(e.g.) salvation by new firms in bigger and better brand packages, which
generated the demand for it in the Greco-Roman world?
Before deploying this market metaphor, Stark sets out a paradigm of
social behaviour, in which individuals choose between competing religions
and their products by assessing their benefits against costs (1997, 167–72).
This choice is as rational in the religious sphere as in the economic: hence
“rational choice” theory as the matrix for Stark’s analysis of religious affil-
iation. It is a measure of the success of Stark’s explanation of the rise of
Christianity that the paradigm of rational choice remains persuasive even
in the extreme life-and-death case of the martyr (1997, 163–89).
An important criterion of religious markets is the degree to which they
are regulated by the state (Stark 1997, 194–95). This is not simply a mat-
ter of tight or lax policing by the authorities. Rather, tightly regulated
economies are those that display a state-sanctioned religious monopoly;
loosely regulated economies are those that manifest religious pluralism.
The Roman Empire clearly belongs among the latter: the multiplicity of
its religions (and gods) is one of its most striking features, and even at the
height of the persecutions its policy was to convert the Christians from
Christianity, not tosome other specific religion (Stark 1997, 205). At the
same time, just as in a financial market there may be complete freedom to
choose which stocks and bonds to buy, but very tight control over how
they are traded, so in ancient paganism, for all its polytheistic options, the
conductof the cults was regulated, usually at city level, in minute detail. Any
sourcebook of ancient society will confirm this with a selection of typical
statutes (e.g., F.C. Grant 1953, 3–32). In this sense, the religious market of
the empire was actually very tightly regulated. For Stark, then, the ques-
tion becomes: since a free market tends to foster efficient, client-responsive
firms and therefore makes it difficult for new firms to enter and gain mar-
ket share, what were the weaknesses in the pagan firms, which allowed
their Christian competitor to “wedge out” such a sizable and solid share
(1997, 197)? What, in sum, were the shortcomings of the pagan firms as
market performers?
To the distinction between markets Stark adds another between types
of firms. This second distinction is twofold: firms that are “exclusive” and
“engaged in the collective productionof religion” versus firms that are “nonex-
clusive” and “cannot sustain collective production and therefore specialize
inprivately producedreligious goods” (1997, 203–204; Stark’s italics). Chris-
tianity, like Judaism, is obviously an exclusive religion: you cannot be a
Christian (or a Jew) and worship the gods of other firms; just as, obvi-
ously, the multifarious cults of paganism are non-exclusive: other gods and
nora
(Nora)
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