... continued from Tuesday
_________
... He intervened when the weak were enslaved beyond their control. His impulse to heal is the impulse we should have toward those in distress in our society.
I hinted above that a society as a whole can "help" the poor by the way it structures itself. For example, capitalistic systems, if they are set up well, seem to be able to help a society overall. Many would argue that capitalism at its best makes it possible for more people to have more. The question of how to set up economic systems to maximize the benefit to the most people is a question for economists and historians. It is not what a book like this one is about.
But what a book like this one can do is clarify the values that a Christian should have. What would Jesus do, when setting up an economic system? He would set up one that "loves" the most people the most, while not forgetting any individual in the process. He would oppose any system that tended to impoverish some in the process of giving massive excess to others. Would Jesus set up a capitalistic system, if he were setting up a human economy? The answer can only be yes if it meant that more people would benefit and that others were not neglected in the process.
Normally, we do not have much control over such things. Few of us have any say on what the economic system of a country is. From time to time, it does become part of the mix of topics in politics. One politician says that one way of doing things will make things better, while another says it will make things worse. Again, few of us are competent to know who is right, and even economic experts can disagree.
What is important is to be clear on the goal of loving and not harming our neighbor. If an economic system only causes a few individuals to accrue massive wealth while those who work "in their fields" struggle, Jesus would reject such a system out of hand (cf. James 5:4). You will find no support for such a system in the New Testament.
And it seems important to recognize that the way a system is set up has implications for how money is distributed. Money is not property, not in the modern world. The value of money goes up and down, as does the price we charge for something. Some of the most influential factors in the modern economic world have to do with gambling and speculation. The wealth accrued by a good bet on the market is not the same as a goat a family plans to eat for supper.
As we have seen, the New Testament looks negatively toward those with massive excess of wealth. One parable in Luke may even applaud a manager who, without his master's permission, writes off debt owed to his master. It seems to applaud him even though he does it for selfish reasons (Luke 16:1-13). The reason this parable seems so strange to us may be in part that we do not realize the strongly negative underlying view of wealth that Luke has.
The Bible never connects its prohibitions on stealing with this sort of person. Indeed, a better argument can be made that it saw this sort of person himself as a thief. Most people in the Roman world had barely enough to feed their family and pay whatever they might be obligated to pay the powers that be. Stealing from this sort of person was not a violation of some abstract philosophical sense of property. It was taking the goat from which the family got its milk and cheese.
Again, the point is that the follower of Jesus will always keep in mind the fundamental value of helping those in need. There is no inherent virtue to capitalism. Quite the opposite, it is based on a principle of self-interest that tends to move in the opposite direction of biblical values (e.g., Phil. 2:3). Christians can only justify capitalism if they think it is an economic system that can help the most people while not oppressing the rest...
Showing posts with label capitalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label capitalism. Show all posts
Friday, February 24, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
What is "Helping" the Poor 5
... continued from Saturday
_________
... To be sure, there are, I believe, legitimate claims to be made that far more people overall prosper under the type of capitalist systems we find in the Western world today. But many seem to lose sight of this fact, that the ultimate Christian justification for capitalism is the conviction that it helps more people in the end. The danger is that we come to mistake Rand's "selfishness" as the Christian value itself.
When we begin to talk about something like capitalism, we begin to get into the bigger sense of what "helping" might mean. I can help one specific person on one day by giving her a fish. At the end of the day, I have one less fish and tomorrow that person will be hungry again. If I could teach others to fish, so the adage goes, then they will be able to get fish for themselves.
This is of course a modern proverb. It presumes that there are plenty of fish to find if we will only fish for them. It is not a proverb based on the way people generally thought at the time of the Bible, which was more in terms of a limited amount of "good," a limited amount of resources.
But today it does seem that my prosperity need not take away from yours. Sure, there are cases of this sort. If there is a certain dividend in a company for the year, it can only be divided a certain way. And there are times where work is hard to find. I write this book as the United States seems to be emerging slowly from the most significant recession since the Great Depression of the 1930's. There are lots of people right now who know how to fish but can't find a pond.
But in general, the proverb rings true for our context today. Jesus and the New Testament would not want someone to go hungry today. But surely it is even more loving of our neighbors to teach them to fish, to help them find a job, to help them stand on their own, maybe even to give them a job.
As we hinted above, the cycle of poverty in some cases has left some not wanting to fish. I am convinced that Jesus would not say, "That's their own choice. Let them experience the consequences of their own actions." The reason I do not believe Jesus would say this is twofold.
Most importantly, psychology would lead us to question whether in fact they are free to make another choice. Poverty can be a sort of addiction every bit as powerful as alcohol or drugs. It is very difficult when you have never been addicted to anything to realize the powerlessness of the situation. I am convinced that Jesus would come alongside people in such situations to find a way not only to give them a fish for today, not only to teach them to fish. But as the first order of business, I believe he would heal them so that they want to fish in the first place.
The second reason I believe Jesus would not leave such people alone is because mercy was more important to him than justice in our sense of the word. [1] The focus of his mission was to reclaim the lost sheep, not to discard them because they had got themselves into a mess. We do not find Jesus saying things like, "Let them stew in their own juice."
