Christian rejection of capitalism

["Barry Brooks" <durable@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Most educated Christians are aware that the early church was
communistic.   Here's a rare call to end capitalism from a
Christian group.

Barry


http://www.rmbowman.com/catholic/econom.htm


Brief History of Christianity and Capitalism

It wasn't always thus. For most of its 2,000 year history,
Christianity not only frowned on capitalism, but banned it
outright. Capitalism is making money with money. Interest,
capital gains, investment income - everything we call "unearned
income" - these are the lifeblood of capitalism. But until
fairly recently, they were all banned by the Christian churches.
Even buying and selling at a profit was proscribed. It was
unthinkable for a Christian to be a businessman.

This Christian view of economics is grounded in the Bible. The
law against charging interest goes back to Exodus 22: 24-25, "If
you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people,
you shall not act like an extortioner toward him by demanding
interest from him." This prohibition is repeated 22 times in the
Old Testament. Proverbs 28:8 says, "He who increases his wealth
by interest and overcharge amasses it for someone else who will
bestow it on the poor." Psalm 15 says, "Yahweh, who can find a
home in your tent, who can dwell on your holy mountain? Whoever
lives blamelessly, who acts uprightly, who speaks the truth from
the heart, ... who asks no interest on loans, who takes no bribe
to harm the innocent. No one who so acts can ever be shaken."

Deuteronomy 15:1-11 orders the cancellation of all debts at the
end of every seventh year. And it cautions against refusing to
lend to one in need because this time is near. So your loan will
never be repaid to you. So what? The Lord will take care of you.
But if you refuse one in need, the Lord will hold you "guilty of
sin." "I command you to open your hand to your countrymen who
are poor and needy." Deuteronomy 24: 19-21 establishes gleaners
rights for "the alien, the fatherless, and the widow."

The New Testament also has some things to say about economics.
Most of them should be profoundly troubling to the wealthy.
James 5:1, for example, says, "Next a word to you who are rich.
Weep and wail over the miserable fate overtaking you: your
riches ... will be evidence against you and consume your flesh
like fire. ... You have lived on the land in wanton luxury,
gorging yourselves - and on the day appointed for your
slaughter."

Jesus himself had much to say on the subject. Perhaps the most
famous is Matthew 19: 21-24: "If you wish to be perfect, go,
sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have
treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. ... Amen, I say to
you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of
heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter
the kingdom of God."

The early Christians took these sayings very seriously. The
first century Didache said, "Do not claim that anything is your
own." Around the year 200, Clement of Alexandria said, "All
possessions are by nature unrighteous; when one possesses them
for personal advantage and does not bring them into the common
stock for those in need." Basil the Great, about 400 A.D., said
"That bread which you keep belongs to the hungry; that coat in
your closet, to the naked." St. Augustine said, "Business is in
itself an evil." Jerome, who disagreed with Augustine on many
things, did not on this. He said, "A man who is a merchant can
seldom if ever please God." St. John Chrysostom put it this way,
"How did you become rich? Can you show the acquisition just? It
cannot be. The root and origin of it must have been injustice."

For 1500 years, the church banned charging interest. The reason
Jews got such a bad reputation as bankers and merchants was that
they were engaging in practices forbidden to Christians. (The
irony is that all the Biblical passages against interest are in
the Hebrew scriptures, not the New Testament. For some reason,
the Christians took them more seriously than the Jews, at least
for a while.)

In 1635, a Boston merchant was convicted of greed because he
sold goods at a 6% markup - 2% higher than allowed by law. The
charges against him were brought by the elders of the church,
who said he had defamed God's name. But the fact that he was
allowed to make any profit at all was a change brought about
largely by the Protestant reformation.

