Religious toleration can be profitable

Religious pragmatism in the Early Modern Period, part 3: how 17th Century Netherlands and England discovered that religious toleration can make nations prosperous.

In essence, pragmatic thinking about religious toleration gradually developed from:

• The existence of multiple faiths in one country is apparently inevitable. So be it. (France, from 1560).

• Hey, it actually turns out to work quite nicely (The Netherlands, from 1580)

• In fact, religious toleration even has advantages (Netherlands and England, from 1600-1640).

…