[Updated 23 November, 2020.]
The fall of the Berlin Wall on
9 November, 1989 and the break-up of the Soviet Union on 26 December, 1991
seemed to mean the failure of communism in Europe in general. It
continued in Asia, notably in China, although with a duplicitous and aggressive
control of capitalist enterprise, including an economic colonialism in
Africa. Western Europe continued with various forms of socialist governments. European
countries have typically supported a democratic socialism, which affirms
democracy by the people and big government as the means by which a country can
bring about more equity and care for the poor. This is all an
ongoing experiment in theory and in practice that never manages to get the same
results, and the debates continue. Communism, however, always meant the
oppression and persecution of Christians, whereas many Christians have hoped to
find in socialism a good form of government because of its purported concern
for the poor and a more equitable justice. Many other Christians have
found in capitalism not only a better working economy but also a more free
economy for them to distinguish themselves from and have a voice in economic and
political systems. This all too brief essay for the size of the topic is
offered to raise considerations for what is, of course, a complicated matter
that requires further study and discussion.
We are here interested mostly
in how Scripture weighs into the discussion of communism, socialism, and
capitalism, being well-aware that it was not supporting government or economics
as we know them today. That is, we need to be cautious when applying
words from antiquity to situations today that Scripture did not have in view:
we need to avoid anachronism. Some general discussion is possible,
however, where Biblical views about governance and social morality are
addressed in both Scripture and society today. The moral concerns in
Scripture about wealth and poverty contribute to this discussion; here,
however, the relation of government to those concerns are primarily under
consideration.
Two primary Biblical concerns
address governments: the enslavement of the people when power is centralized in
the Old Testament’s monarchy in Israel (1 Samuel 8.12-17), and the replacement
of God with an imperial tyrant and his oppression of His people in the New
Testament’s notion of an antichrist tyrant (Revelation 13). Governments
fulfill a God-given role of establishing justice (Romans 13.1-7), but this is
no endorsement of any centralization of power in the State. While the
Bible’s concerns with monarchy and tyranny do not express the view of
government under communism, they do relate to totalitarianism: the
centralization of power in government. There is an overwhelming argument
in Scripture that big government does not provide prosperity and promote
religious devotion but results in oppression.
Take for example, the platform
laid out by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels for communism. The initial
plan states up front that, in order for the poor masses, the proletariat, to
wrest control from the bourgeoisie, power must be centralized. This was
to involve doing away with private property and inheritance—the exact opposite
of God’s plan for the families of Israel to have their own allotted land that
would be inherited. It would involve a graduated tax, where those with
more would pay more in taxation. It would involve the confiscation of
property and credit by the State. The State would control the farms and
factories and the people’s labour. It would control where people lived,
re-engineer society, control speech, and provide a free, State education that
meant government control of the curriculum. These points are laid out in
the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (II.
Proletarians and Communist, Communist Manifesto), as follows:[1]
Nevertheless, in most
advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.
1. Abolition of property
in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive
or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all
rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the
property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of
credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State
capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of
the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of
factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into
cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in
accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of
all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture
with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between
town and country by a more equable distribution of the Proletarians and
Communists populace over the country.
10. Free education for
all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its
present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c,
&c.
These points provide a view
into what State control entailed under communism, all with a concern for equity
instead of the oppression of the masses by the bourgeoisie. As stated,
and particularly as the plan was put into action by the Bolsheviks in the early
20th century, this State control was not only oppressive but
also murderous. For example, the kulaks, Ukrainian
farmers with small farms, had their property confiscated so that the Communists
could establish their collective farms, and they were either murdered or
relocated within the Soviet Union. Furthermore, Communism has oppressed
religion, including Christianity, by re-education, suppression of beliefs,
closing churches, incarcerating believers, controlling their children’s
education, and executing people for their faith. At the time of writing,
there are regular reports of how this is continuing in Communist China, and the
history of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia present the same narrative.
‘Equity’ sounds like a good
value, since ‘inequity’ suggests injustice. In 1875, Marx proposed that,
if Communism is successful in producing an abundance of co-operative wealth,
society will be able to claim the socialist slogan, ‘from each according to his
ability, to each according to his needs’ (Critique of the Gotha Project).