By the 1800s, the restrictions on Christian participation in
commerce were being widely ignored. Yet even in the twentieth
century, Christian leaders have occasionally spoken out. Pope
Pius XI, in his 1931 encyclical Quadragessimo Ano, said, "The
free market, of its own nature, concentrates power in those who
are anti-social, in those who fight most violently and give
least heed to their conscience." Even the conservative and very
anti-communist John Paul II has had strong words about the
abuses and dangers of unbridled capitalism. (Why is it that
conservative Roman Catholics who hang on every word the Pope
says when condemning homosexuality or prohibiting women priests
pay not the slightest attention when he condemns the gulf
between rich and poor under capitalism, or when he condemns
nuclear weapons and militarism or the death penalty. It would
seem that those who ignore the ban on birth control are not the
only "cafeteria Catholics." For that matter, why is it that
Protestants who take the Bible very literally when it comes to
sexual practices someone else engages in, are able to explain
away the clear Biblical prohibitions on economic activities they
engage in??)

But Capitalism Works

Most Christians today (with the exception of a few small groups
of Amish, the Quakers, and those in Bruderhof communities and
Catholic Worker houses) would probably write off this history of
antipathy between Christianity and capitalism as irrelevant
leftovers from a very different world. After all, experience has
shown that people are much better off under capitalism. The
standard of living is higher. People are freer. Capitalism
works. We won the Cold War not just because of our military
might, but because our system is better. Everybody knows that.

Yes, everybody knows that. But is it true? People today know
lots of things that aren't true. Maybe we should examine this
common knowledge a little more closely. In essence, Christians
have discarded all the Biblical, theological, and spiritual
arguments against capitalism, and opted for pragmatism. They
have embraced capitalism because it works. After all, look at
how much better life is in capitalist America than it was in the
communist Soviet Union. (At least, that's what we've been told.)

Actually, it's not at all clear that life here is "better" than
it was in the Soviet Union under communism. More affluent, but
not necessarily better. But that's hardly a fair comparison.
Look at the different starting points. The U.S. in 1917 was
rich, powerful, awash with resources. Russia was still a feudal
society. In 1945, we had as much wealth as the rest of the world
put together, and were unscathed by the war. The Soviet Union
was in ruins. A fairer comparison would be the communist Soviet
Union of the 1980s compared to capitalist Russia in the 1990s.

In the old Soviet Union, there were few signs of affluence. Yet,
at the same time, there were no signs of abject poverty. There
were no homeless, no jobless, no bag ladies, no muggings, no
carjackings, Medical care (such as it was) and higher education
were free. Food was highly subsidized. With all the
inefficiencies of their system, they were still able to provide
for the basic needs of their people.

The capitalist Russia of today is something else altogether. A
handful of "entrepreneurs" and crooks ride around in luxury
limousines, while the vast majority of Russians are much worse
off than before. Devaluation of the ruble has wiped out savings
and made pensions worthless. Millions have been made destitute.
Military officers, unpaid for months, drive taxis trying to feed
their families. Crime, corruption, homelessness, hunger,
unemployment, hopelessness, pornography, and despair - these are
the fruits of capitalism in Russia today.

Ask a Russian how well capitalism is working for her or him.

So what about Cuba? Isn't Cuba another example of the failure of
socialism? And isn't Nicaragua another communist failure?
Actually, the quality of life in these countries improved
enormously under communism. Education became available. Literacy
rates soared. Health care improved. (In some ways, it is still
better in Cuba than in Florida.) Even the standard of living in
these countries rose - at least until opposition, aggression,
and boycott by the United States began to take its economic
toll. The subsequent economic decline of Nicaragua and Cuba is
less indicative of the failure of socialism than it is of the
success of the bullying tactics of U.S.-based multinational
corporations and their wholly-owned subsidiaries in the CIA, the
Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House basement.

The truth of the matter is that communism has not succeeded
because the global power elite are determined not to let it
succeed.

Another myth that needs dispelling is that communism is
intrinsically atheistic. It was officially so in the Soviet
Union only because the church was a strident supporter of the
economic and political status quo under the czars. In Nicaragua,
the Sandinista government in the 1980s was communist and yet
thoroughly Christian, both in official policy and in practice.
There is absolutely nothing incompatible between Christianity
and socialism. In the Book of Acts we learn that the early
Christians practiced a purer, more radical form of communism
than can be found in any country today. Traces still exist in
the Bruderhofs and other small Christian communities. (You won't
find groups of atheists living that way.)

