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Sunday 6 July 2008

Sex, Science and Money

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I have a piece in today's Jewish Chronicle based on Terence Kealey's new book, Sex, Science and Profits. Here's an extract:

Kealey’s basic thesis is that commerce is an activity based on trust and that, in order for trust to work as the binding agent for commerce, humans have evolved instincts such as guilt, shame and pride. This is not speculation — it’s based on scientific observation, revealed in functional magnetic resonance imaging scans which show activity in the brain. The relevant parts of the brain light up when stirred. As Kealey writes: “They [brain scans] explain how we evolved to make money, since emotions such as guilt and shame represent the internalisation of the cooperation and trust that shift an economy.”

That explains what happens. As for why it happens: “[T]he selfish genes ensure that our enlightened emotions are challenged by Manichean ones, and the triumph of one set of emotions over the other is determined by the social conditioning of childhood.” That’s where the more specific relevance to Jews comes in: Jewish culture and thus a Jewish upbringing. 

...The evidence of history and economics is that there are three prerequisites for economic growth: a market, private property and the rule of law. Jewish culture and rules provided the foundation for just that from the very start.

But there’s another notably Jewish aspect to the making of money: its subsequent giving away. All the great cultures of the world have institutionalised philanthropy. Islam has the wakf and Hindus have ahinsa. Judaism is far from unique in that respect. But it is Israelis who today give away the largest percentage of a country’s GDP. Hardly surprising, given that Judaism is the only culture in which the word for charity — tzedakah — is the same concept, let alone from the same root, as justice.

...To make money, we might have to behave as a profit-maximiser. However, as Kealey puts it: “[O]nce that person has made their money, they may well barter it for the currency that really matters, approbation.”

So the renowned generosity of Jewish philanthropists follows both biologically and culturally: biologically across the human species from the accumulation of wealth, and culturally from the Jewish religion.

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