God & welfare

Is that correlation at a national level just because more "developed" countries have more to spend on welfare, and also tend to be less religious? What would happen if you just looked at EU countries?

i don't have time to look up the paper that that chart is based on right now, but i would add that *within* nations religious conservatism seems to correlate with a more free-market stance. the substitution model has a pretty decent explanation for why that might be.

There's also Marx's theory as expressed in the "opium of the people" quotation, that people lean on religion to counterbalance unfairness and cruelty in the world. E.g., you may suffer horrible things now, but you'll be rewarded in heaven; those horrible people may take advantage of you now, but they'll pay for it in hell; when you are in pain and alone, there's a loving deity there with you.

Societies that are more successful at stopping injustice and providing for the needs of their people directly therefore cut off the underlying reasons for religious belief, and the need for people to rely on imaginary solutions.

There's also the correlation here between religiosity and abstinence-only education. Very religious states also have high rates of teen pregnancy and childbirth, which often mean higher state support expenditures.

"but i would add that *within* nations religious conservatism seems to correlate with a more free-market stance."

Interesting. I wouldn't have thought that but rather thought that the association between capitalism and Christianity was specific to the circumstances of the West.

I mean, I've never heard that in say, a Muslim or a Buddhist country, the equivalent of the "religious right" goes hand in hand with supporting increased economic freedoms.

The case of California is interesting in that the interminable battle raging over the budget is in large part over welfare, which the Democratic majority supports and the Republican minority opposes. I wonder if California's rank would change were the budget balanced with the cuts to welfare (and without increases in fees and taxes).

"...people lean on religion to counterbalance unfairness and cruelty in the world."

If this were true, Marxism would be the greatest driver of religious faith in history.

I would suggest that in order for a government to impose a large welfare state, there must first be a deliberate re-culturalization of society - a Gramscian "march through the institutions" - during which religion is attacked and denigrated. Socialists rightly recognize, as another commenter noted, that religious belief "corrolate[s] with a free market stance".

It would also be interesting to see how religious belief correlates with per capita spending on education per state.

While welfare is a major area that can overlap with religious and state institutions, education is another.

Maybe a combination of the two areas could give greater insight into the role that religious institutions play in each state.

One reason there's no observable effect might be that the spread of religiosity is quite small for US states compared with the international sample.

Actually the correlation is also pretty difficult to show on a national level, because there are all sorts of confounds (older populations have higher welfare spend, for example, and ethnically homogenous regions are more in favour of welfare). I've tried replicating Gill & Lundsgaarde's results using WVS data and ILO government spending data, and it's there but quite weak.

Also, the thing about religion is that attitudes are set during youth. So there's a cohort effect, leading to a substantial lag. What you really need to look at is welfare spending over the past 30 years or more. But those data don't exist on an international level except for OECD nations. Guess they do for the USA though?

@Art: That's something of Marx' approach -- get rid of religion first, so that people will be forced to seek happiness in reality (presumably according to his vision).

The biggest problem is that aggressive top-down solutions where the government forces sweeping cultural reforms onto the populace is... well, do I even need to get into the details? A government with the power to make those kinds of changes is pretty much guaranteed to abuse it in frightening ways.

I'd much rather convince the religious people to help getting proper social support systems in place, raise the general quality of life and level of "fairness" in society, and let that naturally erode the power of religion (with assistance from individuals under freedom of speech, of course, but no government crackdown..).

I'm surprised no one has linked to "The Political Economy of Beliefs: Why Do Fiscal and Social Conservatives/Liberals Come. Hand-in-Hand?" by Daniel L. Chen and Jo T. Lind.

Note that things are a tad complex in American religion sense many are for fairly socialist welfare programs but just don't want the government to do it. That is I think in the US you have to take note that the movement against State Religion affects all this. Thus some religions, like Mormons, have strong welfare programs and were outright communitarian in the 19th century. (Ending because of federal force ironically)

I suspect though that other facts simply apply. So, for instance, you have a cultural tendency towards social welfare in areas like Scandanavia simply because there was more necessity for it. (i.e. individualism of the sort available in the US tended to get you killed way up north since the environment was so much less friendly - everyone had to work together)

It's interesting since welfare can have a strong religious component or a strong anti-religious component. (The more Libertarian styled thinking that tends to arise with a focus on free will) But I think that religious justifications tend to come after the fact and just think the issues are pretty complex.

Also note that state differences can tweak things a lot. So Utah is a pretty conservative state but has a lot of kids which leads to more expenses. (People are generally more willing to pay for a kid's welfare than an adult's) I'm also not quite sure what counts as welfare in that chart's stats. (I'd have guessed Utah would be far, far lower)

So, for instance, you have a cultural tendency towards social welfare in areas like Scandanavia simply because there was more necessity for it. (i.e. individualism of the sort available in the US tended to get you killed way up north since the environment was so much less friendly - everyone had to work together)

Nah, we have social welfare in N Europe so that we don't have to deal with other people.