Are you a Christian or are you a Capitalist? The rising appeal of Democratic Socialism is a response to current inequality, as we seem forced to choose between a market that is either free or fair. This choice faces many of us when we witness capitalist inequality: to serve a Christian or a capitalist princinple. It may, however, be a false dichotomy. Must one choose between Christianity and capitalism, or can one affirm both?
Consider Christ’s famous confrontation with the rich young ruler who asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him that he lacks one thing: to go and sell his possessions and give to the poor and become Christ’s follower. This the rich man cannot do so he walks away, and Jesus says it easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven (Matthew 19:24).
So is the lesson here a form of a socialist redistribution, where the rich must give up their treasures because one cannot serve both “God and mammon?” (Matthew 6:24)
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM
Some Christians believe so. Walter Rauschenbusch in the early 1900s, as part of the Social Gospel movement, argued that only a socialist economy could bring about the Kingdom of God. In Christianity and the Social Crisis, he wrote “Man is Christianized when he puts God before self; political economy will be Christianized when it puts man before wealth. Socialistic political economy does that.” Rauschenbusch saw how capitalism created a very unlevel playing field: “Competitive commerce exalts selfishness to the dignity of a moral principle. It pits men against one another in a gladiatorial game in which there is no mercy and in which 90 percent of the combatants finally strew the arena.”
This of course echoes Karl Marx’s criticism of capitalist systems. If only the communists, who were the vanguard of the proletariat, could seize the means of production we could at last have a fair system. Communism is a secular messianic religion disguised as a political science, hoping that one small class of people would solve all their problems.
It turned out to be a tragic illusion: the small class of Soviet overlords were worse than their predecessors. Reinhold Niebuhr, who embraced then rejected socialism, saw through this and commented in Moral Man Immoral Society “There is, for instance, as yet no clear proof that the power of economic overlords can be destroyed by means less rigorous than communism has employed; but there is also no proof that communistic oligarchs, once the idealistic passion of a revolutionary period is spent, will be very preferable to the capitalistic oligarchs who they are to displace.”
Niebuhr’s warning was prophetic, but he too recognized capitalist excess: “Look at the industrial enterprise anywhere and you find criminal indifference on the part of the strong to the fate of the weak. The lust for power and greed for gain is the dominant note in business. An industrial overlord will not share his power with his workers until he is forced to do so by tremendous pressure.” Yet Niebuhr later rejected socialism because of Stalin’s tyranny. Social equality cannot be solved by dictatorship.
Christians and non-Christians alike recognize that a free market is not always a fair market, and many have asked: is there an option between capitalism and communism? Can we have a socialism that does not stifle freedom, people, and their markets as it has Castro’s Cuba, Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China, and Kim Il Sung’s North Korea? Can we have a system that has both the freedom of capitalism, and the promise of greater social equity?
CHRISTIANITY, CAPITALISM, AND GREED
In response, Mike Novak wrote The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Here he found the answer in free market democracies: “the threefold combination of democracy, capitalism, and religious liberty is the ‘middle way.’” Novak reminds us how communism suppressed the very freedom of markets that gives them their beauty and power: “At the inmost heart of a capitalist system, for instance, is confidence in the creative capacity of the human person.” Further he added “The heart of capitalism … lies in discovery, innovation, and invention.” In every communist dictatorship, top-down economic management has suppressed this precious freedom; cherished since the days Adam Smith first championed it.
What about Jesus’ confrontation with the rich young ruler? Did Christ seek to direct markets as such, or only to challenge the idol of greed which he saw reflected in the eyes of the man standing before him? Christ may not have been endorsing an economic system in Matthew 19 so much as challenging the age-old enemy of human avarice. The rich man rejected Christ because of his attitude of indifference. Christ was not indifferent. His command to distribute to the poor reflected the Judeo-Christian command to help the needy.
Beyond Novak and Niebuhr, others have argued that Christianity and capitalism are not opposed. Max Weber in the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism believed that capitalism wasn’t an enemy of Christianity, but that Christianity was its precursor. Capitalism as the sustained and planned effort to make a profit, was nothing less than a Christian man’s attempt to realize a meaningful calling; to show via his prosperity the evidence of his being among God’s elect. Weber later admitted that capitalist spirit may have outgrown its Christian roots, and perhaps that is part of the problem. Having a healthy plan to make a living and provide middle-class jobs for others is a good and Christian thing. Yet, when the demon of greed takes root, suddenly the entrepreneur only exploits others so that only he can live well.
So, what does one do? One must admit that there are things capitalism does well, things it does not do at all, as well as things for which it has no plans. Capitalism does create wealth and vibrant markets. That is what Adam Smith had argued in The Wealth of Nations, and he is still right. Free markets always beat planned economies. Capitalism does not assure, however, that free individuals will always be fair individuals. It cannot prevent a laissez faire attitude from becoming l’indifferance. Christ stared at the face of indifferent greed in the rich man long ago and so do we throughout our capitalist economies. The real menace seems to be greedy hearts which take advantage of others while using their vulnerability against them. When a boss ceases to be interested that his jobs provide for others beyond his or herself, one might question the Christian imperative in his heart. Free market economies must be governed by conscientious free governments that regulate against indifferent greed.
Here is what capitalism does well: A capitalist seeks to make a product which can be sustainably sold to a market. He or she does not often ask “am I creating comfortable middle-class jobs?” They are interested in sustained profit and competitiveness. Employees often get squeezed out in this battle, as many since Rauschenbusch and Marx have observed. Capitalism has no inherent plans to create jobs; it creates jobs that it needs to continue to be profitable and competitive today. Free entrepreneurs cannot be expected to create an economy that all participants are going to like. Yet freely elected politicians must do their part to tailor the economic needs so that we all have enough food, clothing, health care and security. A Christian can affirm Capitalism because freedom is better than economic tyranny. But a Christian cannot confuse an affirmation of laissez faire with the acceptance of l’indifferance.