Communism is all about both the State’s access to wealth and the State’s
control and redistribution of wealth. Equity means not only equal
opportunity but also equal outcomes. Scripture is far too skeptical of
human nature and government power to believe that anything of the sort would
result.
As practiced in the early
Jerusalem Church (Acts 5), equal distribution was, crucially, voluntary. (Paul
makes the same point regarding the collection from Corinthian Christians for
the relief of the Church in Jerusalem: ‘Each one must give as he has decided in
his own heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful
giver’ (2 Corinthians 9.7; cf. 8.3).) State control under Communism is
not voluntary and has always meant oppression. Thus, when one reads in
the Communist Manifesto (point 10, above) that there will be
free education for children in public schools, one has to understand that this
actually means State control of children’s education—control of the curriculum
and no private education. Also, devotion to God is considered competitive
with devotion to the State or, more particularly, to the Communist Party.
Being a Christian is thereby rendered antisocial.
The attack on the Church comes
in another section of the Communist Manifesto, where it is depicted
as a bourgeoisie institution that gives only the appearance of socialist
concerns.
As the parson has ever
gone hand in hand with the landlord, so has Clerical Socialism with Feudal
Socialism.
Nothing is easier than
to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed
against private property, against marriage, against the State? Has it not
preached in the place of these, charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification
of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church? Christian Socialism is but the
holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat
(III. Socialist and Communist Literature, 1. Reactionary Socialism, A. Feudal
Socialism, Communist Manifesto).
As Marx had written in 1843,
‘religion is the opium of the people’ (A Contribution to the Critique of
Hegel’s Philosophy of Right). The context of the quotation suggests
his point was that it was an emotive response to oppression that, unlike
Communism, was ineffective and placating: ‘Religion is the sigh of the
oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless
conditions. It is the opium of the people.’ Yet it was not irrelevant
because it worked as a numbing agent on the open wound of social (economic)
oppression that really needed surgery. Thus, Communism, a typically
atheist ideology, has always opposed religion.
Socialism, on the other
hand, claims that religious concerns for justice and the poor are concerns that
can be given concrete expression in its organized response to social
issues. Poverty, education, oppression, social justice—a socialist
society takes such concerns seriously and responds with a view of government
that aims to achieve results. Socialism overlaps with some of the aims of
communism, such as inheritance and graduated taxation and free public
education, but especially State control. The concerns of society are not
to be addressed in the Church or by voluntary aid but through the State—therein
lies the challenge.
While Christians obviously
cannot trust the control of the State in communism, we might ask as
Christians whether we can trust the socialist State’s use of our labour, taxes,
and property. Socialism is a system of governance that involves a
large role for government as it controls resources, production, and
dissemination of goods. It may do this to a greater or lesser
extent: public housing, the railroad system, public schools, health care,
elderly care (Medicaid), etc. This control by the State inevitably involves the
curtailing of individual freedom.
The Old Testament
entertained a concern for a safety net for persons who faced poverty.
First, opportunities to work for food were set in place with the rule that
people were not to glean at the edges of their fields (Leviticus 19.9;
23.22). This entailed voluntary participation by those with means in a
cultural practice. Of course, in Israel's theocratic society, it was
divine Law. Second, a state-run food programme for the poor was
established. Every third year, the tithe of produce that people gave was
collected for those without land--the Levites, sojourners (aliens), fatherless
(orphans), and widows (Deuteronomy 26.12).
On the other hand, others were given private ownership to
inheritable lands--quite the opposite of a socialist society. If they
lost their lands due to a reversal of circumstances, or even if they lost their
own freedom and became indebted servants, the Sabbath Year returned the land or
freed the bondservant (Deuteronomy 15). As a social programme, however,
this practice of a year of release functioned as a social control to avoided
systemic poverty. This social practice mirrored God's action of blessing
those who obeyed His voice (Deuteronomy 15.4-5). Israel's care for the
poor was not conceived of as an entitlement programme but as an obligation that
comes with concern for others:
If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of
your towns within your land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not
harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, 8 but you
shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it
may be (Deuteronomy 15.7-8).
