of a corresponding economic culture of people, by strengthening concrete social models. The formal religiosity contributed to the adoption of economic behaviors that however did not become from a deeply religious faith. On the other hand, the Church strengthened the urban change of Greek society through the presence of institutions as the family, the marriage the social relations. Particularly the function of charity constituted an element of religion that attempted to regulate the social inequality between rich and poor. In this way it discouraged the simple citizens to participate in a social deviation and it reconciled them with the economic capital from which they were depended. The charity, from a part cultivated the ideal the "good Christian", while from the other part it strengthened the presence of the sovereign religion as a social welfare institution, which accumulates and redistributes money.