A criticism at this point might go like this: "So maybe
communism never got a fair trial. So what? It couldn't possibly
work as well as what we have right now. Why play around with
socialist experiments when we already know capitalism works?"

But does it really? Let's take a look at capitalism's record
here in the United States.

It had its ups and downs in our first century and a half. By the
1920s it was really roaring. "The business of America is
business." Remember? Then came the crash. Right behind it,
fortunately, came Franklin D. Roosevelt.

First, Roosevelt recognized the problem. Listen to excerpts from
his second inaugural address. "I see millions of families trying
to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster
hangs over them day by day. I see one third of a nation
ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-fed."

Next, Roosevelt identified the source of the problem. " We have
begun to bring private, autocratic powers into their proper
subordination to the public's government. A legend that they
were invincible, above and beyond the processes of democracy,
has been shattered. They have been challenged and beaten." He
was talking about corporations.

Roosevelt knew that only the power of the government could
protect the people from the power of "Private, autocratic
powers" (corporations). No talk from him about government not
being the solution! "We're going to find through government the
instrument of our united purpose." "Repeated attempts at
solution without the aid of government have left us baffled and
bewildered, ... we must find practical controls over blind
economic forces and blindly selfish men."

Roosevelt did find the way. Through a combination of social
security, government jobs, and other socialist measures, he
overcame the power of the Standard Oil trust and other
conglomerates and raised the people out of poverty and despair.
After the war, the government went further into debt to fund the
GI Bill. It turned out to be the best investment yet. The 1950s
(which conservatives always want to take us back to) saw top tax
brackets of 90% - and saw the emergence of a true middle class.

Of course, it wasn't just the wealthy individuals that financed
the boom. Corporations paid 39% of all income taxes back then.
By 1991 their share was down to 9%. (This in spite of the fact
that corporations were getting a much larger share of the
nation's wealth.)

By the early 70s, poverty in the United States was way down, the
result not of unbridled capitalism, but of its combination with
socialist policies.

But then people forgot that government was their only protection
from corporate power. Government disgraced itself with the
Vietnam War, and the corporations geared up for a comeback. They
learned how to manipulate public opinion through the media. They
also learned how to control politicians through campaign
donations. The result was the election in 1980 of Ronald Reagan
and the beginning of the Reagan revolution.

During the Reagan years, government controls on corporate power
were dismantled, the unions were emasculated, corporate greed
was deregulated, top tax rates were slashed, government
protection for workers and the environment was weakened, and
social programs were squeezed out by Pentagon spending. The end
result was a purer form of capitalism. Was this a good thing? Is
capitalism working for us? The best we can do in our attempt to
answer these questions is to look at statistics. Unfortunately,
relevant or consistent statistics are not always easy to come
by. But what is available tells a pretty clear story.

Is Capitalism Working Today?

>From 1977 to 1989 the top 1% (income over $350,000/yr) received
72% of the country's income gains (while at the same time their
taxes were cut $83 Billion a year). During this same period, the
bottom 60% of us actually had our incomes go down.

>From 1973 to 1993, wages of low income laborers (janitors, etc.)
went down 15%. Wages of production workers went down 20%. Wages
of young male high school grads went down 30%. Wages of
middle-age men with 4 years of college went down 24%. And the
total wages of those earning a million dollars or more a year
shot up an average of 243% per year !!!

In 1952, the average factory worker had to work one day to earn
the closing costs for a brand new home in Levittown, PA. In
1991, it took the average factory worker (if he was lucky enough
to have a job) 126 days to earn the closing costs on the same
(now 40-year old) house! What's worse, the average factory
worker now doesn't make enough to qualify for a mortgage on that
40-year old tract house.

