In the best-selling book, The Da Vinci Code, author Dan Brown makes the case that the Catholic Church is covering up the truth about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and The New Testament. In this fictional work, Sophie and Robert uncover clues that reveal a centuries old plot to protect the Catholic Church. For example, the Holy Grail was a metaphor for femininity. The Garden of Eden in Genesis was really a smear campaign against women. The Council of Nacine was a council in which papal authorities decided to make Jesus a divine creation and not a mortal prophet. Is the work of the church in this book rent seeking? I think so.
To economists, rent is a payment beyond what is necessary to keep a resource employed in its current use. For example, I could work as a teacher or work at the bank. But I’m a union member and my union has negotiated a higher salary for me than I would earn at the bank. Maybe I belong to a powerful union who will strike if my salary isn’t renegotiated annually. As a union member, I receive rent because I’m being paid more than the value of my marginal product or the value of what I produce.
If the truth about the church were known, according the Da Vinci Code, then all of the clergy employed by the Catholic Church would be employed above their alternate use. In other words, too much money is being spent on priests, bishops, and cardinals who are just protecting their own jobs at the expense of the congregation. By withholding the origin of Jesus as a mortal man, valuable information, the Catholic clergy is retained in a capacity where they receive a wage higher than they would if the congregation knew the truth. By suppressing the truth in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Catholic Church is defeating the free market and using the work of many faithful members inefficiently. In the language of economics, the church is rent seeking.
A little off of the wall, but hey, you're Flad. It's funny how much the 'catholic union' resembles black mail:). But again Flad, nothing short of genius...although I don't think that the catholic daughters would emjoy this post too much.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the ending that says the catholic church affects our free market. I believe that if people really believed that book, which i have not read so i cannot comment on my beliefs of it's authentication, then people would choose to go elsewhere where similar beliefs were held. I think with religion when people are brought up a certain way they don't want to be challenged and they'll run in the face of what a certain author believes to be the truth. Granted, some buildings like Calvary, require lots of funds from the offering to keep the building that we have but churches are nonprofit and the only way they affect the free market is donating to missionaries who then spend money or keeping the buildings they have. I know someone who doesn't go to a church now because they believe that the church has become a business. I always argue because a church requires money to keep that building and pay for many utilities. That and in the bible it says we are supposed to tithe 10% of what we earn, but i'm getting into my religion now.. :)
ReplyDeleteI may be a Christian, but I sure as hell am not religious. I don't care what Church you go to, I guarantee they waste vast sums of money and do not truly care about the poor. I serve the United Methodist Church in their state Annual Conference and it is extremely corrupt. They pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to a lobbyist at the state legislature who advocates personal beliefs with no biblical basis.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind, when people tithed 10% of their money to the Church, the Church was combined with the government. That 10% was their taxes as well. I don't give money to the Church, because I know that money goes to a pastor who lives in a house big enough for ten people to live in and only he and his wife live their. That's why I give my money to World Vision because that money goes directly to people who actually live in poverty in countries where being considered in poverty doesn't mean you're a family of four with cable tv.