Is Christianity Compatible with Capitalism?
Yaron Brook from the Ayn Rand Institute debated this at Stanford University with Dr. Jennifer Morse of the Acton Institute for the study of Religion & Liberty.
A great debate for a quiet Sunday.
Watch it online at ARC-TV:
14 comments:
Christianity was the original socialism. The crucial difference, however, between Christianity and modern socialism, is that modern socialism is involuntary, and forced on you at the barrel of a gun. Christianity, however, is entirely voluntary. Nobody is making you be nice, redistribute your wealth, and share your resources, unless you count God of course.
To say that Christianity is compatible with capitalism is, however, not to say all that much, since capitalism is the absence of an organising social system, rather than a system in itself. But in order to have a Christian society, one must have a voluntary, and capitalist, base. Christianity (the voluntary sharing of wealth) and modern socialism (the forced sharing of wealth) are oil and water to each other - they cannot exist effectively together. That's why the Church in Eastern Europe was the primary source of the downfall of communism in many of those countries.
Christianity is entirely compatible with capitalism? I agree with what Blair said above in regards to involuntary & voluntary.
Both Christianity and socialism advocate altruism....the dogma of self sacrifice to the "common good" (whatever form that may take in the context of the place/time).Socialism picked up the altruist baton dropped by a waning church and reinvigorated it by promising heaven on earth now rather than in an imaginary afterlfe tomorrow.
Capitalism upholds individualism and a mans right to live for his own sake and repudiates the slave doctrine of altruism....Christianity is inseperable from the call to sacrifice yourself to others.That is the main reason that Christianity and Capitalism are incompatible.
Yaron Brook nailed it toward the end when he pointed out that faith is the negation of reason.
Anyone who rejects reason is going to have a hard time dealing with reality.
Yes.In her closing address Morse went rather emotive about the "fact" that Jesus lived and rose from the dead and there were witnesses.I'd like to know where her evidence for this claim outside of the very edited Bible is...
Brooks point on faith being the rejection of reason was gold.Its akin to someone saying "I don't like these facts of existence Im confronted with so Im making up my own fantasy in my mind of how things should be".
Is the uptake of religious faith by one person all that different from someone else who immerces themselves in online games like World of Warcraft etc...? Is reality too terrible to bear so fantasy becomes a refuge?
"since capitalism is the absence of an organising social system"
This is misleading at best. No capitalist society could exist in the absence of objective laws and an enforcement mechanism protecting property rights and enforcing contracts. Further, a shared set of basic values - a more or less coherent philosophy that values individuals and their relations - is a must.
I.e. Capitalism does not imply - nor could it co-exist with - legal or social anarchy.
Capitalism upholds individualism and a mans right to live for his own sake and repudiates the slave doctrine of altruism....
Capitalism does no such thing. You are confusing capitalism with objectivism. Capitalism does not take a moral stance on the individual. You can form a voluntary commune within a capitalist system (ie. the kibbutzim in Israel) and capitalism won't wag its finger at you and spank you on the bum. Capitalism doesn't care what you do unless it is force or fraud against another person or their property. It doesn't care whether you worship a god or whether you don't believe in one.
No capitalist society could exist in the absence of objective laws and an enforcement mechanism protecting property rights and enforcing contracts.
Yes, but those laws don't define a system. The laws come into being because capitalism (albeit in an anarchic form) already exists, not because they are an imposition of capitalism. Whereas socialism, feudalism and slave-based economies have to be contructed by the laws themselves.
"Yes, but those laws don't define a system."
Huh? The legal system is a system. The constitutional republic of the United States is a system defined by that document.
If, in your view, those laws don't define "a system" then we're using very different dictionaries.
Blair said...
...since capitalism is the absence of an organising social system
Blair, I take it that you meant to say, absence of a central organising social system?
I think that when there is lack of central control, then capitalism flourishes as a self-organising system on its own, where social order emerges. This is Hayek's view. But Hayek's view didn't say whether this self-organising & self-emergent dynamical system behaviors work best only in an environment where agents are religious or atheists, none whatsoever, unless someone here can point me otherwise.
I entirely agree with your assertion that Capitalism doesn't care what you do unless it is force or fraud against another person or their property.
@ Blair: The word “capitalism” means different things in different contexts. It can have an economic meaning, a political meaning, or more of a philosophic meaning. For instance you can see the sharemarket and say this is ‘capitalism’ at work, without any overt political meaning.
But aside from these linguistics, the point is this: For capitalism the economic system to work, you need a certain political framework – free markets, property rights, etc. In turn, I would argue that political framework requires a certain *philosophical* framework.
You could try to establish a ‘capitalist’ sharemarket in a socialist country, but it will be doomed to failure because of the inherent contradiction. Similarly, you could try to establish free markets, property rights and so on in a culture mired in collectivism, but it will be equally prone to failure for the same reason. The history of NZ the past 25 years is a case in point.
Under a capitalist political system you can go join a commune; agreed. But if a large part of the culture regarded living in communes as a moral imperative, it's unlikely your capitalist system would last for long.
Blair, are you saying that capitalism (the political system) can exist within *any* philosophical framework?
Blair, are you saying that capitalism (the political system) can exist within *any* philosophical framework?
I'm saying that capitalism, and the whole point of capitalism, is that people can live as they please, provided they are not forced to do so. This means they can join a commune if they want, or even indenture themselves if that's what turns them on. The only thing they can't do is take other people's stuff in the process. Capitalism does not oblige you to be individualistic - it just obliges you to let other people live as they wish, just as you do.
You seem to be saying that if communes become popular, then the society ceases to be capitalist, because individuals would have a hard time living within the society. Not so. There are things that are very difficult to do now in society (showing up nude to work, for example, casualwear in business meetings, Kentucky Fried Kitten), but that doesn't make a society any less capitalist. People will always have their preferences, and it will always be necessary to conform to others' expectations in order to get on, but that's all down to the autonomy of the choices of others - not coercion per se.
Blair, I'm not saying capitalism requires anything from individuals. I'm saying the opposite - only certain ideas *require capitalism* - and without those ideas, most people will be agin it!
Poltics follows morality. If you believe it's morally superior to live in a commune, you're likely to be collectivist in outlook - and unlikely to want a political system that encourages individuality, are you?
Capitalism is merely the desire for people to accumulate for survival, safety, personal gain, satisfaction etc. It is not political per se, and is even thriving in China where many human rights are ignored.
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