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World Council of Churches on Capitalism

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mwkruse
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Christian economists say poverty 'is the fruit of deliberate policy' is an article by the Presbyterian News Service about events at the meeting of the World Council of Churches linked at Presbyweb. Also linked is a related story, Capitalism 'unmasked' as 'savage, barbarous system,' from the Presbyterian Layman. These articles will give you some sense of the hostility toward free markets and capitalism expressed by religious elitists, most of whom I am willing to bet have never started a business or studied economics. This is one of the most instructive quotes in the PNS article:

One of those values must be cooperation, Tandon said. “Capitalism is based on competition and greed, and structurally negates cooperation,” he said. “Socialism, which is based on cooperation, has not always worked, but people everywhere are trying many cooperative models. Most all of them haven’t moved beyond the local, but they are alternative systems.”

Capitalism is not based on greed or selfishness. It is based on self-interest. Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." Inherent in his command is self-interest. When making a product, make it to the standards you would want if you were making the product for yourself. Someone else does the same with a product they make. You each value the other's product more than you value your own product. You trade, and both parties win. Capitalism does not run on greed but channels it in positive directions. If you are greedy, you are still going to have to make a quality product to make enough to satisfy your greed. The competition of ethical businesses compels greedy people to behave in positive ways.

Capitalism is the most cooperative system of economics in history. Countless thousands of people combine resources to form and operate corporations and businesses, free to engage and disengage as they see appropriate. Capitalism creates organic, fluid, coordinated action that could not have been contemplated a few short generations ago. As for socialism, it, too, achieves cooperation. When it fails to deliver the goods because there are no markets to signal supply and demand accurately, it achieves cooperation at the end of the barrel of a gun. It is probably the most "cooperative" form of economy devised. The above quote has things backward.

There are fewer things that I am more convinced of than this: Following the mostly well-intentioned agenda of the World Council of Churches will damn countless hundreds of millions (maybe billions) of people to abject poverty for the foreseeable future that otherwise would have experienced significant improvements in prosperity and freedom.

(Note: Also see follow-up post, 20 Feb 2006, Capitalism: What is it?)

Comments

8 responses to “World Council of Churches on Capitalism”

  1. Dave Avatar
    Dave

    It’s all about the most efficient allocation of resources, and how the allocation is made. The socialist insists that man is up to the job and the capitalist says that the free market can do what man cannot. And the Christian capitalist, taking it another step, trusts in the sovereign God to work through the supply/demand process.
    Why the WCC sees fit to display their economic ignorance is beyond me. Who is their anointed economist?

    Reply
  2. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    Dave you are angling at one of the issues I will get in my theology and economics posts. Economic systems are information systems. With free markets, each individual participates by signaling what he/she wants with their purchases (or non purchases.) Suppliers signal what they are willing to make (or not make) and the prices they want. It is an imperfect system but it is the most throughly integrated and cooperative system of economic information exchange their is.
    Socialism dicates what will be made and what prices will be paid regardless of what individuals in the market want. It aggregates economic decisions to a tiny handful of elites who based on their “superior” abilities (wisdom, morality, intelligence) decide what will be bought and sold and at what prices. The information about what people want and are willing to make is not just imperfect it is all but nonexistent.
    Classic “liberalism” used to mean democracy and free markets. Politically each person has a say in the political process. Economically each person has a say in economic decisions. You can’t ulitmatly have one without the other. Liberalism came into being in opposition to monarchy.
    Socialism is a call to return to monarchy or at list oligarchy. It is the belief that power is best concentrated in the hands of a few than in the hands of many.

    Reply
  3. Quotidian Grace Avatar
    Quotidian Grace

    Ah, the WCC! It drives me crazy that the PCUSA is propping up this group financially at a time our own financial status is declining.
    While I agree with most of your post, I don’t think the WCC agenda is “mostly well-intentioned” at all. It is driven by a consciously anti-American, anti-captitalist leadership. The PCUSA’s continuing membership and support of the WCC is another cause of our loss of membership. Why do we stay in this group?

    Reply
  4. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    Early in life I had sympathy for socialist thinking. One of my college yearbooks has a picture of me kicked back reading a picture of “Das Kapital” (the Karl Marx master piece). I never even came close to embracing Marxism but it was my way of tweaking those conservatives who didn’t like my questioning ways.
    My first graduate degree was from a state university in a sociology department that had developing nations as its central focus. The program was well populated by Marxist students and profs from developing nations and the US. I am very much familiar with both the people and the thinking that is going on in this environment.
    I say all that to say that while there is often considerable arrogance and elitism in these circles but I also think that many of these folks genuinely want justice. They sincerely believe they are contributing to justice. I am in sympathy with their aims but what I eventually concluded is that their means to their ends is not only in error but utopian and creates greater injustice. I don’t wholly endorse the Acton Institute but I do love their motto: “Connecting good intentions with sound economics.” That it was I believe that many of these folks do have good intentions and it is also why I choose to confront their economics.

