Capitalism is synonymous with free enterprise and free markets while socialism is associated with planned economies and state control. As noted in Part I, the out-workings of these concepts revolve around the definition of freedom to which both claim allegiance. However, socialism cannot be separated from its parent and patron—humanism. Humanism requires socialism as socialism is the chain-mail glove into which the hand of humanism fits and uses to enforce its vision of societal order.
The humanist definition of freedom presumes to loose man from the bondage of mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past. However, the humanists’ definition of freedom, which co-joins the maximization of individual autonomy with the humanist-created primacy of the greatest good for the greatest number, is a false freedom. A society organized around the tenets of humanism cannot remain free as it will be pushed to one end or the other of the anarchy-totalitarian continuum of government. In reality, such humanistic concepts of freedom coerce the individual through the requirement of a general commonality of thought and action which is forced downward from the state to the individual. However, the central cultural vision of any society must command unity for it to exist and prosper in ordered harmony. Such unity must filter up from individuals, not be coerced or forced down on society. Without such unity filtering up from individuals, there can be no order of the soul or society, and without such order society deteriorates over time and eventually disintegrates. [Johnson, p. 393.]
By contrast, although there is an affinity between capitalism and Christianity, Christianity does not require capitalism nor does capitalism require Christianity. The affinity lies in freedom defined as lack of coercion. A free market (capitalism) “…is not ‘Christian in and by itself; it is merely to say that capitalism is a material by-product of the Mosaic law.’ In other words, capitalism is a by-product of Christianity’s value of freedom applied to economic life and activities.” [emphasis added] [Schmidt, p. 207.]
That Christianity values freedom should be no surprise. God valued freedom so much that he gave freewill to man, the pinnacle of His creation. God wishes to share his love and eternity with His creation, but He does not coerce or compel man in the spiritual realm nor does he wish man to be coerced in the economic realm on this earth as does fascism, socialism, and communism. [Schmidt, p. 205.]
Capitalism is the most successful when it is the most moral. It is not coincidence that the greatest freedom and economic prosperity occur in countries where Christianity is and continues to be the dominant worldview. Capitalism that arose during the period of industrialization was often wild and reckless as a new-born colt that thrashes about until it steadies itself. It was the moral suasion of Christianity that helped steady capitalism and correct its excesses. [Schmidt, p. 207.]
How is it then that socialism has a growing following around the world and even in wildly successful capitalistic countries such as the United States? Writing seventy years ago amidst humanity caught up in a conflagration of death and destruction during World War II, F. A. Hayek gave insight into the answer.
The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those which they, or at least the best among them, have always held, but which were not properly understood or recognized before…And the most efficient technique to this end is to use the old words but change their meaning…Few traits of totalitarian regimes…are characteristic of the whole intellectual climate as the complete perversion of language, the change of meaning of the words by which the ideals of the new regimes are expressed. The worst sufferer in this respect is, of course, the word “liberty” (freedom). [Hayek, p. 174.]
The trashing of capitalism began in earnest by the mid-nineteenth century when Karl Marx, atheist and communist, wrote Das Kapital (Capital) in which he saw labor as both distinct from and an antithesis to capitalism. Thus began collectivist’s propaganda efforts at replacing capitalism’s definition as being free markets and free enterprise to that of a merciless evil preying on the proletariat. [Schmidt, p. 206.]
In answer to capitalism’s critics, the late Pope John Paul II framed the issue well in 1996 when he asked whether the failed communist states in Eastern Europe should opt for capitalism. In reply to his own rhetorical question he stated,
If by ‘capitalism’ is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative. [Schmidt, pp. 206-107.]
However, less than two decades later, Pope Francis would attempt to dignify leftist denigration of capitalism in his 224 page Evangelii Gadium (Joy of the Gospel) that attacked capitalism as a form of tyranny and called on church and political leaders to address the needs of the poor. [Gettys]
53. …Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape. [emphasis added]
54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system… [emphasis added]
56. While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control… [emphasis added] [Evangelii Gadium]
One must ask which man has experienced socialistic totalitarianism and therefore has a better insight into its horrors as compared to the worthiness of capitalism. Certainly it is the Polish Pope John Paul II whose leadership along with that of Ronald Reagan resulted in the downfall of communism and the liberation of millions.
Pope John Paul II’s intransigence against socialism was evident from the beginning of his papal reign when he disciplined Latin American liberationist priests within the church who had incorporated a Marxist orientation as one of the pillars of liberation theology. In the late 1960s this rebellious sociology had developed rapidly in Latin America which regarded the underdevelopment of the continent as a consequence of the capitalist market system. As a result, undeveloped countries were exhorted to reject the capitalist market system in favor of a socialist economy. As this new sociology was absorbed by the church, liberation theology emerged from its wake. But John Paul’s message to the Latin American Catholic church was that Marxism cannot be regarded as an instrument of sociological analysis, being a wrong vision of the human person and the product of a biased scientific methodology. Rather, liberation theology must be centered on Christ the Redeemer. [Inside the Vatican] Although Pope Francis did not and does not adhere to nor promote the Marxist variant of liberation theology, nevertheless, his beliefs have been heavily influenced by and are a product of the highly socialistic orientation of most liberation theologies prevalent in South America. The extent of Pope Francis’s socialistic orientation becomes abundantly evident when reading Evangelii Gadium quoted above.
In Parts I and II we have examined capitalism and socialism’s definitions and the battle of words and worldviews surrounding the adversaries. In Part III we shall look at the battle as it focuses on income equality and property.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 393.
Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), pp. 205-207.
F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Ed. Bruce Caldwell, 1944, 2007), p. 174.
Travis Gettys, “Pope Francis rips capitalism and trickle-down economics to shreds in new policy statement,” The Raw Story, November 26, 2013. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/26/pope-francis-rips-capitalism-and-trickle-down-economics-to-shreds-in-new-policy-statement/ (accessed 2-5-2014).
Pope Francis, Evangelii Gadium (Joy of the Gospel), November 24, 2013. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html#Some_cultural_challenges (accessed February 5, 2014).
“Liberation Theology Interview with Professor Rocco Buttiglione,” Inside the Vatican, June/July 2013. https://insidethevatican.com/back-issues/june-july-2013/liberation-theology-interview-professor-rocco-buttiglione (accessed February 5, 2014).