In 1970, the median Philadelphia family paid $1,689 in income
and social security taxes. In 1989, they paid $8,491. Meanwhile,
the average taxes paid by millionaires went down by $436,389
each per year.

In 1982, 75% of workers at companies with 100 or more employees
had fully-paid health coverage. In 1989, only 48% of them were
covered.

>From 1980 to 1993, the Fortune 500 companies eliminated 4.4
million jobs, while sales increased 140%, assets 230%, and CEO
compensation 610%. These companies employ 0.05% of the world's
population, but control 25% of its output and 70% of the world's
trade.

The standard of living in this country is going down fairly
rapidly. All too often both husband and wife must work, and many
have two and three jobs, none of which have benefits or
retirement plans. Why is this happening? We used to be told
productivity was everything. Has productivity gone down? Hardly!
In fact, productivity has been going up so fast that companies
can get by with a small fraction of the work force they once
employed.

So what's happening? Why hasn't increased productivity paid off
for workers with higher wages and shorter hours? Here's your
answer.

Manufacturing workers produce an average of $95,519 worth of
product per year, or $1,837 per week. Of this, $330 goes to the
worker, $64 goes to the government in taxes, and $1,443 goes to
the corporation for overhead, interest, advertising, and
profits. Corporate lobbyists try to get workers excited about
the $64 in taxes they're not getting. Nobody mentions the $1,443
per week they're being "taxed" by the corporation. In the good
old days, the average CEO made a salary 10 to 15 times that of
the average factory worker. Today, they make 150 times as much!

All this helps explain why the net assets of the 400 richest
Americans is $300 Billion, while the total net assets of the 150
million poorest Americans is zero.

Capitalism is working???

If just the unearned income of the fatcats were redistributed,
every adult American could be given $30,000 a year!! (See The
$30,000 Solution by Robert Shutz, PhD, Fithian Press.)

In 1970, the richest 1% of Americans owned 20% of the nation's
wealth. By 1989, it was 40%, and it's still going up. In
England, with its royalty, its class system, and all that, it's
only 18%.

The rate of child poverty in the U.S. is four times that of
Western Europe. Among all industrialized countries, we're #1.
Number one in child poverty. Number one in the gap between rich
and poor. Number one in unimmunized children. Number one in teen
pregnancy. Number one in deaths by gunfire. Number one in
poverty among the elderly. Number one in citizens without
medical coverage.

And just for a second, let's take a look at capitalism on a
global scale. At last count, there were 358 billionaires. Their
assets exceed the total annual income of over 2.8 billion people
and whole nations containing 45% of the earth's poplulation. The
common myth is that there's not enough rich people to make a
dent in poverty even if all their wealth were taken away. The
fact is that while nobody's advocating doing it, redistributing
the assets of 358 people could double the income of half the
people on earth!

Nike pays Michael Jordan more to advertise their shoes than they
pay all the workers in all the factories who make them. If
Michael were willing to get by on just the several millions a
year he gets for actually playing basketball, he could double
the salary of all the women and children making Nike shoes.
Throw in his salary from Wheaties and he could do better than
that. (This is not meant as a criticism of Michael Jordan, but
of Nike and its priorities.)

In the last 30 years, the richest 20% of the world's population
saw their share of global income rise from 70% to 85%. And the
share of the poorest 20% fell from 2.3% to 1.4%.

Global capitalism is working??

But things are changing. We have welfare "reform." As Jerry
Brown points out, Franklin Roosevelt made it possible for widows
and single mothers to stay home and raise their children to be
solid citizens. Now the goal is to institutionalize the children
and force the mother to find a job for $5.50 an hour. (Where we
are going to find jobs for the 14 million officially unemployed
and the 35 million who have dropped out of the system, nobody
knows. The Federal Reserve is committed to maintaining
unemployment at near present levels to keep inflation down. The
bond holders like it that way.)

So much for pragmatism. Our current form of capitalism may be
working for the wealthy few, but it's sure not working for the
many. It never has worked for the African-American youth in the
inner cities. (Even in the glorious 50s, they were largely left
out. It's just that nobody noticed back then.)

