Capitalism, Christianity weren’t always American ideals
Capitalism, Christianity werent always American ideals
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"For years Ive heard how the free enterprise system is endorsed by scripture and sanctioned by God. The argument had the ring of unshakable truth. It influences how we solve or avoid national problems. Yet things werent always that way.
A century ago, many American small farmers and evangelical Christians believed the biblical news of peace on earth, good will toward all was better represented by socialism, not high finance. Jesus was regarded as a leftist philosopher, a messiah of the people, and politicians could win election by quoting him as an enemy of the big banks.
But a new alliance was forged in the 1930s that reverberates still. Worried about their embattled reputation during the Great Depression, major industrialists rallied people (notably ministers) to defend the free market by appealing to notions of Christian libertarianism.
They combined individualism, capitalism and the Bible to boost the idea of America as a Christian nation. They used religion to oppose the New Deal and its social gospel roots. This absorbing story is told in a new book, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America, by Kevin Kruse.
It seems to me this spiritual alliance is a sweet deal for Wall Street. Todays ambassadors of deregulation and monopoly face little religious criticism. Meanwhile, other measures of moral health are slipping.
Among developed nations, the U.S. has the highest teenage birthrate. We have the highest prison incarceration rate. Social distrust is intensifying. So is income inequality. The decline of middle-class jobs and unions threatens the security of millions. The CEO-to-worker pay ratio is about 300-1 now, compared to 20-1 in the mid-1960s. We stand helplessly by. It is what it is, people say.
Were better at questioning government power than economic power. Religious voices seem left out of the conversation, as if globalization will provide the answers. Its an easy move to idolatry: Money, not God, is in charge.
Psalm 2 declares, The earth is the Lords, and all that is in it a political statement, says theologian William Cavanaugh. Gods providential care is comprehensive, inspiring a political witness that cant be reduced to clichs of left or right, he suggests.
I think finding our way will require suspicion of national mythologies, yet trust in Gods creation. It will require attention to policy details, yet commitment to self-criticism.
Like most people, I never trusted anyone who offered a formula that transcended the instincts of ordinary decency, novelist Robert Stone once wrote. Todays spiritual politics could stand an injection of such pragmatic modesty."
http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/religion/2015/05/16/capitalism-christianity-always-american-ideals/27322049/
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The writer sounds like a wise man.
Okay robotic man.
It seems to me this spiritual alliance is a sweet deal for Wall Street. Todays ambassadors of deregulation and monopoly face little religious criticism
"Regulation" is how you get tomonopoly. Large businesses love regulation, it gives them a huge competitiveadvantage over smaller mom and pop type shops. If the author was actuallyfamiliarwith industry'sresponseto the great depression, he know that large companies were in fact the biggest backers ofRooselvelt's NRA. The costs of regulation drive small businesses out of the market while big businesses can afford to buy lobbyists that ensure the regulations lock in their advantages.
Only big businesses have the type of volume that allows them to defray the costs of regulations overmultipletransactions spread across the nation. Walmart can easily payhumanresourcesexperts to make sure they comply with everylabor law, Joe's Grocery shop can't without raising prices above the local Wal-marts.
Goldman Sachs and other large banks completely supported andbasicallywrote the blizzard ofregulationsthatisDodd-Frank. It's great for them and terrible for smallerindependentbanks which have eitherclosed or been bought up. The breaks given to large banks in Dodd-Frank left small banks unable to compete.
Obamacare is doing the same thing to the insurance market.Competitionis drying up as bigger is better isincentivized. Some states now have oneinsurer"competing" in the Obamacare exchanges.
It's always amusing to see the same people who whine about lobbyists controlling Washington turn around and champion more regulation. It's like they can't see howinextricablylinked the two things are.
What these American holy rollers should be asking themselves is did Jesus make a profit from his carpentry work or did he take a loss. If he did the work for a loss he was a failed businessman and that explains why he spent the rest of his life mooching off the work of others.
You misunderstand the "work".
Go Bernie!
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