Money, Capitalism, and Morality

Earn all you can, give all you can, save all you can.

- John Wesley

Capitalism takes more people out of poverty than aid.

-St Bono of U2

Jesus’ Parable of the Talents A man is headed out of town for an extended journey. He calls his three servants together and gives one of them $5,000, another $2,000, and the third $1,000.  When he returns, he calls the servants for a confab and asks them about his return on investment (ROI). The guy who received 5 grand had doubled his master’s money. The master told him that, from now on, they would be partners. The guy who had received 2 grand had also doubled his master’s investment and, therefore, was promoted to being a partner. However, the guy who was given 1 grand, being risk averse, decided to bury the money so that he would still have it when the master returned. His master told him that, at the very least, he should have put the money in a savings account where he would have had some ROI. This guy was fired.

The moral of the story: The God who gave you your gifts, talents, capacities, and opportunities expects a ROI.

Your Money

It is telling that Jesus used money as a means for conveying his message. There is nothing here about giving all your money to the poor, and nothing about sacrificing your wealth for the good of society and being rewarded in heaven. On the contrary, the two men who doubled their master's money were rewarded in-this-life, while the man with no ROI for his boss’ money is fired.

Money is a symbol of productivity. Money represents your labor, your talents, your skills, your time, your faithfulness, and your aptitude for decision-making. In a free society, where men and women of good will exchange their best efforts in mutual self-interest, your wealth is based on the degree of your productivity, how well you manage your resources, and upon the value of what you have to offer in the marketplace.

One of the reasons I believe a free market economy – capitalism – is so critical is that it gives us optimal freedom for being good stewards.

Capitalism

Capitalism respects your right of ownership. “You shall not steal,” says God. Socialism, believing in its own omniscience and omnipotence, does not regard this law as having any application to the state.

Capitalism respects your individuality and the inalienable rights with which you were born. Socialists only respect the will of the state, the will of the ruling elites. As they see it, life and death (both literally and metaphorically) are not in the hands of God, but, rather, are in the hands of the Omniscient State.

Capitalism, rightly understood, supports human dignity: to wit, Yes. You. Can. All other systems treat the individual as an idiot, a slave of the state, or a victim who is incapable of making his own way. Ever. How in the world people think that treating individuals in such a demeaning manner as evidence of compassion or respect is beyond baffling.

Capitalism allows you to enjoy the rewards of your labor, as well as to learn from your failures. Socialism decides who best deserves the rewards you’ve earned, and whether or not you will be allowed to succeed or fail.

In other words, socialism interferes with your stewardship before God.

Morality

As opposed to all other economic systems, capitalism allows you to make as much money as you are able for your own sake, for your family’s sake, for love’s sake.

It’s this last attribute - for love’s sake - that makes all the difference in the world between being consumed by money and possessions or by love: whether the blessings that come our way are being stewarded as blessings from God or being used to degrade our selves and others: whether we are pursuing our own selfish ends or a life well-lived, which includes pursuing virtue’s such as love, goodness, and justice. *  

Freedom comes with rights and duties. Our nation’s founders never envisioned democracy as a morality-free zone, where, exchanging liberty for licentiousness, everyone runs around doing whatever is right in his own eyes. They understood that, without a moral people, democracy would degenerate into anarchy or tyranny. The same goes for free markets. If we remove love for God and others from the marketplace and our individual economic pursuits, then all we will be left with is not a marketplace but a den of thieves.

* Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy. - Proverbs 31: 8,9 

Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court, for the Lord will take up their case and will exact life for life. - Proverbs 22:22-23

If you love me, keep my commands. – Jesus, John 14:15 This includes not making money an idol (e.g., living for self-aggrandizement), no bearing of false-witness regarding your product/skills/ competition, no stealing or cheating, no coveting, as well as honoring –protecting, caring for - the family.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? – I John 3: 16,17

(All passages taken from NIV)

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2017

The Visciousness of Envy

I am Envy...I cannot read and therefore wish all books burned.

- Christopher Marlowe

Capitalism is brutally honest. By this, I mean that, in the arena of achievement, you cannot hide your shortcomings and failures. You contribute or not. You produce or not. You cannot sell or trade hopes and fantasies: you have something of value to contribute in the marketplace, or not.

Consumers are interested in meeting their needs and desires. The entrepreneur who does this with a quality product and at a cheaper price than his competitors is rewarded. I may be a wonderful upstanding guy who people really like, but if I have nothing of value to offer in the marketplace, I am invisible to the consumer.

