There are some who might be a little surprised to find that there are conservatives who have a certain distrust of capitalism. This may seem absurd on its face; how can a political philosophy that, almost without exception as far as I can tell, champions the right to property distrust capitalism? And the answer seems to be that so highly do some people value hierarchy, tradition, and moral structure that they look on the opportunities for license and indulgence afforded to the masses in a capitalist society with horror, so much so that they seem to think that the answer to the situation is government intervention. As Mr. Horowitz writes:
Traditionalists generally find this infuriating. For them, the exercise of personal freedom is tantamount to its misuse. A healthy culture, in their minds, must prevent adults from attending immoral concerts, watching immoral TV programs, and reading immoral magazines (or allowing their offspring to do likewise)...As licentious appetites must be whetted in today’s carnival of consumption, they argue, authorities should restrain people from indulging those appetites. Capitalism, while more efficient than socialism, undermines virtue. New sumptuary laws, of a sort, are needed...As long as people such as Hugh Hefner are permitted to run profitable enterprises, Kristol argued, capitalists would be the gravediggers of capitalism.Mr. Horowitz argues strongly against this point of view, and I recommend you read the column, bearing in mind that I have points of difference with him, some of which may not be immediately apparent, so make no assumptions, please!
For my part, I pretty much always default to liberty. I have an almost total distrust of government's capacity to execute anything successfully, even its legitimate, God-ordained functions, let alone what you might think of as governmental extracurriculars, such as legislating morals. And yet I would agree totally that in a "healthy culture" people do not attend immoral concerts, watch immoral TV programs, read immoral magazines and the like (and I am by no means contending that I have been without sin in my life when I say that). So you might legitimately wonder how I say that the good society is a capitalist society, where people have both liberty and property rights and yet also a society that rejects the libertinism fueled by the rise in personal prosperity that capitalism affords. The answer is to be found in an old quote from Edmund Burke:
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there is without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.What actually happens in the world is this, and I think you can see the process happening around you right now: you can have freedom, liberty, and property rights, the having of which necessarily entails the possibility of doing immoral things with them, and if enough people persistently do those immoral things, eventually the building blocks of society break down, and so much societal chaos ensues that people begin to clamor for order at any price, even the price of the liberty that they formerly cherished. The only way around this is for the members of a society, a culture, to regulate their own behavior, to, as Burke puts it, "put moral chains on their own appetites," that is, though they may have the means and the liberty to run around on their spouses and drink themselves into the gutter, they do not have the inclination. The most effective way of accomplishing such a state of affairs is through the thorough Christianization of a society, which means, ultimately, that the maintenance of liberty and property rights rest on the foundation of the preaching, teaching, and living out of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and where the church fails in this, in the long haul, society suffers collapse, tyranny enters--sometimes swiftly, sometimes by degrees--and the abuse of liberty brings about its own downfall.
At least, that's how I see it.
Afterthought: After reading Dave's question (see the comments), I thought, "Now, that's the problem with doing everything in one draft: occasionally, you're going to lack consistency." In this case, having said in one part of a sentence, "The most effective way...," which, obviously, means that there are other ways, I gave the impression in rest of the sentence that there wasn't another way.
Not the most consistent writing in the world. I amend the sentence thusly, new material in bold:
The most effective way of accomplishing such a state of affairs is through the thorough Christianization of a society, which means, ultimately, that the maintenance of liberty and property rights is best founded on the preaching, teaching, and living out of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and where the church fails in this, in the long haul, society is far more likely to suffer collapse; tyranny enters--sometimes swiftly, sometimes by degrees--and the abuse of liberty brings about its own downfall.
I chose to make the change here, rather than in the body of the post as originally written because had I done otherwise, Dave's question wouldn't have made sense to later readers.
So the only time capitalism and liberty can work are in Christian societies? What about Jewish or Buddhist countries that are capitalist? Are they destined for failure?
ReplyDeleteBTW – I’m not trying to give you a hard time with these questions. I’m legitimately curious. I’m also doing a post based on yours that should be up shortly.