How to lift up those enslaved to a cycle of poverty is far beyond my capacities. I do suspect we are almost talking about a kind of miracle, just as it is so difficult for a person addicted to alcohol or drugs to stop. For the purposes of this book, I will be happy if you will at least recognize what Jesus' values were. He did not leave the demon-possessed as if to say, "If you had been righteous, a demon would not have been able to take you over." He intervened when the weak were enslaved beyond their control. His impulse to heal is the impulse we should have toward those in distress in our society...
[1] "Justice" in the sense of the Old Testament prophets was not about punishment for wrongdoing but primarily about "social" justice, seeing that widows and orphans were taken care of, while making sure that those that oppressed them were brought low (cf. Micah 6).
_________
... To be sure, there are, I believe, legitimate claims to be made that far more people overall prosper under the type of capitalist systems we find in the Western world today. But many seem to lose sight of this fact, that the ultimate Christian justification for capitalism is the conviction that it helps more people in the end. The danger is that we come to mistake Rand's "selfishness" as the Christian value itself.
When we begin to talk about something like capitalism, we begin to get into the bigger sense of what "helping" might mean. I can help one specific person on one day by giving her a fish. At the end of the day, I have one less fish and tomorrow that person will be hungry again. If I could teach others to fish, so the adage goes, then they will be able to get fish for themselves.
This is of course a modern proverb. It presumes that there are plenty of fish to find if we will only fish for them. It is not a proverb based on the way people generally thought at the time of the Bible, which was more in terms of a limited amount of "good," a limited amount of resources.
But today it does seem that my prosperity need not take away from yours. Sure, there are cases of this sort. If there is a certain dividend in a company for the year, it can only be divided a certain way. And there are times where work is hard to find. I write this book as the United States seems to be emerging slowly from the most significant recession since the Great Depression of the 1930's. There are lots of people right now who know how to fish but can't find a pond.
But in general, the proverb rings true for our context today. Jesus and the New Testament would not want someone to go hungry today. But surely it is even more loving of our neighbors to teach them to fish, to help them find a job, to help them stand on their own, maybe even to give them a job.
As we hinted above, the cycle of poverty in some cases has left some not wanting to fish. I am convinced that Jesus would not say, "That's their own choice. Let them experience the consequences of their own actions." The reason I do not believe Jesus would say this is twofold.
Most importantly, psychology would lead us to question whether in fact they are free to make another choice. Poverty can be a sort of addiction every bit as powerful as alcohol or drugs. It is very difficult when you have never been addicted to anything to realize the powerlessness of the situation. I am convinced that Jesus would come alongside people in such situations to find a way not only to give them a fish for today, not only to teach them to fish. But as the first order of business, I believe he would heal them so that they want to fish in the first place.
The second reason I believe Jesus would not leave such people alone is because mercy was more important to him than justice in our sense of the word. [1] The focus of his mission was to reclaim the lost sheep, not to discard them because they had got themselves into a mess. We do not find Jesus saying things like, "Let them stew in their own juice."
How to lift up those enslaved to a cycle of poverty is far beyond my capacities. I do suspect we are almost talking about a kind of miracle, just as it is so difficult for a person addicted to alcohol or drugs to stop. For the purposes of this book, I will be happy if you will at least recognize what Jesus' values were. He did not leave the demon-possessed as if to say, "If you had been righteous, a demon would not have been able to take you over." He intervened when the weak were enslaved beyond their control. His impulse to heal is the impulse we should have toward those in distress in our society...
[1] "Justice" in the sense of the Old Testament prophets was not about punishment for wrongdoing but primarily about "social" justice, seeing that widows and orphans were taken care of, while making sure that those that oppressed them were brought low (cf. Micah 6).
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Wealth in the NT 4
... continued from yesterday
_________
But it is also no surprise to find that the New Testament has almost nothing positive to say about wealth or the wealthy. Virtually everything it has to say is not only negative but virtually condemnatory. "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Tim. 6:10). Rather, "we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that" (6:7-8). "Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs" (6:10).
James is of course even starker in what it has to say about the wealthy, and it assumes such individuals are cheats. "Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you... Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty" (5:1, 4). James pictures a land owner who severely underpays the captive labor he has at his disposal.
James 4 similarly mocks the "industrialist," the merchant who is preoccupied with making a profit. "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (4:11-12).
These verses remind us of a parable in Luke sometimes called the Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:13-21). In this parable, a wealthy man wants to store up his surplus grain so he can "eat, drink, and be merry" for many years. He wants to tear down his barns and built bigger ones. The parable mocks him, because he is destined to die that very evening.
These are parables and proverbs. They are not absolute, without exception. It may be "easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:25). But it is possible. There are prosperous employers who pay fair wages to their employees. There is a time to store up grain in a time of prosperity so that you can help others in the years to come (e.g., Gen. 41:49). Notice that the authentic purpose in Joseph's case was to help others.
Paul thinks of it this way in 2 Corinthians. "At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: 'The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.'" (7:14-15). In so many words, Paul says that God is prospering you Corinthians right now, so your obligation is to share to others who do not have enough at this time. A time may come when it flows the other direction.
John Wesley summed up the most appropriate application of these values well when he said, "Earn all you can; save all you can; give all you can." [1] You will find no acceptance of laziness here. But by "save all you can" he did not mean to store up your excess prosperity in bigger barns or brokerage accounts. For him, save meant not to buy a more expensive brand when you can get by with a less expensive one. Then "give all you can" is self-explanatory.
