Political Science

The act of discussing the national differences concerning the timing, the intensity, the durability, and the character of economic proves to be almost an impossible task for political historians but not for Liah Greenfeld. She once again attempted repeating her influential earlier research that stress on nationalism in this essay The Spirit of Capitalism Nationalism and Economic Growth.

Greenfeld attempted to assemble comparative histories of England, some countries in Europe and United States. This article basically summarizes what she says in her book with the same title that states that Nationalism is the result when people subjected to a common political authority turn out to share a consciousness of belongingness to a distinctive sovereign community.

In her earlier book like Transcending Nations Worth, she explored the issue of the timing and form of nationalism as the cause for the distinctive subsequent political orientations in Europe and United States. But in this article, Greenfeld tries to argue that parallel changes in consciousness can cause people to overturn millennia of suspicion as they commit themselves to what can be called a belief in economic growth as something desirable and natural. The reason for this is the fact that their identification with the nation spurn shared dignity, relative equality and efficacy among whole citizen of the nation.  There is then a willingness to undertake an economic effort whose outcome depended on the efforts of others.

The changed beliefs, according to Greenfeld enable sustained economic growth in country to country. Greenfeld denies, though prudently, that nationalism can cause reorientation to economic growth wherever it may occur. Greenfelds article self-consciously puts nationalism against Webers Protestant Ethic, though retaining Webers theory of general causal logic. Greenfeld, in order for her argument to gain credibility, she did international comparisons that showed that the sequence of nationalism-belief change-economic growth can happen both within countries and across them. The within-country aspect calls for a demonstration that national consciousness did change whole populations commitments to ones countrys economic activity, and from this sustained growth is fuelled.

The article also implies that both nationalism and economic commitment eventually can transform a country like the United States. She argues also that this necessitates brushing off objections that economic growth in the Netherlands and elsewhere either preceded or caused growth in England.
In reading this article of Lian Greenfeld, the readers are needed to ask only three main questions regarding the research and pedantic lecture of Greenfeld about Nationalism and economic Growth.
First is the question whether the treatment of individual countries enough to describe their experiences with so called nationalism vis--vis economic growth.

The second question is whether within-country and cross-country sequences truly correspond to the arguments logical requirements set by Greenfeld

And lastly, do the so called proposed causal processes hold up to empirical and logical scrutiny
Regarding the first question, this is caused by Greenfelds overly concentrated discussion on ideological transformation that historically intelligent readers will continue to find themselves unexplained information. The second question, on the other hand, is brought about by the dismissal of early developing of Netherlands as something like a special pleading. And the third question is stirred by the unresolved mysterious connection of national awareness and the awareness for national economic growth.