Christianity, Prosperity, and Capitalism

The issues of economics, wealth, and prosperity are often given short shrift among Christians. It strikes many of them, including conservative evangelical Christians, as inhabiting a lower order of concern.

Wealth in Scripture

Others feel slightly embarrassed to speak up for wealth-creation, let alone for capitalism. They believe it cuts against the grain of Scripture and the words of Jesus, who after all warned His followers, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” St. Paul wrote, similarly, that the love of money is the root of numerous evils.

Yet estimable figures in the Bible, like Abraham and Solomon, were wealthy. “Lazy hands make a man poor,” according to Proverbs, “but diligent hands bring wealth.” Private property is taken for granted in the Hebrew Bible; otherwise, the commandment “Thou shalt not steal” would not have much meaning. Indeed, restitution is required in the case of theft, and biblical injunctions to give away one’s wealth—even if taken literally—are clearly to be understood as urgings toward personal charity.[1]

What a contextual reading of the Bible tells us, it’s fair to say, is that wealth can be a snare that we have to be careful to avoid. But so are other things: pride, envy, lust, gluttony, wrath. Our hearts are easily drawn to material things. What Jesus and St. Paul were describing, then, was a spiritual temptation, and a very serious and real one; however, neither figure outlined an economic system. Like the Sermon on the Mount, which we discussed in chapter 1, Jesus’ words were meant to guide personal behavior, not to establish a political platform.

Benefits of Capitalism

And so, as is almost always the case when it comes to Christianity and political philosophy, what we are dealing with in regard to economic systems is a prudential calculation, not a matter of church doctrine. Those who insist that Christianity explicitly endorses this or that economic system have planted their flag on treacherous ground. The case for and against capitalism should be made on its merits—and about this, we do have some things to say.

First, no other economic system—not socialism, not autarky, and surely not communism—can compare to capitalism as an engine of economic growth, wealth creation, and human achievement. This in itself should mean a great deal to anyone concerned for the poor and the oppressed.

Capitalism has produced two things that for much of history were regarded as inconceivable: a large middle class and intergenerational wealth-building. In so doing, it has lifted untold numbers of people out of mass poverty and mass misery. What is more, the medical, scientific, and technological advancements that have resulted from capitalism have brought wholeness and healing to countless lives. By contrast, where capitalism has not yet taken root we find destitution, widespread misery and illiteracy, and much early death.

Because of the wealth created by capitalism, charity and generosity are possible. The moral philosopher Adam Smith, who was also the father of modern economics, put it this way: “If our own misery pinches us very severely, we have no leisure to attend to that of our neighbor.” Americans, fortunate to be able to attend to their neighbors, gave more than $300 billion to charity last year, to say nothing of the millions of American citizens who volunteer for charitable work.[2] The successes of capitalism make all of this possible.

Free markets also go hand in hand with free societies. Both require government to be limited in its power and reach. Both depend on transparency and accountability. And both trust people to act in ways that advance their self-interest and the interests of society. It is no coincidence that totalitarian governments view capitalism as an unacceptable threat to their authority. To allow people freedom in one realm will lead to another, and then another, threatening a police state with the loss of its grip on power.

The material prosperity generated by capitalism, then, is an indisputable social and moral good.

Limitations of Capitalism

Yet it is necessary to add that capitalism produces wealth more easily than it produces character. Its ranks include individuals who (being human) can be greedy, careless, and reckless. We are all too familiar with examples of financial fraud and Ponzi schemes, with the manipulation of markets and insider trading, with companies that cut corners in order to make a quick buck.

Which is to say that capitalism, for all its strengths, is hardly self-sufficient or self-sustaining. Like democracy itself, it depends on a citizenry characterized by certain habits of mind and heart: men and women who possess traits like self-discipline, honesty, and sympathy. And so we return once again to the indispensable role played by families, schools, and churches, builders of human character and nurturers of human virtues.

Nor is that the end of the matter. Capitalism is not a natural phenomenon; it is, in fact, a social creation, a product of the state. Laws are its rules. It therefore muddies rather than clarifies the debate to say that we have to choose between government and markets. The relevant question—in this context, the only truly useful question—is not whether the state has a role to play but what the nature of that role ought to be.

The State’s Role in Capitalism

In order to properly function, capitalism relies on the state, and specifically on a state that respects the free market without bowing down before it. “Properly understood, the case for capitalism is not a case for license or for laissez-faire,” Yuval Levin has written:

“It is a case for national wealth as a moral good; for the interest of the mass of consumers as the guide of policy; for clear and uniform rules of competition imposed upon all; for letting markets set prices, letting buyers make choices, and letting producers experiment, innovate, and make what they think they can sell—all while protecting consumers and punishing abuses. It is a case for avoiding concentrations of power, for keeping business and government separate, and for letting those who can meet their own needs do so. It is a case for humility about our ability to know, and therefore about our capacity to do.”[3]

Exactly so. In reflecting on the strengths and blessings provided by capitalism, we need to acknowledge its limitations and think about how to deal wisely with them. An irreplaceable engine of growth and progress, it can also, as the Industrial Revolution showed, produce enormous social dislocation. In the inevitable transition from one industry to another, certain people can get run over. This is what Joseph Schumpeter, a great champion of capitalism, called the system’s quality of “creative destruction.” The role of the state is to help cushion the blows of capitalism and to offer help to those who cannot help themselves.

“There’s a growing recognition,” Professor Mary Ann Glendon has written, “that human beings do not flourish if the conditions under which we work and raise our families are entirely subject either to the play of market forces or to the will of distant bureaucrats. The search is on for practical alternatives to hardhearted laissez-faire on the one hand and ham-fisted, top-down regulation on the other.”[4] That is the mark of a decent and advanced society.

Christianity and Capitalism

No magic formula can tell Christians what the precise admixture should be between capitalism and the state, between the private and the public sectors. These issues need to be determined through experience, through solutions tried and solutions failed, and with careful regard to facts and circumstances. Entitlement programs like Social Security may well rank as among the most humane social initiatives in American history—but it may be that, because of demographic shifts and new fiscal realities, this program and others need to be fundamentally reformed. Means-testing might make sense at one moment in history, not at another.

The Scriptures, for all their wisdom, offer very little guidance on these matters. What we can take away from them, though, is that an economic system, like an individual life, ought to be judged by the fruit it produces. By that standard, capitalism is, in our estimation, worthy of support, worthy of praise, and worthy of defense.

[1] For a much fuller discussion of capitalism, see Arthur C. Brooks and Peter Wehner, Wealth and Justice: The Morality of Democratic Capitalism (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 2010).

[2] Yuval Levin, “Recovering the Case for Capitalism,” National Affairs, spring 2010, no. 3, 134.

[3] Ibid, 134-35

[4] Mary Ann Glendon, “Beyond the Simple Market-State Dichotomy,” Origins 26 (May 9, 1996), 797.