It isn't even working for what's left of the middle class. Job
security is a thing of the past. And as things get more and more
intolerable for the underclass, everyone is endangered. As Rev.
William Sloane Coffin used to say, "Those who make peaceful
change impossible make violent change inevitable," and "You
can't have a revolt without revolting conditions."

The truth is that capitalism isn't working. It's not working in
the United States. And it's a living hell for people in Russia,
Mexico, Honduras, Peru, Indonesia, and around the world.

Capitalism and Consumption

Maybe it's time to reexamine Christianity's historical
opposition to capitalism. It's not enough to look at what it
does for GDP. What does it do for spiritual values? What did it
do for the young men now on death row? What did it do for Imelda
Marcos? What did it do for Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker? What did
it do for O. J. Simpson? Though he seems like a great guy now,
what might it be doing for Michael Jordan? What is it doing for
the rest of us?

One hint of what it might be doing to us can be gleaned from the
words of Victor Lebow, a businessman. In 1955, he said, "Our
enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption
our way of life, .. that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our
ego satisfaction, in consumption. We need things consumed,
burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever
increasing rate." (Well, that has sure been brought about, with
devastating effects on the invironment and the earth's natural
resources, and uncertain effects on the human spirit.)

Capitalism and Democracy

Capitalism is often equated with democracy and freedom. Wrongly!
Kuwait, a bastion of capitalism, has no democracy and very
little freedom. It is an autocracy ruled by and for the male
members of a single family. Turkey, Singapore, Peru, Saudi
Arabia, Guatemala, South Korea, Taiwan, Mexico - these
capitalist friends of the U.S. are basically military
dictatorships. When the U.S. government talks about promoting
democracy around the world, what it really means is the
promotion of capitalism. Why? For the benefit of our oligarchy
and their multinational banks and corporations. Even China now
gets Most Favored Nation (MFN) status because it has allowed our
corporations to come in and profit from the sale of Chinese
goods (made too often by slave labor and child labor) to
Americans and others. The Sandinista government of Nicaragua was
far more democratic than many of our capitalist trading
partners. They were vilified because they would not let our
corporations exploit their people. It's the same with Cuba.

It's true that most communist countries lacked democracy.
Political freedoms were restricted. They could think of no other
way to limit the political power of the oligarchy. They found
that needed changes could not be brought about if the wealthy
were allowed to use their resources to manipulate public
opinion.

Look at what happens in this country. The people have the vote;
but the oligarchs have the politicians, and the media. In 1993,
almost everyone wanted a true national health program. President
Clinton didn't think he could get one, so he tried to mollify
the huge insurance industry by proposing a half-baked scheme
that would let them continue to profit by shuffling paper. But
that wasn't enough for them. So they turned on him, made sure
Congress wouldn't pass anything, then used the media to convince
the people they didn't want it after all.

This excessive power of the wealthy few is not democracy. The
Supreme Court has said that corporations have first amendment
rights of free speech just like individuals, and that they
include the right to spend as much money as they want to
influence the outcome of elections. This is not democracy. It is
oligarchy. Corporations are not citizens. They should not have
such rights. Laws restricting the rights of corporations are
essential if the people are to be empowered.

Campaign finance reform is the fundamental reform that might
give capitalism a chance to work. As long as large corporations
rule (FDR's private, autocratic powers), no significant progress
will be made on issues of importance to people and families.
Politics in this country has come down to a struggle for the
control of government between corporations and the people. And
ever since John F. Kennedy was killed, the corporations have
been winning. They are now succeeding in downsizing government
and limiting its power over them. They call it deregulating.
They do it in the name of small business. But small businesses
have nothing to do with it. It is very big business indeed.

The sad fact is that today's brand of capitalism is destroying
democracy, here and around the world.

Corporations are more powerful than national governments,
including our own. Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 50
are corporations, not nations. It's actually worse than that,
because nations count in their GDP all the funds earned by
corporations, even if those funds do not get taxed, but leave
forever for some offshore tax haven or Swiss bank.