    Reply
  5. Anthony Avatar
    Anthony

    Michael,
    I agree that there are virtues in Capitalism. BUT, when I go down in the hood and stand in the backyard of one of my poor urban neighbors and bump into a big ole’ billboard advertising tobacco products or marketing some product with militaristic and sexual imagery I wonder about the wholesale and uncritical endorsement of capitalism by many of my christian brothers and sisters. I think captialism can be ‘tamed’ but it must be critically tamed by a higher ethical vision. The Market can be just as much as a beast as any oligarchy or monarchy ever was. Check out the peasantry of the Market in your local ghetto. Signs of the dominance of Market institutions abound. Directing desire for more acquistion of militaristic and sexual imagery and toys.

    Reply
  6. will spotts Avatar
    will spotts

    I fully concede that many at the WCC assembly mean well. Even some (not all) of the leaders of this and similar groups mean well. But if people acting out of good intentions cause vast amounts of misery for countless others — then they are doing a bad thing regardless of intent.
    To ignore this predictable result, and in the name of unity between groups of Christians to allow this go on unhindered is not a noble thing. Support for the WCC as it is now constituted causes more harm in the world than good.
    That said, I would be very careful giving capitalism a Christian label — I know that’s not what you’re doing Mike, but it is still a system of this world, not a product of Christianity.
    As economic systems go, I find it more fair than any other currently at work. But there is a point at which government acts in the interest of business — where it ceases to be a free market, and instead is a “public – private partnership”. Laws are often made to benefit business at the expense of individuals — such as one-sided tort reform, for example (in which individuals are limited, but corporations are not), or laws that require individuals to use the services of businesses they do not desire — such as auto insurance or medical insurance laws, or the spending of public money to “jump start” certain businesses where private individuals profit at taxpayer’s expense, or the new uses of eminent domain (equally benefiting some private interests at the expense of others).

    Reply
  7. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    “I think captialism can be ‘tamed’ but it must be critically tamed by a higher ethical vision.”
    I fully agree Anthony. Markets are only going to be as good as the values that are fed into them. Markets can and WILL be abused. There have to be checks and balances on predatory behavior and monopolistic behavior.
    I live in the urban core and I have worked with several dozen folks, mostly section 8 residents, doing feasibility plans to start businesses. I am not unacquainted with what you are saying. I just don’t think Capitalism is the primary issue. I think the bigger problem is with the values of the participants in the market and the abandonment of entire communities by churches instead of investing in people so that they may reach their potential as image bearers of God, part of which is economic.
    One of the best presentations I ever heard was by Tom Skinner about ten years ago at a Christian Community Development Association meeting in Jackson, MS. He railed against people who come into his community living “simple lives” and who consider “profits” a dirty word. How to make profits is exactly what people needed to know. He demanded that audience swear aloud with him yelling out the word “profits” over and over again. It was pretty funny. But his main point was that folks in the hood need to be instructed and equipped in the operations of economics. That is what power in America has largely denied many in our nation while using predatory practices to exploit them. Meanwhile the Church either stands silent or offers Utopian schemes.
    I just started a series of posts on theology and economics that is leading to some of these topics. I really hope you will check back in and let me know what you think as this progresses.

    Reply
  8. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    “That said, I would be very careful giving capitalism a Christian label — I know that’s not what you’re doing Mike, but it is still a system of this world, not a product of Christianity.”
    These are important distinctions Will. Thanks. There is no economic system in the Bible. However, rudimentary capitalism began as early as 800 CE and most of its major elements were in place by about 1300 in Europe. Capitalism is not Christian but Christian thinking was directly responsible for its emergence. Of course, what exactly do we mean by capitalism is critical here as well. A book I recently read by Rodney Stark gives on of the best definitions I have read:
    “Capitalism is an economic system wherein privately owned, relatively well organized, and stable firms pursue complex commercial activities within a relatively free (unregulated) market, taking a systematic, long-term approach to investing and reinvesting wealth (directly or indirectly) in productive activities involving a hired workforce, and guided by anticipated and actual returns.” (Victory of Reason, p. 56)
    The danger I see is between baptizing Capitalism as God’s will for the world versus opting for Utopian schemes that ignore human sin and corruption. Neither of these is healthy. Capitalism has evolved into what is now and is still evolving. The answer to me seems to be Christians engaging the markets with New Jerusalem values all the time recognizing there is only one who will bring the New Jerusalem.

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