BTCMeansFreedom4All on Nostr: "Bureaucratic Overload The costs of supporting institutionalized religion at the end ...
"Bureaucratic Overload
The costs of supporting institutionalized religion at the end of the fifteenth century had reached a historic extreme, much as the costs of supporting government have reached a senile extreme today. The more life was saturated with religion, the more expensive and bureaucratic the Church became. In Cameron's words, "It was far easier to find people to fill the vastly increased number of Church posts at the end of the Middle Ages, than to find money to pay for them."
Just as bankrupt governments today scrounge for revenues in counterproductive ways, so did the Church five hundred years ago. Indeed, the churchmen used some of the same predatory tricks mastered by the politicians today. The medieval Church five hundred years ago, like the nationstate today, consumed more of society's resources than it ever had before, or ever would again.
The Church then, like the state today, seemed incapable of functioning and sustaining itself on even record amounts of revenue. Just as the state has come to dominate late-industrial economies, spending more than half of all revenue in some Western European countries, so the Church dominated the late-feudal economy, draining resources and retarding growth."
- The Sovereign Individual, Chapter 4.
The costs of supporting institutionalized religion at the end of the fifteenth century had reached a historic extreme, much as the costs of supporting government have reached a senile extreme today. The more life was saturated with religion, the more expensive and bureaucratic the Church became. In Cameron's words, "It was far easier to find people to fill the vastly increased number of Church posts at the end of the Middle Ages, than to find money to pay for them."
Just as bankrupt governments today scrounge for revenues in counterproductive ways, so did the Church five hundred years ago. Indeed, the churchmen used some of the same predatory tricks mastered by the politicians today. The medieval Church five hundred years ago, like the nationstate today, consumed more of society's resources than it ever had before, or ever would again.
The Church then, like the state today, seemed incapable of functioning and sustaining itself on even record amounts of revenue. Just as the state has come to dominate late-industrial economies, spending more than half of all revenue in some Western European countries, so the Church dominated the late-feudal economy, draining resources and retarding growth."
- The Sovereign Individual, Chapter 4.