If people are taxed to pay for government programmes to care for
the needy, their giving is a legal requirement and not a moral act. Care
for the poor, however, is Old Testament moral law. The passage continues,
For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I
command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to
the poor, in your land' (Deuteronomy 15.11).
This is why countries advocating freedom and capitalism need a
culture that promotes volunteerism and philanthropy that cares for the poor in
the land. When this occurs, there is no leaning toward a socialist state
where bureaucrats are hired (not elected) to manage the redistribution of
wealth through impersonal systems of government.
Socialism requires big
government, and its authority over individuals lives easily becomes
homogenizing at best and oppressive at worst. Democracy has to answer the
problem of the minorities: how will they be respected when the majority wins
elections and assumes power? Similarly, even as socialism as big
government can try to help minority groups, like the poor, it can equally
exercise power in ways that oppose minority groups. The question is often asked
of socialist governments, 'Will socialism oppose religious freedom?' The more
the State controls wealth and its distribution, the more it is a challenge to
the Church fulfilling that role. The Church is, from the socialist State’s
perspective, a competitor. Its ownership of property, its exemption from
taxation, its different moral standards (such as opposition to abortion or what
children are taught in schools) are problematic for the socialist State.
Why is it that social democracy has no place for the Ten Commandments, wants State
control of the Church, wants to use taxes to provide abortion on demand and
transgender surgery in opposition to the Church’s moral convictions, wants
enforced health insurance plans that requires nuns to pay for birth control,
supports the control of speech by hate speech laws rather than freedom of
speech, insists on educating children against their parents' values, and so
forth? Of course, the State could hold more Christian values. Yet
it does not in country after country, and the same problem encountered with
communism also persists in socialism: the concentration of power in the State
and the control of its citizens. Those who swallow the idea that
socialism does good have to believe that the State is poised to deliver not
only a moral society but also that it will do so equitably and
efficiently. Nothing in Scripture’s warnings against concentrating power
in the State supports such naïve trust.
The history of various attempts at socialism, beginning in ancient
Greece, is a history of economic and political failure.[2]
Apart from the actual
programmes of social democracy, there is also the question of whether it is an efficient
means to achieve good in society. (Let us imagine its goals are good, for
argument’s sake.) In fact, government control is highly inefficient and
always costly. The argument is false that socialism puts the economy into
the hands of the people through their election of officials to government. Government’s elected officials are middlemen
between the people and the programs that replace what would otherwise develop
in a free market system. Moreover,
elected officials regulate rather than run government agencies: a ‘deep state’
develops around the government funded agencies such as for education, health
care, and environmental regulations.
Such agencies are notoriously costly, unresponsive, inefficient,
self-serving, and so forth. This is precisely
because they do not have to respond to a competitive market and the preferences
of consumers. When a profit incentive is
removed from work, work grinds to a slow pace.
Think of the agony of dealing with the department of motor vehicles. A
health system in a country that leaves nobody out by giving control to the
government is a system that is costly, inefficient, and, once again, forces
Christians to pay for State approved 'procedures' like abortion. The
suspicion of centralized control in both Old and New Testaments does not
address inefficiency, but it does see the danger of self-serving, centralized
government that eliminates the free decisions of the property owning families,
clans, and tribes who can control matters in their own interest.
Roger Crook defines capitalism
as
the system of private
ownership of the instruments of production, distribution, and exchange, and the
use of those instruments under a plan of individual initiative and open
competition to earn private profit.[3]
Capitalism can sound and be so
harsh. As Adam Smith notes in The Wealth of Nations, the
marketplace is impersonal and therefore is not based on altruism.[4] Thus, it operates by self-interest: the
consumer’s interest in purchasing, the salesman’s interest in selling. Human
productivity increases when one does not simply labour for his or her own needs
but sells his or her labour to acquire capital enough to purchase what is
produced by others. The need for a
variety of goods that one does not purchase oneself requires a division of
labour in which many people contribute to the production of an item and to the
marketplace. Working together, as in an
assembly line, the workers can produce more than they might were they to labour
independently. This self-interest of the
labourer may be interpreted as greed, but this is so only for some:
self-interest and greed are not equivalent.
