Capitalist morality

While I agree with George Kerevan that capitalism, as evidenced in its 19th- century heyday, was an intellectual creation of north European protestants, particularly those in the British Isles (Debate & Opinion, 9 October), I do not agree that it can be revived in its original, moralistic form. Religion and the rise of capitalism were linked for a critical time, but not interminably.

The ethical element has departed the scene and contemporary "capitalism" has mutated into an anarchy of sovereign states, rival capitalisms and stateless economic zones.

The prime mover in all this is the spread of technologies created in Europe and the United States. This new historic form now encompasses the world, with the fountainhead of its ideology in Europe and the US running dry.

The world at large has cottoned on to the concept of the exploitation of the environment and endless economic growth. India, China, Brazil and others are proceeding with the rape of the Earth at a horrifying speed.

To imagine that one can reinvest the moral concepts of the early biblical capitalists into current globalised market mentality is wishful thinking.

The genies which Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson and the other economists of the Enlightment released from the bottle have taken new and unforeseen forms which now threaten the world with resource exhaustion and overpopulation.

ALASTAIR HARPER
House of Gask
Lathalmond, Fife