This biblical value of not storing up treasures on earth but dispersing God given prosperity to as many others as we can is difficult for us today. It goes against the grain of our capitalistic spirit. Indeed, the famous libertarian Ayn Rand once wrote a book called The Virtue of Selfishness. To be sure, there are, I believe, legitimate claims to be made that everyone prospers more under the Western capitalist system. But most people arguably lose sight of this fact, that the only Christian justification for capitalism is the conviction that it helps more people in the end. The danger is that we come to mistake Rand's "selfishness" as the Christian value itself...
[1] Wesley source
_________
But it is also no surprise to find that the New Testament has almost nothing positive to say about wealth or the wealthy. Virtually everything it has to say is not only negative but virtually condemnatory. "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Tim. 6:10). Rather, "we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that" (6:7-8). "Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs" (6:10).
James is of course even starker in what it has to say about the wealthy, and it assumes such individuals are cheats. "Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you... Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty" (5:1, 4). James pictures a land owner who severely underpays the captive labor he has at his disposal.
James 4 similarly mocks the "industrialist," the merchant who is preoccupied with making a profit. "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (4:11-12).
These verses remind us of a parable in Luke sometimes called the Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:13-21). In this parable, a wealthy man wants to store up his surplus grain so he can "eat, drink, and be merry" for many years. He wants to tear down his barns and built bigger ones. The parable mocks him, because he is destined to die that very evening.
These are parables and proverbs. They are not absolute, without exception. It may be "easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:25). But it is possible. There are prosperous employers who pay fair wages to their employees. There is a time to store up grain in a time of prosperity so that you can help others in the years to come (e.g., Gen. 41:49). Notice that the authentic purpose in Joseph's case was to help others.
Paul thinks of it this way in 2 Corinthians. "At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: 'The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.'" (7:14-15). In so many words, Paul says that God is prospering you Corinthians right now, so your obligation is to share to others who do not have enough at this time. A time may come when it flows the other direction.
John Wesley summed up the most appropriate application of these values well when he said, "Earn all you can; save all you can; give all you can." [1] You will find no acceptance of laziness here. But by "save all you can" he did not mean to store up your excess prosperity in bigger barns or brokerage accounts. For him, save meant not to buy a more expensive brand when you can get by with a less expensive one. Then "give all you can" is self-explanatory.
This biblical value of not storing up treasures on earth but dispersing God given prosperity to as many others as we can is difficult for us today. It goes against the grain of our capitalistic spirit. Indeed, the famous libertarian Ayn Rand once wrote a book called The Virtue of Selfishness. To be sure, there are, I believe, legitimate claims to be made that everyone prospers more under the Western capitalist system. But most people arguably lose sight of this fact, that the only Christian justification for capitalism is the conviction that it helps more people in the end. The danger is that we come to mistake Rand's "selfishness" as the Christian value itself...
[1] Wesley source
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Marx's Critique of Capitalism
I consider Marx's philosophy of history ludicrous... frankly I think history considers Marx's philosophy of history ludicrous. In my philosophy chapter on social and political philosophy, I boiled down his critique of capitalism to two points:
So it seems to me that governments with capitalistic systems have put two kinds of safeguards into place: 1) regulations that protect the rights of workers and 2) regulations that ensure the stability of the capitalistic system. In the former category are things like child labor laws, minimum wage laws, and so forth. In the latter category are anti-trust laws, FDIC, automatic market shut downs, etc.<
What I find ironic--and dangerous--about the rise to power of influences like those of Rand Paul (whose ideas are heterodox within the economist expert community), is that they in effect want to undue the very protections that evolved in the capitalist system in response to the real problems it brought in the late 1800s and early 1900s. We already experimented with this approach and the consequences weren't so hot. The best economic period for most Americans was these last 60 years after so many of these protections were put in place.
- capitalism leads to the oppression of its workers
- capitalism is inherently unstable and leads to crisis/economic failure
So it seems to me that governments with capitalistic systems have put two kinds of safeguards into place: 1) regulations that protect the rights of workers and 2) regulations that ensure the stability of the capitalistic system. In the former category are things like child labor laws, minimum wage laws, and so forth. In the latter category are anti-trust laws, FDIC, automatic market shut downs, etc.<
What I find ironic--and dangerous--about the rise to power of influences like those of Rand Paul (whose ideas are heterodox within the economist expert community), is that they in effect want to undue the very protections that evolved in the capitalist system in response to the real problems it brought in the late 1800s and early 1900s. We already experimented with this approach and the consequences weren't so hot. The best economic period for most Americans was these last 60 years after so many of these protections were put in place.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Economics and Morality
Just some quick musings for a change of pace early in the morning.
1. The original intent of capitalism's inventors, Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham, was to level the playing field. The goal was that the pleasure of the coal miner counted as much as the pleasure of the king. Capitalism was birthed in ultilitarianism, the greatest pleasure for the greatest number, where everyone's pleasure counted the same, The philosophical background of capitalism is thus egalitarian with the goal of maximizing the happiness of society.
2. To that end, the laissez-faire, free enterprise system built on the premise that people can look out for their own interests. If everyone does, then merchants will not charge more than they can get away with and consumers will buy as cheaply as they can. The ideal result is thus the greatest good for the greatest number.
3. John Stuart Mill already recognized some complications to the theory. For example, people do not always act in their own interest. Also, we can question whether all pleasures should count the same. Our take away is that consumers need to be informed and, in various ways, protected, for the system to work as Adam Smith intended.