In fact, self-interest is based on satisfying the wants of consumers who
make their own decisions about what to purchase. It can be a powerful mechanism
that brings benefits to more than just the powerful. Where the
accumulation of wealth is a result of production, this can and often does
benefit the worker. Self-interest leads to market exchange, specialization
(division of labour), efficiency (it is timesaving), and an increase in
productivity.
Pricing is another factor in a
market economy. The natural price of an
item reflects the actual cost to produce the item. The market price reflects the relationship
between supply and demand: the availability of an item (how many are available
for purchase?) and the demand for it (how much is it needed or desired by
consumers?). Due to supply and demand, the
market price tends to head in the direction of the natural price of an item if
the market is left to itself. The reason
for this is that producers’ self-interest in maximizing their gains will tend
to develop efficient means of production to produce more items at a cheaper
cost for consumers to buy their items, and this is increased when there is
competition among producers. A bottom-up
rather than top-down impetus in economic development is far better.[5] Regulation
will stifle the economy. People need to
be allowed to produce what is in their best interest (to earn money to feed
their families) and not be told what to produce. Also, the principles of ‘never do yourself
what you can purchase at a cheaper price from someone else’ and ‘only produce
what is locally available so as to be competitive in trade’ would lead to
natural growth. Taxes, foreign wars, and
burdensome government undermine natural growth and lead to economic
stagnation. In such ways, then, self-interest,
not altruism, becomes the means by which to improve the ‘wealth’ (well-being) of
‘nations’ (people). Adam Smith called
this the ‘invisible hand’ in the economy: without intending altruism, the free market
benefits the people.
Smith was also aware that the
aristocracy, companies, guilds, or business owners tended to want to maximize
their earnings over against the free market system, such as by holding onto
lands, creating monopolies, regulating production, or paying low wages. Self-interest, then, can work against the
interest of the people. Smith argued that this self-interest was mistaken. Instead of protecting one’s assets from
others, using them to stimulate trade would not only produce more wealth but be
beneficial for the population as a whole.
The vast estates of the aristocrats might be put to use, not by seizing
the land for the populace but in a productive way to benefit everyone. The wealth of a nation lies in its
productivity, not in, for example, the acquisition or protection of wealth. The Spanish stealing of gold during its
colonization of South America did not lead to sustainable wealth for the nation
as the country was not itself wealth-producing.
For Smith, monopolies like the East India Company of Great Britain were not only oppressive (it had its own military and sought to extract wealth from Britain’s
colonies); it was also a large and expensive business that was not that
productive (the government at times had to bail it out). Government regulations that protected monopolies
were not Smith’s understanding of unregulated, bottom-up capitalism.
Another aspect to Adam Smith’s
economic arguments is morality. His
first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759 was published well
before The Wealth of Nations in 1776.
He returned to revise it after the latter work was published. Thus, Smith’s interest was the morality of
individuals and the morality and good functioning of an economy. His interest in the economy develops out of
his concern to address the needs of the poor.
Scripture, too, defends the private property of individuals over against
the collective ownership and powerful government of Egypt, Assyria, and
Babylon. It, too, looks down to the exchange
economy of the marketplace and the produce of small-hold farmers. Yet, like Smith, the right functioning of
such an economy is also largely dependent on the morality of the people. Dishonest weights, land seizure, exploitation
of the poor, corruption, theft and so forth are often condemned. One might well ask how much the morality of a
people is essential for its economy to have any chance of functioning well.
When capitalism creates
powerful monopolies and wealthy businessmen whose wealth is not wealth
producing for everyone, people begin to imagine that the solution is socialism,
a government-controlled economy. This
step requires enormous faith in government and in big government. Smith’s view is to protect the natural
economy of exchange, not to defend tycoons and plutocracies like
corporatocracies or technocracies or aristocracies. Where Smith looks down to the local businessman,
socialism looks up to the government.
