Is Capitalism Christian?

Even those have not given much deliberate thought to the association between Christianity and capitalism have, I expect, been affected by it. Christians are particularly affected, because there is a strong tendancy for groups of believers to polarize around the issue. Some hold strongly to the line that capitalism is the only God-endorsed economic system as the alternitive to Godless, oppressive communism. Others see it as a system which in opposition to the message and spirit of scripture, advocates the oppression of the poor to the benefit of the wealthy. Because Christianity has, in fact, had a traditional association with capitalism, it seems as though many people who doubt capitalism aim their distrust equaly at Christianity, as though it were all part of a vast conspiracy of white, Christian males trying to line their pockets and improve their social position at the expence of disenfranchised minorities. The polarities, of course, then fall along the old line of battle between 'liberal' and 'conservative'.



But in evaulating this connection between Christianity and capitalism (and whether it should even exist) some things need to be said first. It is easy to take a contemporary issue like this, sit down with our Bibles, and figure out which side it advocates. The difficulty with this approach is that Scripture was not written as an answer book for our contemporary problems. All it does, ultimately, is point us toward the solution to our age-old problem; our separation with God. Of course, this brings with it the implications that our world, because it is separated from God, is broken and full of sin, that we were meant for something better, and that there is a way which God wants us to live; a way revealed to us. But as far as my understanding reaches, to treat the Bible as a handbook to economics is to seriously misuse it.



There are, however, some absolute teachings in Scripture about moral principles; about what is good for us as individuals, bodies of believers, and by implication, society. We can know a few things outright. God hates it when the rich and powerful opress the poor and needy. (See the major and minor prophets, the words of Christ, and the book of James.) He also hates it it when civilizations become Gods unto themselves with divine right. (See again, the major prophets and the words against strong and proud empires, and the apocolyptic liturature about what will become of them in the end.) We can therefore conclude from the outset that capitalism is wrong when it leads to the first abuse, and the other extreme, communism is wrong when it leads to the other. History has been a clear witness to both. All we need to do is think about about the things which unchecked industry did to the poor in Britain in the time of Charles Dickens, and about the untold number of nameless graves filled by Joseph Stalin.

Chuck Colson (a Christian capitalist) has noted that capitalism is often defended on pragmatic rather than moral grounds. In other words, many supporters of capitalism seem to acknowledge that capitalism is based on greed, but that it produces a better economic and moral result than the alternatives of socialism or capitalism. Colson, however, goes on to argue that capitalism is an intrinsically moral system, describing how it advocates the values of hard work responsibility, both personal and social. I think that we can agree with this, (I do) but we also need to step back and realize something else before we continue.

As I argued above, scripture does not endorse an economic system. We cannot list in our our history books Communism: Created by Marx next to Capitalism: Created by God. Our world is not the garden of Eden, and whatever God would have put in place there as an economic system we cannot know. While every idea of the human mind has its ultimate source in the mind of a creator who made a world infinitely rich in potential, economic systems are created by people, not by God. And as such, they have the potential to reflect both the image of which he created within us, or the utter depravity of our sinful hearts.

As a result of this, there is trouble whenever people have misplaced trust, not matter what system they advocate. Liberals tend to trust the government with the power to fix our problems. But governments are made up of sinful people who love power and will take atvantage of people if they are able, and who, if they are permitted, become brutal tyrants. Conservatives tend to trust the governed, on whose shoulders the government stands. They don't want tyrannic power; they want to rely on the responsibility of individuals and private institutions. But too often they forget that individuals and the institutions they make up our no more pure than the individuals who govern; they too are inclined toward greed and selfishness. If they are permitted, they will create an anarchy in which right belongs to the one with the most power and the will to use it.

What we are left with, then, is the question of what system tends toward the best outcome and which one promotes better morals. As said above, the extreme of either system can lead to horrific abuse. The founding fathers understood that all humans are fallible and that power must therefore divided, not only between different branches of government, but also between the government and the people. The concept of checks and balances can, I believe, extend to this level. The government should maintain laws to ensure that workers are treated fairly and that coorperations do not have unchecked ability to destroy smaller competitors. But the government also needs to take its constitutional amendments seriously, for these were put into place to protect people from their power. A quotation from the movie V for Vendetta puts it well: "People should not be afraid of their government, governments should be afraid of their people." Their power, in the words of the constitutution, should always be derived from "the consent of the governed."

Conservatives, I think, grasp this better than liberals generally do. In reality, the conservative approach is more balanced than liberalism, which seems to always want to inch toward the extreme of entrusting the government with unchecked power provide for the people as they see fit. But conservatives also must not live in the fairy-tale land where private institutions and individuals will do just what they ought to take care of the poor and the marginalized. I agree that it is they who ought to be doing this, but this side of heaven, they will not do so perfectly. (and nor will anybody else.) Government cannot simply shrug and say "that's not my job; let the lazy bums starve." But neither can any one of us say, "why should I help you? Why should I help myself? Big Brother will feed us."

The economic and political issues of our society are complex. I would be a fool to think that I could offer a simple solution. I don't have an answer. But I do have point: that we should make every thought captive to Christ, and not make Christ the captive of every thought. We should not act as though our perspective was given to us neatly written down by the hand of God, nor sign his name after our words. That being said, we can oppose the idea that the government should become a powerhouse capable of taking away people's money to give to others as only it sees fit, while understanding that it has some obligations toward first, fostering a national ethic of responsibility and charity, and second, providing an example where it must.