You got me; I don't know whether you're reading the comments in your e-mail, or whether you're revisiting the post, but if you do go back and look, you'll note an "Afterthought" dealing with the sentence in question.
ReplyDeleteNo, not "destined" for failure, I wouldn't say that. I do think that the success of places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, and Japan make it clear that non-Christian societies can make capitalism work for them. But I don't think they rest on anywhere near as strong a foundation; it is Christianity that makes the strongest arguments for the rights, especially property rights and the right to liberty, of individuals, and to my mind, where Christianity is absent or weak, liberty and property rights, and therefore capitalism, are more at risk.
This is why I like you. You are open to comments, especially ones that deal with how things can be misinterpreted. :o)
ReplyDelete“…it is Christianity that makes the strongest arguments for the rights, especially property rights and the right to liberty, of individuals…”
Please don’t take this question the wrong way, because I am just honestly asking. How so? Are there passages in the Bible that directly promote property rights and liberty? Also, how is the Bible any better at promoting individual liberty than say Buddhism (just as an example)?
I've got so much stuff in the pipeline, Dave. A couple of them are quotes from, believe it or not, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Bible, which address this, perhaps not perfectly, but probably better than I will in a comment. So for that one, I'll say mostly, "Wait for upcoming posts, I'll get there."
ReplyDeleteOther things you might find interesting, if you care to do the reading (and one of them is in outdated English and pretty stiff going, frankly) are Rutherford's Lex, Rex and Benson Bobrick's Wide as the Waters.
Buddhism! It is a source of ceaseless wonderment how many people in the West perceive Buddhism as something less depressing than it tends to be in the East. Like other religions that teach reincarnation and karmic destiny, in practice, it tends toward a certain fatalism. You ought to hear former Hindus and Buddhists talk about their experiences in India; take your son to the holy man and ask why he is crippled/blind/retarded/demon-possessed/what-have-you, and the answer, like as not, is going to be some variety of, "Because he was a horrible person in a previous life! He's getting exactly what he deserves. Throw his worthless body in the Ganges and be rid of him!" That kind of thinking is what gave rise to the caste system and is the excuse for any sort of repression and theft you care to perpetrate on another human being: he deserves it, it is his karmic destiny. You can even convince yourself that you're helping him to pay his karmic debt and moving him along the path! You can always worry about your own karmic debt later--and in practice, that is what people do, figuring that sooner or later, they'll "get there," but in the meantime, in this life, it would sure be convenient to...
Saying such a belief system undermines liberty and property rights is understating the matter considerably, in my opinion.
More in the next few weeks.
I’m looking forward to those upcoming posts.
ReplyDeleteYour criticism of Buddhism/Hinduism I think is an interesting one, but it seems to be more of a criticism of Hinduism than Buddhism. Hinduism’s view of karma is harsher than that of Buddhism’s (at least that is my understanding). Buddhism doesn’t support the caste system, but Hinduism does. I actually find that as something very strange in Hinduism. Here is a belief system that promotes nonviolence and is very open and peaceful, yet at the same time it has supported one of the most horribly oppressive systems ever. Granted, any religion can get twisted in the name of controlling society…just look at the Nazi’s use of Christianity and the terrorist’s use of Islam.
Hinduism is contradictory at its core. I'll never forget, one time when the SBC was especially focusing on outreach to Hindus, seeing some tape of a fellow, a Hindu with a fairly extensive array of Hindu gods in his home temple, being interviewed. I'll never forget one thing: at one point in the interview, he said it was "wrong," a "very bad thing," to call someone a sinner. "Well,", I thought, "What do you call someone who has done 'a very bad thing?'--like, say, calling someone a sinner?" He couldn't even make a criticism without tying himself up in logical knots.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Islam goes--dude, Islam and totalitarianism go together like peanut butter and jelly. I'd strongly recommend running, not walking, to the library to borrow Robert Spencer's The Truth About Muhammad. The left loves to paint Spencer as a bigot; the truth is that he has spent most of his adult life studying Islam and will tell you things that most people won't. Muhammad's own life simply does not support the idea that Islam is a religion of peace; religion of pieces is a lot more like it. Or you can mosey over to my sidebar and read my review of that book first.