IS-208.

1 Theories of Development

Athena Gabrielle Abanto Date of Submission: July 7, 2011

Reflection Paper#1

The discussion and lecture on Pre-Classical and Classical economics has given me some
things to think and speak my mind about. To be honest, I had no idea what pre-classical
economics was until it was discussed last meeting. The notion of Pre-Classical economics was
mostly focused on how religion, Catholicism or Christianity, had shaped economics in the past.
Before the idea of the “invisible hand” people in the olden days believed that God was involved
in every human affair, which includes trade or the circulation of commodity. For me this was a
natural notion, since people in the Dark Ages always explained everything according to the
Bible. The striking thing in that discussion for me was when the justification of slavery was
brought up. Slavery is nothing new in that era since the Bible itself stated that the Israelites were
once Egyptian slaves. What struck me was that the use of religion in economics had given
justification in using slaves for labor.

We all know how Christianity was brought to the Philippines, and it was none other than
through the Spanish colonizers that landed on our shores. During the pre-classical era, most
people were doing everything to please God. As for the Spanish colonizers, they went around the
world to search for land, not just for the sake of spreading Christianity, but for the sake of
bringing the riches back to their homeland. To simplify that notion, it’s “God, Gold and Glory”
that had driven countries like Spain to colonize the uncharted regions of the world. Religion,
which was supposed to be bringing some good to this world, ended up bringing miseries to
colonized countries, and worse is that those miseries are still evident to some countries even up
to this date.

I find it appalling how people can use religion to justify their heinous or despicable acts. I
also share the same sentiments towards the issue of alleged corrupt bishops receiving ‘gifts’ from
the government. It just goes to show that by using religion to justify something can get people
out of trouble or dire consequences. I also realized during the discussion of pre-classical and
classical economics was that these concepts were geared towards western ideas of economics. I
doubt that countries such as China had the same notions using religion as a basis for trading
during the same era.

In conclusion to this reflection paper, I can now see religion as a double-edge tool.
Double-edge in a sense that it could be used to enlighten people by not being too greedy when
doing trade, especially during the pre-classical era, and at the same time, religion could be used
by some people to justify their actions are for the Glory of God even though their means are not
good.