Capitalism and Christianity
August 3
Out of Control, Out of Balance: Capitalism, Christianity and Cancer
Most topics that I write about are ones that I have been thinking about for some time. Additionally, sometimes, ideas occur to me while writing. These past two days, however, I have been putting information and ideas together in my mind in new ways, with help from talk show host Thom Hartmann, and an assist from Bill Gates, although I have not had a chance to write these ideas down until now.
First, here is the idea provided by Thom Hartmann. He was talking on his radio show with guest Gus Speth about Speth's new book entitled "Bridge at the End of the World," which is about our current environmental crisis, and Thom Hartmann mentioned that capitalism follows a cancer model, by which I take it that he means it is linear in nature, wanting to grow profits out to infinity -- the more profits, the better, without regard for anything else. Meanwhile, Gus Speth, whose book Thom and his son Justin reviewed on Buzzflash.com, was talking about how we needed a new kind of capitalism, one which does not follow a cancer model, but is more attuned to maintaining a healthy environment (going "green"), rather than extracting and using every bit of possible profitable material, even non-renewable materials, as quickly as possible, leading to environmental stress and potential disaster. The second impetus for my new ideas came yesterday in the form of Time magazine, which had an article by Bill Gates about how to use capitalism constructively rather than destructively, by practicing what he calls "creative capitalism."
Suddenly, the insights of others about capitalism were combined in my mind with a similar insight about Christianity and other monotheistic religions. These are religions of imbalance, religions which are not concerned with the homeostatic processes needed to maintain a healthy planet, or a healthy society. In the monotheistic religion version of reality, which we see in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, the greater a person's faith, the better. The truly religious person is seen as being in this world, but not of this world. Furthermore, the faithful are asked to follow and believe in ancient, egocentric and simple-minded tenets ad inifinitum: "Be fruitful and multiply;" the Bible says; the beasts and fruits of the world are viewed as ordained by God to belong to us; therefore, the world (and indeed, the entire universe) is seen as having been created for the sole purpose of harboring humanity, so everything is ours to use as we see fit; the world is seen is having a limited time frame, as though the world began when human life began, and as though it will end in the relatively near future with some calamatous set of events separating the pious from the wicked. These are ignorant, dangerous, egocentric and therefore, wicked ideas themselves. They remove all constraints from our behavior as a society in relation to the environment. Thus, we are invited to breed without restraint, exploit natural resources and other forms of life without reservation. Basically, it is an unrestrained capitalist model of the world, a cancer model, if you will. Viewing Christianity this way shows us that the marriage of religion and capitalism is only natural. The only caveat is that in unrestrained capitalism, business owners need to be willing to exploit workers, as well, if they are to maximize their profits. In fact, slavery is the prototypical example of a capitalist system.
With this in mind, it is no wonder that we are in the mess that we are today -- how capitalism and religion are running amuck, and people are questioning more and more the role of both in society, at least here in the United States. The rich keep getting richer -- and the larger churhes enriching themselves -- while the poor keep getting poorer. The limits of capitalism, as well as the limits of religious influence, in helping lives for the better, have become more and more apparent over time. In its early stages, capitalism generates much wealth, amid healthy competition, which results in improving standards of living. Eventually, however, competition declines, mergers increase, and corporate influence on government increases as well. Deregulation follows, ending in an unbalanced and extremely unfair economy, one in which a few people benefit at the expense of the many; this is the "cancer stage of capitalism" according to Hartmann, and we are in it now. With a new religion, at first, it is an improvement upon what had prevailed before. A successful new religion generally represents newer and more enlightened ways of thinking about spirituality; all of humanity and the universe is one entity under one God; let us treat each other as equals, from the greatest among us, to the least among us; let us communicate more directly with God. Religions, however, can be easily seen to be products of humankind, with some spiritual inspiration mixed in. Whatever spirituality there is in the religion, it is put through a human filter, a filter which consists of culture, the personalitiies of the individuals who create the religion, and the times in which they live. As time goes on, the ideas represented by a religion become more and more archaic, more primitive in contrast to modern knowledge and thought. As with capitalism, the faults of these supposedly faultless, divinely-inspired religions become more and more evident. Religions clash with brutal and devastatingly murderous results. Religions inculcate intolerance and hatred for people who have done nothing wrong. They promote ideas disproven by science. Eventually, religions become the domain of the willfully ignorant, and my guess is that God probably hates nothing more in a human than willlful ignorance. We are now in that stage of religion. Religions which used to be spiritually enlightening and which used to offer moral instruction which represented an improvement over previous, more brutal ways of behaving, have become more of an obstacle to progress in society than a force for good as they once were. What used to be a fountain of inspiration has become, by and large, more of a drain on the aspirations of humanity, another form of cancer, so to speak.