4. By the mid-1800s, the Industrial Revolution began to reveal even more complications to the system, captured aptly in some of the European revolutions of 1848 and then later in the Bloody Revolution of 1917 in Russia. While history has soundly rejected Karl Marx's own Hegelian predictions and suggestions, his critiques of capitalism are harder to deny.
Capitalism empowered certain individuals on such a scale that the "little man" could not possibly compete. What average or even above average individual has the capacity to compete with Wal-Mart? Factories ran over the little man and could replace him or her in an instant. If she gets sick, if the management is tyrannical or pays pitifully, most individuals are powerless--the very individuals capitalism was meant to empower. The reality is that people get stuck, don't know where else to go, don't know what to do. The late 1800s and early 1900 (think, The Jungle, The Grapes of Wrath) revealed nothing like Adam Smith or Jeremy Bentham's dream.
5. So unbridled capitalism of the late 1800s simply recreated the divide between haves and have nots in a different way. Protections price gouging laws and anti-trust laws are meant to keep the system in balance so that free market principles can actually work. Consumer protections do the same. The goal of capitalism was not to reward those in a position of advantage or greater know how to be able to get rich. The goal was to create a system where everyone could thrive.
6. History has vindicated Hayek's economic approach over Keynes', one that radically deregulates, does not fix prices or pump money from the government into the system. Perhaps it is true that a Hayek approach after the Great Depression would have ended the Depression sooner, as opposed to F.D.R's more Keynesian approach.
7. However, here is where morality and the underlying philosophy of capitalism comes into play. When Milton Friedman and others went to Chile, yes, their Hayekian principles got the economy under control. But what a painful year to get there! The same for Eastern Europe.
The bottom line is this. Utilitarianism is a macro-system. It does not take the individual into mind. It's goal is for, say, 90/100 people to be as happy as possible. But in the process, it allows for the immense unhappiness of the other 10. This is the brilliance of the Bill of Rights and a "universal ethical egoist" system over a purely utilitarian system. It is simply unacceptable from a moral perspective for 10 people to starve to death while on a fast track to make the world a better place for the other 90.
So we have to take into consideration whether anyone starved to death in that really bad Chilean year. And the situation in Russia after Jeffery Sachs Hayekized it is filled with organized crime who took all the capital for themselves.
Moral Principals going forward
1. Capitalism is far from a divine right. It is a mechanism we affirm because it is the economic system that holds the most potential to maximize happiness. It's philosophical goals were originally not entirely different from those of Marxism or socialism--it is just effective while we can see that socialist economics are a complete failure.
A key point is that we have to get over the labels, as if the label capitalism equals good and the label socialism equals bad. This is ignorant and illogical. Each idea must stand or fall on its own two feet and the overall goal of maximizing societal happiness without running over individual rights must be kept in view.
2. History has vindicated Hayek over Keynes as an economic method. However, history has also shown that unbridled capitalism does not achieve its underlying goals either. When all regulation and control is taken away, capitalism becomes oppressive with a very few gaining immensely and the vast majority suffering. Protections for the consumer and worker are essential to keep such things from happening.
Theory must not be implemented merely with a view to the quickest recovery. The lives of a societies individuals are a moral element in the equation that must be considered. I am neither enough of a historian or an economist to say, but it is possible that FDRs policies were the more moral course of action even if they slowed down recovery from the Great Depression.
3. The implementation of economic theory must always be driven by the impetus to maximize the happiness of society at large without destroying individuals. Again, the "fittest" do not have a divine or evolutionary right to accrue wealth at the expense of the little man. This contradicts the founding goals of capitalism in the first place.
4. We need to make a clear distinction between my property and the system that can facilitate the accumulation of wealth. For Christians, it is important to realize that my "net worth" today is something quite different from any biblical understanding of wage or property. In biblical terms, property is something I inherit and a day's wage is somewhat standard throughout the world.
There is no divine right or innate justice to market wages. They vary according to demand and the state of the system. In philosophical terms, we have no basis to say that the $250,000 salary of one person is more of a "possession" to that person than the $20,000 of someone else. It is the system that has assigned a different value to each person, not necessarily the amount of work he or she has done.
The long and short of it is that the Tea Party person does not have the same claim on every penny of that money as she might think she does. It is not a concrete possession like a car in the driveway. The system gave that amount for work and the system can take it away without either action being either morally right or wrong. The moral significance of money in a capitalist system does not map directly or neatly to the moral significance of property in an agrarian one.
I don't know if I have done these ideas justice, but these are some of my musings at the turn of the twenty-first century.
1. The original intent of capitalism's inventors, Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham, was to level the playing field. The goal was that the pleasure of the coal miner counted as much as the pleasure of the king. Capitalism was birthed in ultilitarianism, the greatest pleasure for the greatest number, where everyone's pleasure counted the same, The philosophical background of capitalism is thus egalitarian with the goal of maximizing the happiness of society.
2. To that end, the laissez-faire, free enterprise system built on the premise that people can look out for their own interests. If everyone does, then merchants will not charge more than they can get away with and consumers will buy as cheaply as they can. The ideal result is thus the greatest good for the greatest number.
3. John Stuart Mill already recognized some complications to the theory. For example, people do not always act in their own interest. Also, we can question whether all pleasures should count the same. Our take away is that consumers need to be informed and, in various ways, protected, for the system to work as Adam Smith intended.