Big government, even if altruistic (at first), quickly runs into a
number of problems itself. For example,
it is not as productive and efficient as capitalist economies for the general
population, its manipulation of supply and demand prices can drive prices up, and
its opposing self-interest and promoting social interest means that incentive
and responsibility are impersonal and bureaucratic. Its promoted social values are often
questionable (e.g., when ‘health care’ becomes protection of abortion). Its hand-outs to the poor tends to keep the
poor in their situation and develop in them a sense of entitlement and
victimhood rather than help them to become participants in the economy. Like the wealthy company owner wanting to pay
his workers low wages to maximize his profits, so socialist societies want
labourers to give up their freedoms and self-interests for the collective
group. Instead of helping the poor,
socialist governments become overseers of a poor class, undercut the
middle-class’s economic growth, and partner with big businesses.
Marxism expected the workers
of the world to unite and overthrow the bourgeoisie, but this did not happen in
the richer, capitalist countries. The workers had benefitted from the
economic growth of the capitalist countries where they lived. Marxism also
claimed that a communist system would produce the abundance of goods so that
each may receive according to his need. Marxist economies, however,
mainly created needs, not an abundance of goods. The problem for
communism was always that everyone, including the labourer, was better off in
capitalist societies and anything but a social utopia followed communist
revolution.
Marx was writing against
feudalism (Russia still had serfs when the Manifesto was written) and the
relatively new industrialism of European society. The Bible’s perspective
was more about agrarian society. Today, we discuss economics in an
industrial and technological society. Each of these looks at how society
works differently. Powerful landowners reduced people to slavery or
serfdom. Powerful industrialists worked their labourers long hours at low
wages. A number of large companies use the power they derive from wealth to
try to shape society’s politics, speech, and morality. In each case, the concentration of wealth and
power is configured differently, but it is always about wealth and power.
In turn, these wealthy powers in society that arise because of capitalism become,
as Joseph Schumpeter argued, its loudest critics. Why is that? It
is because, while their wealth and power protect them from their own views,
they have a concern for the less fortunate, the poor. Schumpeter argued
that capitalism would necessarily and eventually collapse—as did Marx.
His contribution to the point was that it would collapse not because of the
proletariat rising up in revolution but because of these ‘intellectual’
capitalists pushing for a more socialist society.[6]
They do so because they believe that this will produce a more equitable justice
for others. As long as they can send their own children to top schools,
have private police protection of their wealth, and keep earning high salaries,
they are happy to advocate (give a voice to) socialism for the rest of society.
This apparently has, by and
large, proved to be true. Big tech companies tend to be liberal.
Yet this analysis may be deficient. The entrepreneurial, innovative, and
competitive drive in these companies is capitalist. Their very
involvement in social issues is an indication that they want control over the
government itself. The heads of Twitter and Facebook do not like being
called to Washington, DC to account for their control of free speech.
They want their own monopolies. Western consumer societies want surplus
wealth to buy things. Even as people clamor for greater care for the
poor, they do so with a capitalist edge. The exception, however, is in
their political views: the more that the people are willing to give power
(through taxation, social engineering, control of curricula, etc.) to
government, the more they put themselves in the situation that they will lose
their own voluntary involvement that democracy has offered. That is, the
bigger the government, the more democratic socialism edges toward the
totalitarianism of communism. It is a question of degree, not of a
qualitative difference. Europe, in any case, has moved to a social
democracy at the same time as it has become overwhelmingly secular. Christian
views are regularly attacked, and ‘hate crimes’ are often turned against
Christians. (America’s freedom of speech has kept it from having as many
cases against Christians as Europe, which has ‘hate speech’ laws instead of the
protection of speech. This is also why socialists in America dislike the
First Amendment.) Christians do live in such countries, but they are too
small a percentage of the population to be of much concern, and their religion
is expected to be private.
Crook critiques capitalism in
the following points:[7]
1. Problems with property:
property might fall into the hands of a few; it might be misuse of property.
2. Problems with free
enterprise: unrestricted accumulation and use of money may run counter to
the needs of society as a whole.
3. Problems with competition
as the basis for trade: competition to regulate the quality of products,
set prices, establish wages, determine which products will be produced may not
always be decided best by unregulated competition in the market-place.