Today, however, people are acting like the aristocracy of old, demanding to be rewarded without having produced much, or demanding equal rewards for unequal production. Fifteen-dollars per hour for the French Frying Queen! These are the envious people who want what the successful person has earned and, if not, they don’t want anyone to have such rewards.

Envy is vicious.

It is one wrong thing to be jealous of the success of another. For example, I am jealous that you have a new BMW and I drive a ’92 Buick. Envy, however, goes farther, believing that, if I can’t have a Beemer, you shouldn’t have one.

The Envious: I deserve to be wealthy but I am not. However, successful entrepreneurs are wealthy. This is wrong, immoral, unfair, blah, blah, and blah. Confiscate their wealth!

Really? The product is not illegal or immoral and the consumer was neither defrauded nor coerced. Tell me at what point, then, did the profits become immoral? If you are saying the product should be illegal, then make your case. However, when your recriminations are solely against the wealth produced, all you are doing is demonstrating your envy. (Reference: Productive Christians in An Age of Guilt Manipulators, by David Chilton.)

To the envious person, the damnable thing is that the market has placed a different value on his contribution than he believes is “fair.” “Someone must do something about this miscarriage of justice!” and by “someone” he is referring to state and federal governments that must join him in declaring all out war on the producers of wealth via confiscatory taxation … that, of course, is to be redistributed to the poor … after the state and federal governments take their 80% handling fees.

The deal is, however, it is not “justice” the envy seeks: it is retribution and destruction.

Such is the damnable viciousness of envy that, if it becomes the majority voice in a culture and, consequently, the inevitable happens – i.e., poverty and unemployment rates skyrocket – and all then become equally poor, you will see a smile of satisfaction on its twisted face.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2017

Prophets Against Profits

In the capitalist system of society’s economic organization the entrepreneurs determine the course of production. In the performance of this function they are unconditionally and totally subject to the sovereignty of the busying public, the consumers. If they fail to produce in the cheapest and best possible way these commodities which the consumers are asking for most urgently, they suffer losses and are finally eliminated from their entrepreneurial position. Other men who know better how to serve the consumers replace them.

- Ludwig von Mises, “Planning For Freedom”

A (very) brief primer on where profits come from in a free market economy and then a few observations regarding the idiocy of any notion of profits being “too high.”

In a capitalistic economy, sellers (entrepreneurs) compete with other sellers while consumers compete with other consumers.

The seller competes with other sellers in forecasting the consumer’s needs and desires and providing their product in a timely manner at a price the consumer will pay.

The consumers compete by bidding against other consumers via how much each is willing to pay for the product, if anything at all.  

The seller wins or loses (profits or losses) according to how accurate his forecast was regarding consumer demand and how the consumer evaluates the quality and cost of the product.  

If the seller nails it, his risk (investment) is rewarded. By the way, when other entrepreneurs see his rewards, they are motivated to compete for these profits by producing the same product at a cheaper price … and the cost for us consumers is driven downward. Nifty, eh?

So, riddle me this.

What in the world are “unjust” or “ungodly” profits? Where did the profit come from? Satisfied consumers. So what is actually being asserted is that the consumers are wicked.

“No, no, no, Wilson. The seller obviously charged too much for his product.” Maybe it was “too much” for you or you simply didn’t want the product. Fine. For all those who wanted the product, however, the price was juuuust right.

“Well then, the consumers were duped into buying the product by advertisers.” So you’re saying thousands upon thousands of consumers were all too stupid to resist the ads? Can you say … condescending? Anyway, if advertising was that powerful sellers would never have to worry about the demand for or the quality of their product. Just pour a zillion dollars into ads and success is assured.

Question: By what standard do the accusers condemn a certain level of profits as “unjust?” Their. Subjective. Opinions. That’s it. Contrary to Mises’ comment that the consumers are sovereign in a free market, what these self-appointed judges are asserting is, “I am sovereign.” Of course, when our governments make side deals with corporations, deciding winners and losers, or enact price controls, or place higher taxes on products they deem a “luxury,” and etc., they too are asserting their sovereignty over the market place, but that’s a topic for another day.

When I was younger, I never understood the prophets against high profits. Didn’t they see they were railing against their neighbors who purchased the product or who own stock in Too-Wealthy, Inc.? At first, I chalked it up to ignorance. People simply do not understand capitalism and the free market. But then the motive for so many others’ condemnation of high profits dawned on me: it is unabashed envy, seasoned with hatred for the common man.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2017