People will have their own opinions, of course, but I will not call this my opinion. As a professional theologian with four university degrees in theology (BA, MA, MA, PhD) and forty years studying and teaching theology and twenty-some books published about theology…I will simply say CAPITALISM IS SIN. It is a sinful economic system. It will not exist in the completed Kingdom of God to come. God may allow it, but it cannot conform to his perfect will.
I will now forestall a certain kind of response. Do not tell me that it is better than any other economic system. That is not relevant here. I am only here now to critique capitalism, not to promote or criticize any other one. I assume there must be a better one because it will be in the future kingdom of God. What it will be I cannot say.
Maybe, just maybe, capitalism is better than any right now existing or possible economic system. That is beside my point. My point is only that capitalism, even if the best known system, is sinful.
Why is capitalism sinful? Well, obviously and simply because it is based on two sins—greed and competition. By “competition” I don’t mean sports competition. I mean the desire to improve economically at the expense of others.
There is one other sin I must mention that is at the root of capitalism: theft.
But is there anywhere in the world where capitalism is actually practiced? No, but there are some here in the US and no doubt elsewhere who would like it to be. What we actually have in the US is a mixed economy that jolts one way and the other depending on the results of elections.
The basic impulse of capitalism is greed—the deep desire to gain wealth. Jesus condemned that. So did the Apostle James (5:1). Greed becomes sin when it causes one to want to get ahead of others in a competition for limited supply of funds or other kinds of wealth.
Another basic impulse of capitalism is competition. Competition that causes us to want what others have is sin. How can it not be given the New Testament’s teaching about sacrifice of self? James 4:3 tells us that our prayers are often not answered because of self desires. Selflessness is the gospel call, not selfishness. Capitalism encourages businesses to drive others out of business.
Finally, capitalism thrives on business owners charging more for their goods than they are actually worth. Put that together with greed and competition and there is the impulse to charge much, much more than goods are worth and to accumulate much, much more than we need to live comfortably.
I spent the last few years of my professional life as a professor of Christian ethics, holder of an endowed chair of ethics at a major Christian university. So do not tell me that because I am not an economist I have no ground to criticize capitalism. I understand it from an ethical and Christian point of view. It is a corrupt system.
Fortunately, I don’t know of a single country that practices capitalism without government controls. Every country with which I am familiar, including the US, practices a mixed economy. However, there are people in the US, some of them very powerful, who would like to remove all government controls on the economy. And our government controls are not enough to prevent the widening gap between rich and poor that capitalism causes when it is unfettered.
There is nothing Christian about capitalism. We have been brainwashed to think there is. Nothing in the Bible supports capitalism. Much in the Bible militates against it.
Is there a better economic system than capitalism that is practical? Well, yes, a mixed economy based on John Rawls’s theory of justice. I have described that here before and you can look it up and read about it. Unfortunately, not Rawls’s theory but his Harvard colleague Robert Nozick’s is in the ascendency in America today and has been since the Reagan era.
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