4. By the mid-1800s, the Industrial Revolution began to reveal even more complications to the system, captured aptly in some of the European revolutions of 1848 and then later in the Bloody Revolution of 1917 in Russia. While history has soundly rejected Karl Marx's own Hegelian predictions and suggestions, his critiques of capitalism are harder to deny.
Capitalism empowered certain individuals on such a scale that the "little man" could not possibly compete. What average or even above average individual has the capacity to compete with Wal-Mart? Factories ran over the little man and could replace him or her in an instant. If she gets sick, if the management is tyrannical or pays pitifully, most individuals are powerless--the very individuals capitalism was meant to empower. The reality is that people get stuck, don't know where else to go, don't know what to do. The late 1800s and early 1900 (think, The Jungle, The Grapes of Wrath) revealed nothing like Adam Smith or Jeremy Bentham's dream.
5. So unbridled capitalism of the late 1800s simply recreated the divide between haves and have nots in a different way. Protections price gouging laws and anti-trust laws are meant to keep the system in balance so that free market principles can actually work. Consumer protections do the same. The goal of capitalism was not to reward those in a position of advantage or greater know how to be able to get rich. The goal was to create a system where everyone could thrive.
6. History has vindicated Hayek's economic approach over Keynes', one that radically deregulates, does not fix prices or pump money from the government into the system. Perhaps it is true that a Hayek approach after the Great Depression would have ended the Depression sooner, as opposed to F.D.R's more Keynesian approach.
7. However, here is where morality and the underlying philosophy of capitalism comes into play. When Milton Friedman and others went to Chile, yes, their Hayekian principles got the economy under control. But what a painful year to get there! The same for Eastern Europe.
The bottom line is this. Utilitarianism is a macro-system. It does not take the individual into mind. It's goal is for, say, 90/100 people to be as happy as possible. But in the process, it allows for the immense unhappiness of the other 10. This is the brilliance of the Bill of Rights and a "universal ethical egoist" system over a purely utilitarian system. It is simply unacceptable from a moral perspective for 10 people to starve to death while on a fast track to make the world a better place for the other 90.
So we have to take into consideration whether anyone starved to death in that really bad Chilean year. And the situation in Russia after Jeffery Sachs Hayekized it is filled with organized crime who took all the capital for themselves.
Moral Principals going forward
1. Capitalism is far from a divine right. It is a mechanism we affirm because it is the economic system that holds the most potential to maximize happiness. It's philosophical goals were originally not entirely different from those of Marxism or socialism--it is just effective while we can see that socialist economics are a complete failure.
A key point is that we have to get over the labels, as if the label capitalism equals good and the label socialism equals bad. This is ignorant and illogical. Each idea must stand or fall on its own two feet and the overall goal of maximizing societal happiness without running over individual rights must be kept in view.
2. History has vindicated Hayek over Keynes as an economic method. However, history has also shown that unbridled capitalism does not achieve its underlying goals either. When all regulation and control is taken away, capitalism becomes oppressive with a very few gaining immensely and the vast majority suffering. Protections for the consumer and worker are essential to keep such things from happening.
Theory must not be implemented merely with a view to the quickest recovery. The lives of a societies individuals are a moral element in the equation that must be considered. I am neither enough of a historian or an economist to say, but it is possible that FDRs policies were the more moral course of action even if they slowed down recovery from the Great Depression.
3. The implementation of economic theory must always be driven by the impetus to maximize the happiness of society at large without destroying individuals. Again, the "fittest" do not have a divine or evolutionary right to accrue wealth at the expense of the little man. This contradicts the founding goals of capitalism in the first place.
4. We need to make a clear distinction between my property and the system that can facilitate the accumulation of wealth. For Christians, it is important to realize that my "net worth" today is something quite different from any biblical understanding of wage or property. In biblical terms, property is something I inherit and a day's wage is somewhat standard throughout the world.
There is no divine right or innate justice to market wages. They vary according to demand and the state of the system. In philosophical terms, we have no basis to say that the $250,000 salary of one person is more of a "possession" to that person than the $20,000 of someone else. It is the system that has assigned a different value to each person, not necessarily the amount of work he or she has done.
The long and short of it is that the Tea Party person does not have the same claim on every penny of that money as she might think she does. It is not a concrete possession like a car in the driveway. The system gave that amount for work and the system can take it away without either action being either morally right or wrong. The moral significance of money in a capitalist system does not map directly or neatly to the moral significance of property in an agrarian one.
I don't know if I have done these ideas justice, but these are some of my musings at the turn of the twenty-first century.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Why I am a capitalist...
Since I have been trashed elsewhere with a number of ridiculous labels, I felt I should make something like a quasi-official statement of what I think, things I've said before and will no doubt have to say again because people have trouble with nuance and distinctions.
I believe in capitalism as the best way to go for many reasons. For example, given our fallen human nature, we are generally not motivated to work or do our best outside of being forced to in terms of reward and punishment. The attempt to enact a communistic system or economy has proved itself historically to be a complete failure everywhere it has been tried. In fact, it has never even been successfully achieved except in small communities.
I believe that stealing what belongs to others is clearly wrong biblically (which implies a sense of property). I fully affirm the "Protestant Work Ethic" of 2 Thessalonians 3, that those who can work but do not should not be given a free ride. For example, I am not in favor of welfare as it is often practiced in America. Those in need--if they are at all able--should have to do something for assistance, even if it is token action nowhere near what they are given in return. Ultimately, assistance should be most about empowerment. I also believe that God created us in Genesis 2 for competition, so capitalism in that respect is not unbiblical.