4. Problems with profit
as the primary motive for driving the economic system: profit may turn a
blind eye toward exploitation of others or the environment, or it may be profit
for a few while the labourer is exploited.
What Crook suggests in order to address the problems that
capitalism produces is not a turn to socialism or communism. It is not a
different system that is needed but a check on the system, one that creates
capital without the extremes noted above. While he does not sort his
comments out in terms of values, virtues, and actions that contribute to such
checks on capitalism, his engagement with Scripture in regard to these topics
can nevertheless be presented as follows.
Crook identifies the following values to place a check on
capitalism’s potential to exploit the environment and others for gain.
First, nature has an intrinsic value (Gen. 1.31 (‘it was very good’); Ps. 19,
89, etc. (nature praises the Creator); Ps. 8 (nature reflects the Creator’s
glory); Rom. 8.19ff (‘nature will take part in the final fulfillment of God’s
purposes). Second, human beings are part of the natural order and
interdependent with it (Gen. 1-2 (part of creation); Gen. 3.19 (made from the
dust)). This leads to valuing resources more than profit margins.
This value is related, however, to the value or right of private property (two
of the Ten Commandments imply private property ownership (stealing and coveting
(Exodus 20.15, 17)) that is, itself, checked by an understanding that we are
trustees of God’s world (Ps. 24.1 (‘the earth is the Lord’s and all the fulness
thereof, the world and those who dwell therein’). Third, the worker must
be valued, such as in connecting the worker with the product and not treating
him or her as a mere cog in an industrial machine. Fourth, work must be
valued as a vocation—the worker needs to be free to choose careers. This
opposes treating the worker as a slave or serf. Fifth, returning to Scriptural
references, Crook notes a Biblical valuing of one’s neighbour. The
commandment to love one’s neighbour as oneself (Lev. 19.18) stands at the head
of a work ethic.
Crook also identifies some virtues alongside values for a
capitalist economy. There are labour virtues, such as industriousness,
diligence, efficiency, and faithfulness on the part of the worker (cf. Gen.
2.15; 2 Thes. 3.10—more texts might be identified than these). There are
also social virtues: being caring (cf. Acts 2.44-45; 4.32); compassionate, fair
(just), honest (a virtue related to justice and the valuing of the worker), and
respectful of each other’s dignity and the eternal worth of people as human
beings. Also, there are vices that can be identified: the endless
accumulation of wealth (cf. Mt. 6.19-21; 19.24), and greed and selfishness in
competitive, free market economies.
Crook also identifies some individual and communal actions that
might be taken in capitalist societies. Individuals should conserve
energy, reduce waste; and perform acts of compassion towards the needy (Mt.
25.40). Communities should stop any unfair distribution of wealth—unfair
wage distribution (jobs, gender, age, race, abilities), unfair control of
wealth by a few, and unfair entrapment in poverty. They should assist the
poor (Mt. 6.3; Lk. 18.22) and poor nations. This may involve land reform,
sharing technology, helping to improve or provide education, and assisting a
group entrapped in poverty that might be shut out of the marketplace (such as
women in some contexts). Crook also mentions taking action to stop exploiting
natural resources.
Such a listing of values, virtues, and actions provides some
helpful points to consider. Much more, of course, could be added from Old
Testament ethics (such as from Proverbs) to Crook's examples. From these,
though, several observations may be offered. First,
there is the recognition that a capitalist free market system that creates jobs
and is productive and competitive is good for the economy. It encourages
growth, and it values freedom. Second, it recognizes that checks are
needed to keep such a society from being immoral. These checks do not
turn the economy into a centrally controlled society, as in socialism or
Marxism. They are, however, needed, and the way to provide checks is
through just laws and just courts. The actions that Crook suggests taking
will lead to such laws. Yet, third, laws governing our actions are
insufficient for a more just, capitalist society. They require individual
and social values and virtues. Why, for example, would a capitalist businessman
willingly curtail his exploitation of workers if he is making a handsome
profit? Society needs a moral foundation that gives rise to its values
and virtues. The same problem that a socialist government runs into with
its centralized control is the problem that capitalist societies run into with
their unchecked free economy: both require societies with a moral foundation.