What is to be done about all of this? The answer, as I see it, is to think in terms of societal homeostasis, combined with forward-looking societal evolution. Homeostasis refers to physiological balance. If we are to view humankind as an analogy to an organism, or better yet, use the concept of Gaia, which views the earth itself as a giant analogy to an organism, homeostasis gives us a stable and safe environment in which to work, an environment which is free of cancerous growths which could bring down the entire system. Having a healthy society, in turn, can promote societal evolution, as people will be better equipped to deal with life's challenges and grapple with important issues. We can achieve homeostasis through appropriate regulation, and it is the government which brings regulation. The government is the brain of society, a concept which even Bill Gates, for all of his intelligence and good intentions, and good suggestions (charging poor people at just over manufacturing cost, having people buy products from which some of the profits will be used for good causes, etc.), still does not seem to realize. (Gates barely even mentioned government in his article.) There are too many capitalists running around, and arguing that we don't need government, which is like saying we don't need a brain. We need government to coordinate what goes on in society. We need government to provide services for the common good. Thus, the role of capitalism needs to be limited to those things which it does best, such as developing and bringing new products to the market which may improve people's standard of living, but are not neccessities, and driving down costs through healthy competition. But capitalism needs to be regulated, and every attempt needs to be made to ensure a more fair economic system. In my mind, this means attempting a rational system of determining salaries and/or prices. The capitalist system is basically irrational, as is religion. I say that the capitalist system is irrational because it is not concerned with fairness, only profit, but any rational economic system must concern itself with fairness. "I charge so much because I can get away with it" is not capitalist thinking, but not rational. It is about as rational as a little kid who grabs the coveted toy of another and says "mine! It belongs to me now. I've got it so it's mine, all mine." With government as arbiter, I do believe it is possible to develop a more rational economic system, one which will work better in the long run. Take the example of teacher's salaries. If we assume there were no teachers, no schools, for the sake of argument, what would be the effect on our economy. Obviously, the impact would be great, and a monetary estimate could be made of the effects of having no teachers. Such an estimate could also be made by doing cross-cultural comparisons of societies with different amounts of education, and determining the impact of education. One could then take a reasonable percentage of this financial impact, say 10%, although that is probably shortchanging teachers, then, using this 10% as salary, divide this money among all of the teachers in a given nation. Since I am pretty sure we would not have much of an economy, or society, for that matter, without teachers, this process would probably result in substantially raising teachers salaries, and act as a stimulus for further educational opportunities to abound in society. On the other hand, purveyors of such harmful products as tobacco and liquor, or those who do business in an environmentally destructive way, would probably be put out of business, or see their business curtailed by further restrictions, once their cost/benefit ratio to society is calculated, while those who offer basically useless services would be out of business, as well. And that would be a good thing, in my humble opinion. Yes, I know this sounds like a "pipe dream" speaking of tobacco, but I believe we need to move in this direction, and I am confident that it is possible.
Similarly, our spirituality needs to move in a homeostatic direction. The fact that Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism do attempt to help people achieve a sort of balance, within themselves, between persons, and with nature, is a great strength of such religions. However, we need to move beyond ancient superstitions, and embrace modern scientific realities for their ability to enlighten us about not only the physical nature of reality, but its spiritual nature, as well. Perhaps when our economic system becomes more rational, it will be easier for people to shed the cancer model of religion as well, and turn to more balance-oriented, reason-based forms of spirituality. Most importantly, when we shed society of cancer models of economics and religion, it will become more natural for us view to the environment, other lifeforms, and each other as interdependent, and thus, to treat each other, other lifeforms, and our environment better as a whole. I may seem like a real dreamer when I write these things, but think of the rapid progress which humankind has already made in the recent past, progress which has been made despite having to overcome many impediments. One day before we know it, people will think of today's "conventional wisdom" as archaic and nonsensical, and take for granted newer and better ways for us humans to think, feel, and act.