Love capitalism? Perhaps you believe, like Donald Trump and his coterie, that capitalism is a locus of creativity, genius, and creating wealth. Or perhaps you believe, like many Bernie Sanders supporters, that unbridled capitalism exploits the poor and the powerless.
Both the blame and the credit for capitalism have often been placed at the feet not of an economist, but rather a sixteenth-century Christian theologian named John Calvin. Calvin's belief in predestination and other tenets embraced by aggressive capitalists, is seen as giving the theological justification for a Protestant vision that propelled economic growth in Europe, Britain and, eventually, North America.
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