Narrative ethics provides an answer to this concern for a moral foundation.[8]
The foundation for ethics cannot rest in principles that fallen human beings
and societies employ—only to distort them in their own interests.[9]
The great moral systems of Immanuel Kant (deontology) or Jeremy Bentham and
John Stuart Mill (utilitarianism) were far too simplistic, rationalistic, and
vague, and they depended on the reasoning capacities of men and women whose
reasoning is, inevitably, self-justifying and sinful. Ethics, in fact,
derives from the shaping of a community’s values, virtues, and practices
through the narratives it tells and embodies. The ethics that result may
be hopelessly corrupt and full of vice, or they may be just and virtuous—or
something in-between. That is, it is important to be the right community
and have the right narratives and to embody them well.
If so, we may well ask whether the capitalist societies of the
West that have been held in check by the virtues, values, and actions of
Christian communities living out the Biblical narratives were not essential for
somewhat just societies. The expanding trade and economies of European
countries in the pre-industrial age were characterized by greed and
exploitation of human beings—the slave trade. While Christians themselves
often justified their involvement in this practice, it was, after all,
Christian countries that also brought an end to the slave trade. That is,
these Christian societies had within them a moral foundation that could bring
out values and virtues to stop actions that, while in the interest of the
traders and landowners, were evil.
The line of argument here is that the moral character of
communities is distinct from their economic systems, and what makes them better
or worse is both a matter of the moral character and the economic system.
Biblically, it has been argued, there is a strong current of critique of
centralized power. This makes sense in a canon of literature that takes
for granted that humanity is morally depraved and not essentially good without
God and that the righteous are few on the earth. The history of the
monarchy in the Old Testament is testimony to this, as well as to the evils
that centralized power can bring. Freedom, however, is never unqualified
in Scripture. To be set free from slavery to sin means to become a slave
of righteousness (Romans 6.16). As to economic theories, Christians
should find themselves better situated as prophetic voices in a democratic
government and capitalist economy where they have freedom and a voice to call
for values, virtues, and actions more than in a socialist system where they
have no independence from the collective and are coerced into performing the
desires of a centralized power. In either case, the role of the Church is
to distinguish itself from the world—even the world’s good virtues and
values—because our moral foundation is a Scripture only we call Holy, our moral
society is a distinct community from the world, and our moral economy is life
lived in the Kingdom of God. Whenever we chase after the politics,
economies, and ethics of the world—whether for evil or for good—we relinquish
our role of being the Church, through which ‘the manifold wisdom of God might
now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places’
(Ephesians 3.10).
[1] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party,’ trans. Samuel Moore with Frederick Engels, in Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Pub., 1969; orig. written in 1847 and published 1848).
[2] Victor Davis Hanson, ‘Our
Socialist Future?’; online at: https://www.scribd.com/document/476901034/Our-Socialist-Future-by-Victor-Davis-Hanson
(accessed 20 November, 2020).
[3] Roger H Crook, An Introduction to
Christian Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990), pp. 228.
[4] This description of Adam
Smith’s arguments for capitalism is dependent on a lecture in the Emory
Williams Lecture Series given by Professor Jerry Muller entitled ‘Adam Smith on
the Uses, Abuses, and Limits of Self-Interest’ on 29 October, 2013. It is available online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQbd_8krZXM
(accessed 22 November, 2020). See
further, Jerry Muller, The Mind and the Market (New York: Anchor Books,
2002).
[5] Adam Smith opposed the
views of François Quesnay and his ‘Physiocratic’ school of economics in
France. They advocated a top down reform
of the economy that, indeed, did prove itself disastrous during the French
Revolution.
[6] Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism,
Socialism, and Democracy (New York: HarperCollins Pub., 2008;
originally published 1942).
[7] Crook, Ibid.
[8] Cf. Stanley Hauerwas, A Community
of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre
Dame, IL: University of Notre Dame, 1991); The Peaceable Kingdom: A
Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame, IL: University of Notre Dame,
1991).
[9] Cf. James W. McClendon, Ethics:
Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, 2nd ed. (Waco, TX: Baylor
University Press, 2012).