What confuses some--usually individuals who want to be confused about me and thus do not truly listen to what I say--are comments I have made of this sort, "I am opposed to communism for practical reasons, not for biblical ones." Here I am not referring, of course, to any modern communism like the Soviet Union, eastern Europe, Cuba, etc. There was gobs of stuff to oppose in these governments biblically, not least their state endorsed atheism, brutal treatment of their people, foreign aggression, etc. This comment referred only to something that has never been and never will be successfully implemented in a government, philosophical communism--"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
So what I am saying biblically when I say something like this is the following. What I find repeatedly and consistently in the NT is a sense that the early Christians were expected to share everything they had with others above what they needed to live and feed their families. This is true in Acts 2 with the community, and Paul took offerings of the excess to Jerusalem for the poor there (2 Cor. 8-9). Luke-Acts has nothing good to say about money. 1 Timothy 6 says it is a root of all forms of evil. James has nothing good to say about the rich. I don’t think these statements translate directly to today necessarily because of their differing understanding of the limited nature of resources. But, as I implied in this comment, I find repeated references throughout Scripture to the effect that what we have is ultimately God’s, not ours, and that He would have us share those resources with others who are truly in need.
So in theory, the idea, “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need,” sounds very much like what we find often advocated in Scripture. The problem is that we are all fallen and it doesn’t work at all as a large scale economic system. So while we are still on earth, what works better is “From each according to their own self-interest, to each according to their work,” which is capitalism. But I don’t see how anyone could argue biblically that “do what is in your own self-interest” (the fundamental basis of capitalism) is more biblical or Christian than “share from your excess with others who have need.” Can you?
It absolutely flabbergasts me that anyone would think differently!
I believe in capitalism as the best way to go for many reasons. For example, given our fallen human nature, we are generally not motivated to work or do our best outside of being forced to in terms of reward and punishment. The attempt to enact a communistic system or economy has proved itself historically to be a complete failure everywhere it has been tried. In fact, it has never even been successfully achieved except in small communities.
I believe that stealing what belongs to others is clearly wrong biblically (which implies a sense of property). I fully affirm the "Protestant Work Ethic" of 2 Thessalonians 3, that those who can work but do not should not be given a free ride. For example, I am not in favor of welfare as it is often practiced in America. Those in need--if they are at all able--should have to do something for assistance, even if it is token action nowhere near what they are given in return. Ultimately, assistance should be most about empowerment. I also believe that God created us in Genesis 2 for competition, so capitalism in that respect is not unbiblical.
What confuses some--usually individuals who want to be confused about me and thus do not truly listen to what I say--are comments I have made of this sort, "I am opposed to communism for practical reasons, not for biblical ones." Here I am not referring, of course, to any modern communism like the Soviet Union, eastern Europe, Cuba, etc. There was gobs of stuff to oppose in these governments biblically, not least their state endorsed atheism, brutal treatment of their people, foreign aggression, etc. This comment referred only to something that has never been and never will be successfully implemented in a government, philosophical communism--"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
So what I am saying biblically when I say something like this is the following. What I find repeatedly and consistently in the NT is a sense that the early Christians were expected to share everything they had with others above what they needed to live and feed their families. This is true in Acts 2 with the community, and Paul took offerings of the excess to Jerusalem for the poor there (2 Cor. 8-9). Luke-Acts has nothing good to say about money. 1 Timothy 6 says it is a root of all forms of evil. James has nothing good to say about the rich. I don’t think these statements translate directly to today necessarily because of their differing understanding of the limited nature of resources. But, as I implied in this comment, I find repeated references throughout Scripture to the effect that what we have is ultimately God’s, not ours, and that He would have us share those resources with others who are truly in need.
So in theory, the idea, “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need,” sounds very much like what we find often advocated in Scripture. The problem is that we are all fallen and it doesn’t work at all as a large scale economic system. So while we are still on earth, what works better is “From each according to their own self-interest, to each according to their work,” which is capitalism. But I don’t see how anyone could argue biblically that “do what is in your own self-interest” (the fundamental basis of capitalism) is more biblical or Christian than “share from your excess with others who have need.” Can you?
It absolutely flabbergasts me that anyone would think differently!
Friday, October 24, 2008
13.3 Scripture and Money
We in the Western world are so used to money that it is hard for us to picture the way most societies in the history of the world have primarily functioned, namely, by trading goods. For this reason, Christians may actually misread certain passages of the Bible without even realizing it. We see words like "money," "poor," or "rich," and we read them in terms of what they mean in our world, without recognizing the dynamics they had in the various cultures to which the books of the Bible were written.
In the Old Testament, Israelite families gave a tithe or tenth of their crops to the priests (). They did not give a tenth of their income, in the manner of our modern economy, our system of producing and distributing goods and services in a society. They would rarely if ever have used money. Old Testament societies were agrarian economies, in which goods were produced and consumed directly off the land. Such land was passed along in families and, according to Numbers, was returned to these families every fifty years in the Year of Jubilees, that is, if the family had somehow lost the land during that time.
