\u201cIt is a mistake, at least if you are a Christian, to have your life or theology determined by who you think are your enemies.\u201d (Stanley Hauerwas, A Better Hope, p.9)<\/em><\/p>\n I don\u2019t have a bee in my bonnet about capitalism. I don\u2019t consider the inhabitants of Wall Street to be my enemies. I tend to think that just about any economic system could work pretty well if exercised by a people who have been formed in the story of God and the virtues of hospitality, cooperation, stewardship, generosity, and fidelity to the common good. If capitalism isn\u2019t working, it\u2019s not because the system is flawed, but because we are flawed.<\/p>\n Still, I think every Christian should have a robust critique of capitalism, just as most already do of socialism, fascism, or communism. I have a few, two of which I outline below. But if we think that we can rely on our critiques to undo the problems with capitalism, we are kidding ourselves. For one thing, critiques hardly ever undo anything, and capitalism is doing such a good job of undoing itself that it scarcely needs help from Christians. For another thing, it\u2019s not our job to see that the systems of the world fail. It\u2019s our job to bear witness to the reality of the gospel in the way that we engage everything, including economic systems.<\/p>\n There are many things capitalism does very well. You can hear about them everyday on talk radio and Fox News, so if you want to get that story, I\u2019ll commend you to them. Here are a couple of problems that I can see:<\/p>\n First, capitalism doesn\u2019t work very well when people are selfish.<\/p>\n It very well may be that capitalism is better than the other \u201cisms\u201d serving as economic systems, but it has its obvious problems. Chief among them, as I see it, is that\u2014especially within a society of people who have not been formed by the gospel\u2014capitalism doesn\u2019t work for those who don\u2019t have capital (it works for some, but not everyone). Those who have capital are supposed to create jobs\/opportunity for those who don\u2019t. But when we are selfish, this doesn\u2019t happen. Thus, over time, wealth inevitably concentrates in the hands of a very few people, usually those who have most efficiently dispensed with any sort of ethic in which the last will be first. When this process reaches a tipping point, the government has to step in and regulate (a move which is always decried by the rich, seldom if ever by the poor), and the battle lines are drawn over the wrong issue: the assumption that the government\u2019s job is to make sure what\u2019s mine is mine, and what\u2019s yours is yours, even if what\u2019s yours sucks.<\/p>\n Second, capitalism doesn\u2019t work very well when people are convinced they can live without limits.<\/p>\n