There are two different stories people tell about capitalism. Those who describe capitalism favorably say that it is the story of how the innovation and creativity of entrepreneurs are unleashed through a spontaneity of resources provided in a free market. Capitalism's critics tell the story of how money-changers are constantly hunting for ways to make money without sweating a drop by leveraging workers and markets against each other and finding loopholes to be exploited. Both of these stories are true, though not always equally. At this particular juncture in our nation's history, the money-changers are winning the day by masquerading as entrepreneurs. If it's true that corporate profits are at record highs while unemployment remains high, then the money-changers have found a way to create wealth for themselves without creating jobs. I am not qualified to explain how this works, since I'm a pastor, not an economist, but Jesus had plenty to say about entrepreneurs and money-changers that is relevant to thinking through a Christian response to the competing economic visions that are being set before us this election year.
The capitalist's favorite Bible story, the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30, is the story of a master who gave each of his three servants a different amount of money to invest and bear fruit for him. The first two servants use the money they receive (the equivalent of about $2 million and $800,000 respectively) to make the master a 100 percent profit. The third servant buries the $400,000 he receives in the ground so that he can return to his master exactly what he received. The master rewards the first two servants and punishes the third one. Capitalist Christians often use this story as a proof-text in economic debate to say simply, "See, Jesus endorses capitalism." But there's way more going on here than Jesus' endorsement.
This story illustrates the difference between the two kinds of fear that we find in the Bible. People who bury their gold in the ground exhibit the kind of fear the third servant articulates when he says to his master, "I know you are a hard man, harvesting where you do not sow ... so I was afraid" (Matthew 25:24-25). We need to understand the metaphor correctly: this is more than a question of whether someone invests in Treasury bonds or venture capitalism. It concerns our attitude about the gifts and calling we have received from God. Christians who believe that God is a "hard man" instead of an extravagantly generous Father will always choose the safest, most practical, or most "normal" option in any given decision whether it's career, neighborhood, children's activities, or even which restaurants to patronize. Their spiritual goal is to find out exactly what it takes to put themselves and their families right with the mean, scary God they believe in and not add a penny to that. Far too many American Christians live in this state of fearful conformity as evidenced by their increasing migration to homogenized cultural gated communities.
What God desires are disciples like the first two servants who live in a different kind of fear: "the fear of the Lord and the confidence of the Holy Spirit" that caused the early church to "increase in numbers" (Acts 9:31). This fear is the ecstatic awe that arises from an encounter with a living infinite God which makes believers paradoxically fearless before all of the obstacles, naysayers and red tape that stand between them and the dreams God has given them. They are confident that God's breath can blow down every intransigent wall in "the system," which makes them willing to be "heretics" to the logic of the world, to use one of Seth Godin's memes. These entrepreneurs are liberated enough from obsessing over their financial security that they pursue God's calling with the same confidence exuded by the 72 apostles whom Jesus sent out as "lambs among wolves" without taking "a purse or bag or sandals" (Luke 10:4).
The entrepreneurs who represent the best of capitalism are very different from the money-changers who represent its worst. Money-changers are people who insert themselves in the nooks and crannies of the economic order where money can be siphoned out, the most prominent example in Jesus' day being the Jerusalem temple vendors. Jews would pilgrimage to the temple from all over the Roman Empire to offer animal sacrifices. The temple vendors had a market because of the difficulty of transporting birds or cattle hundreds of miles for the sacrifice. If a pilgrim came all that way and had to buy a sacrificial animal at the gate for the trip to be worth anything, how much price-gouging do you think those money-changers could get away with? Markups of 500 percent? One-thousand percent? The other way they could gouge pilgrims was through the exchange of Roman money into Tyrian money since Caesar's coins were considered unclean for use in sacrificial purchases. All of this swindling was taking place at Judaism's most sacred site. That's why Jesus whipped them and smashed their tables.
So who are the entrepreneurs and who are the money changers in our economy? It's easier to think of celebrity names to throw out (Bill Gates, entrepreneur; Bernie Madoff, money-changer), but I imagine that most roles, at least in our financial industry, involve a varying mix of entrepreneurship and money-changing. I need to have the integrity to admit that I can't parse out the difference between creating a more efficient flow of capital and creating loopholes where profit can accumulate. Depending on who's telling the story, a company like Bain Capital is either the catalyst for entrepreneurial dreams or a profit-sucking vulture. It seems too easy to try to put it wholly into one category or the other.
What is more relevant to ask is whether our current tax and regulatory system incentivizes entrepreneurship or money-changing. Billionaire entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban thinks the latter. This is what he wrote in a recent blog post:
The only people who know what business Wall Street is in are the high frequency and automated traders ... To traders, whether day traders or high frequency or somewhere in between, Wall Street has nothing to do with creating capital for businesses, its original goal. Wall Street is a platform ... to be exploited by every technological and intellectual means possible ... Its primary business is no longer creating capital for business. Creating capital for business has to be less than 1pct of the volume on Wall Street in any given period.
