Out society is not primarily controlled by the government. Rather, our society marches to the beat of the drum of the capitalistic marketplace. I do not wish to say that this is good or bad, for there are many positive and negative features of capitalism. I just want to say that this is our reality, so instead of thinking of America as controlled by the government, it would be more accurate to think of America as being directed by business, and merely managed by the government.
By analogy, the market could be thought of as a fire. Fires are nearly miraculous in that they provide a natural source of heat and light. If you have trouble imagining how central this is to life, imagine how terrible a frontier lifestyle would be without a fire. But like most good things, a fire can quickly turn disastrous and deadly if it leaps out of its intended boundaries. Likewise, the market can provide untold good and prosperity, and in an instant can lift a family out of generational poverty. But it can also be quite disastrous, as a fire that jumps over its boundaries. So the analogical conclusion is that just as we need the fire controlled, so also we need tight reigns on the economy. There are two primary ways that the marketplace can cause mischief, although I will only address one this week.
First, the market itself provides no incentive whatsoever to help a person who is not yourself or not in your immediate family. The market, rather, by its very essence, actually encourages every person to look out only for her own interests. “Its just business,” they tell you after they announce a company restructure. There is no basis to complain about or criticize any single businessperson who triumphs over someone else over on the way to more money, provided he does it within the bounds of the law. Indeed, this is what is required of a successful capitalist society. I, for example, will enter the meager philosophy professor job market in a couple of years. My hope is that I will be better, more intelligent, etc., than the other PhD students entering the marketplace, and that I will get the job instead of them. Correspondingly, the institution will only higher the best candidate and turn the others away. That is not positive or negative, but merely a description of how a capitalistic society improves itself.
Given the harsh realities of competition within capitalism, it is quite easy to see how our society can quickly become a society of “haves” and “have-nots.” But no single person is to blame – every “have” is simply doing his job. Capitalism, then, unchecked, can bring absolutely wicked outcomes, from the perspective of the Christian. James nails down the whole point of religion in general: “to look after orphans and widows in their distress…” (James 1:27). If this is true, then we should be worries about creating as society of “haves” and “have-nots,” which means that we need a government that is willing to step in and disrupt the marketplace when the marketplace in creating too much inequality. The Republicans despise this kind of thinking as “big government” – capitalism needs to be free to play itself out. If the market operates without interference, they claim, then it will continue to grow. And after all, they add, “A rising tides raises all ships.”
But I have a question for my Republican friends: What if you are wrong about how the economy works? Even the top economists in the world have vast difference in the way they conceive of successful capitalism. I must confess, I have NO idea how the economy works, but even the most well-equipped economists have only possible theories. But if we are going to make an error, as we may be by interfering in the marketplace, we should be concerned to err on the side of making an economically equal society. If those republican economists are wrong, and the “trickle-down” economic system is not the right model for the economy, then we will hamper economic growth AND exacerbate economic inequality. So if I am right that no one really knows how the economy works, and we are concerned about creating a equal society (making sure the orphans and widows are economically secure, even though they are not economically viable), then we should favor a style of government which is willing to step in if conditions are becoming unequal. There is the possibility, I am willing to concede, that the Republican economic policies are better for everyone; after all, I nor anyone else who doesn’t have a Nobel Prize in economics really has any idea. But I do know, as a Christian, that it is not acceptable to have the kind of society that doesn’t do anything about the plight of the vulnerable. But the Republican says, again, “Yes, but a rising tide raises all ships,” which is true. But just in case the “trickle-down” system doesn’t work, I would rather lose the whole world while pursuing justice. I don’t think that losing the whole world for the right reasons would be such a bad thing.