[textbox: economy]
Coinage, or money, was thus mostly associated in the ancient world with kings and political powers beyond the normal daily operations of most people. It is thus no surprise that the New Testament has virtually nothing good to say about money. When someone asked Jesus whether he believed in paying taxes, he gave the well known response, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" (Mark 12:17). He probably was not simply saying to pay your taxes. Rather, he was likely dismissing Roman coinage itself as having nothing to do with the people of God or the coming kingdom of God. It is also at least possible that the original audiences of Revelation might have understood the mark of the beast, without which they could not buy or sell, as an allusion to the coinage of Domitian, on which it was written that he was "Lord and God."
1 Timothy 6:10 has traveling teachers in mind when it says that "the love of money is the root of all evils," and the letter of James lambasts the rich throughout. "Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like the flower of the grass he will pass away" (1:9-10). Similarly, "Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you" (5:1). James' assumption is that such rich individuals have treated their workers unfairly: "the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out" (5:4).
When we read passages like these, we have to remember that agrarian economies in the ancient world tended to think in terms of a limited number of resources, a "limited good." Accordingly, if one person has more, the implication is that others have less. It would be as if twenty people in a room were each given one apple, but then when they left the room some people had several apples and others had none.
It is thus no suprise to hear of the ancient Arab proverb that said that "every rich person is a thief or the son of a thief." [1] With this sort of background, it is no surprise that Jesus would tell a rich young ruler to go sell his possessions and give to the poor (Mark 10:21). If the rich were thought to have taken resources that should go to others, the poor were understood to be individuals who had lost resources that they should otherwise have had. Poverty was thus more about getting knocked out of one's inherited status than about not having money.
[textbox: limited good]
Luke and Acts seem to operate with these basic assumptions as well. One of the special emphases of Luke is Jesus' ministry to the poor and disempowered. For example, Luke uniquely has the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, where a poor beggar finds himself in a place of reward after death. Meanwhile, the rich man at whose gate he used to sit and wait for doles from the servants, finds himself in a place of torment after death.
And while the Beatitudes of Matthew have "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matt. 5:3), Luke bluntly has "Blessed are you poor" (Luke 6:20) and the added rejoinder, "Woe to you rich" (6:24). In Acts, the early Jerusalem church brings everyone back to their normal economic state by redistributing the excess of some to the poor in their community (Acts 2). This sharing is probably not strictly communal living, but a bringing of everyone to a similar amount of possessions.
We should point out that the New Testament writer Paul does not have as negative a view of those with significant resources as other parts of the New Testament. Indeed, he himself may have been born into a family with some status and wealth. Only a very small number of people in the ancient world were Roman citizens as Paul was. And Paul speaks of working with his hands as if it were a kind of lowering of himself (1 Cor. 4:12; 9:6).
As a trader of leather goods in the marketplace, Paul might have had some strikes against him among some of the earliest believers. James has strong words to say about the merchant who makes plans to travel and make large amounts of money (Luke James 4:13-17), and no doubt some of Paul's enemies found it easy to stereotype him in this way. Paul's thinking is rather that God sometimes blesses one part of the body of Christ and at other times other parts. Those who are blessed are to share with those who are not so that, when the circumstances are reversed, they will share in return (2 Cor. 8-9).
What we see is that it is the attitude of believers toward their possessions and toward each other that are most important for Christians today, while the specific economic structures of the Bible relate directly to the cultural forms of its days. We are thus to focus not only on our own interests, but also on the interests of others (Phil. 2:4). This shared interest certainly includes the material needs of others (e.g., 1 John 3:17; Matt. 25:31-46). And we are to see our possessions as belonging to God and as thoroughly unnecessary to who we are (e.g., Matt. 6:19-21).
[1] Malina.
In the Old Testament, Israelite families gave a tithe or tenth of their crops to the priests (). They did not give a tenth of their income, in the manner of our modern economy, our system of producing and distributing goods and services in a society. They would rarely if ever have used money. Old Testament societies were agrarian economies, in which goods were produced and consumed directly off the land. Such land was passed along in families and, according to Numbers, was returned to these families every fifty years in the Year of Jubilees, that is, if the family had somehow lost the land during that time.
[textbox: economy]
Coinage, or money, was thus mostly associated in the ancient world with kings and political powers beyond the normal daily operations of most people. It is thus no surprise that the New Testament has virtually nothing good to say about money. When someone asked Jesus whether he believed in paying taxes, he gave the well known response, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" (Mark 12:17). He probably was not simply saying to pay your taxes. Rather, he was likely dismissing Roman coinage itself as having nothing to do with the people of God or the coming kingdom of God. It is also at least possible that the original audiences of Revelation might have understood the mark of the beast, without which they could not buy or sell, as an allusion to the coinage of Domitian, on which it was written that he was "Lord and God."
1 Timothy 6:10 has traveling teachers in mind when it says that "the love of money is the root of all evils," and the letter of James lambasts the rich throughout. "Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like the flower of the grass he will pass away" (1:9-10). Similarly, "Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you" (5:1). James' assumption is that such rich individuals have treated their workers unfairly: "the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out" (5:4).
When we read passages like these, we have to remember that agrarian economies in the ancient world tended to think in terms of a limited number of resources, a "limited good." Accordingly, if one person has more, the implication is that others have less. It would be as if twenty people in a room were each given one apple, but then when they left the room some people had several apples and others had none.