Have you ever thought why the United States, historically the
richest nation on earth, is about five trillion dollars in debt?
And we're not alone. Most other nations are in debt, too.
European countries can't fund their social programs. The
Russians can't pay government workers or soldiers. Third World
countries have crushing debt burdens they can never repay. Poor
African nations pay far more in interest on their debt than all
the aid they receive. So what's going on? If all these nations
are in debt, to whom? Who are on the other side of the ledger?
Who owns the twenty trillion dollars the rest of us owe? The
answer to that is easy. The corporations and banks and their
owners, and big bond holders (those 358 billionaires).

With their ownership of the media (remember their attacks on NPR
and PBS whom they don't control?), with hordes of lawyers, and
with almost limitless funds, big corporations buy up politicians
of both political parties, and manipulate public opinion to suit
their financial interests. With NAFTA and GATT, they can now
(through the WTO and its secret deliberations) overrule and
invalidate the laws of any nation. The vote means nothing if all
your choices are company men and the laws your legislators pass
can be thrown out by corporate lawyers.

Today's capitalism is making democracy nothing but a hollow
word!

What Then Should Christians Think About Capitalism?

The bottom line is that capitalism is based on practices
prohibited by the Bible and banned by the church for 1500 years.
Capitalism, without appropriate socialist add-ons always
magnifies the grotesque gap between rich and poor. This results
in a small percentage of rich people with little chance for
salvation and great suffering for the poor whom God loves.
Theologically, capitalism is inconsistent with the teaching and
example of Jesus and is opposed to the Gospel and the basic
tenets of Christianity. What's more, capitalism doesn't work -
at least not for the majority of people. Capitalism as a system
is dependent on consumerism and is therefore highly destructive
of spiritual values. Capitalism without strong government
controls leads to corporate tyranny and is antithetical to
democracy, freedom, and human rights. Capitalist interests have
led to the slaughter of millions of peasants and ordinary people
(many of them Christians) in banana republics and "Third World"
countries around the globe. This slaughter has been carried out
by our sons and daughters at the direction of U.S.
administrations beholden to The United Fruit Company, Exxon,
Chiquita Banana, Domino Sugar, the Chase Manhattan Bank, and
other corporate interests. To our great shame, we in America
have been the "Evil Empire" and have forcefully prevented God's
people in other countries from attaining freedom, peace,
democracy, or economic justice. Our idolatrous worship of
capitalism and the almighty dollar and our misguided patriotism
have turned us against God and his people. If we do not gain
control of the beast we have unleashed, it will inevitably turn
on us (as it has already begun to do). If we do not gain control
of the "private, autocratic powers," and the "blind economic
forces and blindly selfish men" identified by FDR, they will
devour us just as surely as they devoured the Christian base
communities of Nicaragua, the Jesuit priests and Maryknoll
sisters in El Salvador, and the indigenous people of Chiapas,
Mexico.

Wake up Christians! The enemy are not conservative Christians or
liberals, not left-wing Democrats or Country-Club Republicans.
The enemy is the same one faced and tamed by FDR - secular
forces beholden only to the bottom line.

What Can Christians Do?

The first thing we must do is face the truth and give up our
love affair with capitalism. We must work toward a system which
balances the proven incentives of capitalism, the compassion and
justice of socialism, and the respect for God's creation of the
Quakers, whose motto is "Live simply, that others may simply
live."

Then we must read the Bible with new eyes, letting God open us
to Amos and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Jesus, and their
"preferential option for the poor." We must ask the Holy Spirit
to help us understand the application in our own lives of "Let
justice flow down like waters, and righteousness like an
ever-flowing stream."

We must understand that until corporations are not allowed to
engage in the political process at all, both political parties
will be subject to their will and unable to support real
Christian values. We must support the federal government's
efforts to subordinate corporate power, but we must put our
ultimate trust in the Lord. And may God grant us strength to
persevere.





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