My 2 cents is that it is important for this country to push Wall Street back to the business of creating capital for business. Whether its through a use of taxes on trades (hit every trade on a stock held less than 1 hour with a 10c tax and all these problems go away), or changing the capital gains tax structure so that there is no capital gains tax on any shares of stock (private or public company) held for 1 year or more, and no tax on dividends paid to shareholders who have held stock in the company for more than 5 years.
Of course, there would be no parasitic money changers if everyone in our country feared the Lord in the proper biblical sense because we would be "lilies of the field" untainted by the poisonous anxiety that no profit margin is safe enough to guarantee that we will never be poor. This strange anxiety is the carcinogenic DNA that has made our society what it currently is. Jesus told a story about it in Luke 12:13-21. A rich man gathered too many crops in his harvest to fit in his barn, but instead of giving the remainder to the poor, he decided to build a bigger barn. The next day he died, like everyone eventually does.
Better to live as an entrepreneur trusting in God's rich bounty than as a money-changer fearful of the market's scarcity.
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What you didn't name are the problems of market uncertainty that leads to many businesses not hiring. Even in my conference here the Conference office has ZERO idea what health insurance will be next year (we currently are on the BCBS plans offered through the General Board of Health and Pensions in IL). Tax rates across the board are set to soon increase causing trepidation into investing. We are still reeling from the fall out of the repeal of Glass-Steagall under President Clinton which took away the Wall St. regulation which had built a wall between commercial and investment banking (this repeal was pushed in large part by Republicans, but signed by Clinton).
Why no mention of those things? I know of companies cutting people, cutting hours, all because they can't afford government mandated health insurance. Let's not even get into the issue with many mandates in the Affordable Care Act.
The businessmen and women in my congregation tend to be entrepreneurs. We don't have any payday loan sharks that I know of, which would be the local version of money-changers.
I personally have no comprehenesion why anyone would follow Rand - but they do. With a few honorable exceptions the 1% has abandoned all pretense of Christiaity (except as a cloak to cover themselves when they run for political office) and embraced her.
We must fight back but I fear all the sayings of Jesus combined will never dent the self-confiddence of the rich and powerful.
I think Jesus may have originally meant it as another indictment of the scribes and Pharisees. They had been given the keys to righteousness embodied in the Law, but instead of expanding on the principles in the Law the way Jesus did, they focused on the narrow letter and were content in adhering to that letter themselves without regard for the situation of their fellow man. The early church evidently considered the parable an admonition to avoid complacency about the coming of God's kingdom, that regardless of what God may do in his own good time, we are always to be working to build and expand the kingdom here and now.
http://morganguyton.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/the-conflation-of-two-fears/
All done with the understanding that matter cannot fill the hole we feel a need to fill, knowing that when we achieve one goal it will soon be replaced by another and another and capitalism is there to exploit this basic flaw in materialism. On the merry-go-round of life we are expected to keep ever twirling with outstretched hands reaching for the gold ring and even when we grab it we soon find ourselves desirous of a bigger ring, a better car or a newer appliance.
On the other hand we have The Spirit and it is saying that matter is an inferior and temporary illusion; that true value lies in having an inner relationship with Spirit, the living God who created all things. This relationship cannot be bought with money it can only arise from a sincere wish to know God and the truth, though that obviously doesn’t stop some from trying to sell God for money.
The master is God. His servants are “followers”. He gives them His wealth to use while He is gone (not here on earth). This happens when God (Jesus) returns. Two of the followers use His wealth wisely. Notice the reward for the first two is the same ( salvation/ inter into your master's joy). The third servant /follower “knows God as a hard man”. That means this servant has identified himself as a follower but does not know God at all. You bet he is scared. What God gave him is taken away and he is thrown into judgment.
How would you apply this parable in a non-capitalist system? There are believers in all financial systems over the world.
Mitt Romney was given wealth by his father. Lets see how he uses it.
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look as some other parables-- about selling everything and giving to the poor, beatitudes etc. that have a 180 degree point of view.. in my opinion..
And given the context and other related messages, using the parable of the talents to justify the collection of earthly wealth is flat out an intentional misunderstanding of scripture. Not that that isn't uncommon; what Christ demands is not easy, and many (even me, without a doubt at times), read scripture the way we want to, not the way that the Holy Spirit would guide us if we would listen.
Anyway, though, the parable of the talents relates to spiritual wealth; the master in that story is obviously God, who has absolutely no use for our earthly riches. And the only way to acquire spiritual wealth is to follow Christ, who commands us to eschew earthly things, and not become entangled.
Now, don't get me wrong. I think that one should be rewarded for effort. And even being rich is not a sln per se (Prov 10:4). Furthermore, we are told to work to eat (2 Thes 3:10)
Now, the test of the Rich Man (who went away sad) was to give up everything to follow Christ. But not all who came to Christ were so required. Each of us has a different cross. And for some, that is still to give all up one way or another.
"the story of how money-changers are constantly hunting for ways to make money without sweating a drop by leveraging workers and markets against each other and finding loopholes to be exploited" -- throw the money changers out of the temple! They do not belong!