It is thus no suprise to hear of the ancient Arab proverb that said that "every rich person is a thief or the son of a thief." [1] With this sort of background, it is no surprise that Jesus would tell a rich young ruler to go sell his possessions and give to the poor (Mark 10:21). If the rich were thought to have taken resources that should go to others, the poor were understood to be individuals who had lost resources that they should otherwise have had. Poverty was thus more about getting knocked out of one's inherited status than about not having money.
[textbox: limited good]
Luke and Acts seem to operate with these basic assumptions as well. One of the special emphases of Luke is Jesus' ministry to the poor and disempowered. For example, Luke uniquely has the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, where a poor beggar finds himself in a place of reward after death. Meanwhile, the rich man at whose gate he used to sit and wait for doles from the servants, finds himself in a place of torment after death.
And while the Beatitudes of Matthew have "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matt. 5:3), Luke bluntly has "Blessed are you poor" (Luke 6:20) and the added rejoinder, "Woe to you rich" (6:24). In Acts, the early Jerusalem church brings everyone back to their normal economic state by redistributing the excess of some to the poor in their community (Acts 2). This sharing is probably not strictly communal living, but a bringing of everyone to a similar amount of possessions.
We should point out that the New Testament writer Paul does not have as negative a view of those with significant resources as other parts of the New Testament. Indeed, he himself may have been born into a family with some status and wealth. Only a very small number of people in the ancient world were Roman citizens as Paul was. And Paul speaks of working with his hands as if it were a kind of lowering of himself (1 Cor. 4:12; 9:6).
As a trader of leather goods in the marketplace, Paul might have had some strikes against him among some of the earliest believers. James has strong words to say about the merchant who makes plans to travel and make large amounts of money (Luke James 4:13-17), and no doubt some of Paul's enemies found it easy to stereotype him in this way. Paul's thinking is rather that God sometimes blesses one part of the body of Christ and at other times other parts. Those who are blessed are to share with those who are not so that, when the circumstances are reversed, they will share in return (2 Cor. 8-9).
What we see is that it is the attitude of believers toward their possessions and toward each other that are most important for Christians today, while the specific economic structures of the Bible relate directly to the cultural forms of its days. We are thus to focus not only on our own interests, but also on the interests of others (Phil. 2:4). This shared interest certainly includes the material needs of others (e.g., 1 John 3:17; Matt. 25:31-46). And we are to see our possessions as belonging to God and as thoroughly unnecessary to who we are (e.g., Matt. 6:19-21).
[1] Malina.
Friday, October 10, 2008
The End of American Style Capitalism?
It's a very scary world right now.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27112481/
I may be wrong but my hunch is that the silver lining in crises like this is the opportunity to make important changes that people don't let you make when everything is hunky dorie (like passing anti-trust laws). Whatever those changes are, I hope some smart and objective people make them.
You all already know that I think an Obama is more likely to make the right sorts of changes than McCain. I think on economics McCain just says whatever his advisors tell him to say, while Obama is smart enough in this category actually to think it through himself with his economic advisors. If significant changes are needed, I just see an Obama more likely to make them than "More of the Same McCain."
My musings and hunches... not even my positions because I'm not qualified.
P.S. Obviously Eastern Europe, Cuba, and the Soviet Union have a lot to say about the likely success of a communistic system. But right about now Karl Marx's thoughts on the instability of unbridled capitalism don't look too stupid either.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27112481/
I may be wrong but my hunch is that the silver lining in crises like this is the opportunity to make important changes that people don't let you make when everything is hunky dorie (like passing anti-trust laws). Whatever those changes are, I hope some smart and objective people make them.
You all already know that I think an Obama is more likely to make the right sorts of changes than McCain. I think on economics McCain just says whatever his advisors tell him to say, while Obama is smart enough in this category actually to think it through himself with his economic advisors. If significant changes are needed, I just see an Obama more likely to make them than "More of the Same McCain."
My musings and hunches... not even my positions because I'm not qualified.
P.S. Obviously Eastern Europe, Cuba, and the Soviet Union have a lot to say about the likely success of a communistic system. But right about now Karl Marx's thoughts on the instability of unbridled capitalism don't look too stupid either.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Classroom Snippets: Bentham and Smith
We discussed Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism a bit today. Pointed out that he had his body stuffed to be present at U of London board meetings (he thought people were too superstitious and needed an object lesson).
On the positive side, he really was trying to level out the playing field so that everyone counted in society, not just the privileged. The pleasure of Willy child coal miner counted as much as that of King George.
Aside from the picture of Bentham's stuffed head I was able to bring up on Google images, the most interesting idea to me was putting Adam Smith's agenda into perspective. Along with Bentham, the idea of capitalism was not to make a few very lucky people filthy rich but to empower everyone in society to be able to have a pleasurable economic life.
In other words, I don't think Adam Smith would have liked at all the unbridled capitalism of the late 1800's, where the worker was as disempowered as ever.
On the positive side, he really was trying to level out the playing field so that everyone counted in society, not just the privileged. The pleasure of Willy child coal miner counted as much as that of King George.
Aside from the picture of Bentham's stuffed head I was able to bring up on Google images, the most interesting idea to me was putting Adam Smith's agenda into perspective. Along with Bentham, the idea of capitalism was not to make a few very lucky people filthy rich but to empower everyone in society to be able to have a pleasurable economic life.
In other words, I don't think Adam Smith would have liked at all the unbridled capitalism of the late 1800's, where the worker was as disempowered as ever.
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