1. Understand the benefits of Judeo-Christian ethics, mutual trust, and voluntar
ID: 427257 • Letter: 1
Question
1. Understand the benefits of Judeo-Christian ethics, mutual trust, and voluntary cooperation in a free society.
2. Explain why property rights secure individual liberty, encourage mutually beneficial cooperation, and promote the wise stewardship of scarce resources.
3. Describe the concepts of limited government and the rule of law, and explain how these institutions function in a free society.
4. Explain how the founders of the United States understood the concept of individual liberty and how it might be secured for future generations.
5. Distinguish between different theories of human nature and describe their implications for social, political and economic institutions.
6. Trace the historical development of the case for a free enterprise system and identify some of the key arguments made by its leading proponents and critics.
7. Distinguish between the centralized (planning) and decentralized (market) theories of economic development and use historical examples to illustrate the merits of each.
8. Explain the nature and contribution of entrepreneurship and competition in a free market.
9. Describe the personality, character and skills necessary for individual success in competitive business and enterprise.
Explanation / Answer
The spread of market-related activity has lead to increasingly widespread discussion of the moral basis of capitalism. We’ve witnessed over the past quarter century the collapse of centrally planned economies in Eastern Europe, the implosion of the Soviet Union, and the adoption of market reforms in China, India and elsewhere in southern and eastern Asia. Indeed, today very few socialist economies remain as capitalism is pervasive around the globe, albeit in different forms.
These events, sometimes captured under the rubric of ‘economic globalization under capitalism’, have spurred theological reflection on the presence of moral foundations in capitalism. While some Christian scholars celebrate its moral underpinnings, many others doubt the nature of its moral grounding.
Of course, modern capitalism has been the subject of scorn by those who are not theologians. Capitalism’s alleged perverse effects on civil society are showcased in a political scientist’s work Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole (Barber, 2008). Going much further, the late leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, who was never known for verbal restraint, remarked that ‘Capitalism killed Mars.’ Civilization came to Mars but capitalism killed it. But we can remain on this planet to find caricatures of capitalism, as depicted in this representation of the anticipated outcome of a wider free trade zone in the Americas (slide).
More serious criticisms of capitalism have been leveled (Bell 2012; Cavanaugh 2008). One relevant example is that capitalism is said be an impersonal economic system that overlooks the needs of the poor.
Christian philosopher Kent Van Til declares “The poor do not have the ability to pay the price asked by the market. Hence the market doesn’t respond to their needs, but only satisfies the wants of those with sufficient income” (Less Than Two Dollars a Day: A Christian View of World Poverty and the Free Market 2007, 52-53).
What are to make of this particular critique and other related challenges?
Clearly they must be taken seriously and evaluated without caricature if we are to rightly evaluate capitalism in light of Christian ethics. I will offer this morning a qualified positive evaluation of capitalism on the basis of Christian values. In the twenty minutes I have for this presentation I will limit my evaluation to several features of the ongoing debate, in the main those surrounding capitalism and poverty, the subject of this panel. In the paper I draw on Holy Scripture and the tradition of Christian teaching on economic matters for my sources.
Written in the ancient Mediterranean world, the Bible clearly predates capitalism and offers no blueprint for any particular economic system. Yet the principles God directs ancient Israel to organize their economic activity around in the Pentateuch, wisdom and prophetic literature reflect unique godly values for economic institutions. In the New Testament we find Jesus expanding on these values even as market-related institutions slowly begin to develop in first-century Palestine.
By the time that the earliest form of capitalism arrives in Europe (concurrent with a commercial revolution) in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, there is a burgeoning body of Christian reflection seeking to apply Scriptural values to the marketplace. Since then Protestant theologians, Roman Catholic Popes, and Eastern Orthodox scholars have addressed the implications of the Industrial Revolution in search of the appropriate moral language to evaluate the dynamics of industrial capitalism. Modern capitalism is certainly no less deserving of scrutiny by Christians.
I will attempt to contribute to that dialogue here. With certain significant caveats in place, which I will name, I find that capitalism is largely compatible with Christian ethics.
Christian Ethics and Market Economic Activity
What do we mean by capitalism?
Capitalism is a system of economic and so
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