Posted on 01/28/2009 6:54:45 PM PST by Kaslin
The 18th century English cleric and theologian John Wesley was troubled by a paradox that emerged as his teaching spread. He, like other Protestant thinkers stretching back to Calvin, taught that one could honor God through hard work and thrift.
The subsequent burst of industry and frugality generated by Wesley's message improved the lot of many of his working-class followers and helped advance capitalism in England.
But "wherever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion," Wesley observed, and subsequently pride and greed are growing more common, he complained.
The emergence of what Max Weber described as the Protestant ethic represented an important point in the evolution of capitalism because it combined a reverence for hard work with an emphasis on thrift and forthrightness in one's dealings with others. Where those virtues were most ardently practiced, markets advanced and socie-ties prospered.
And, as Wesley foresaw, what slowly followed was a rise in materialism and a reverence of wealth for its own sake.
Today, we seem to be living out Wesley's most feared version of the pursuit of affluence unencumbered by virtue.
Scam artists perpetrate giant Ponzi schemes against their friends and associates. Executives arrange compensation packages that pay themselves handily for failure. Ordinary people by the hundreds of thousands seek a shortcut to riches by lying on mortgage applications. Heartless phony bailout schemes take the last dollar of people already in distress.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
gee, I hate to tout the post I put up last night on Rand’s shortcomings that everyone hated but, wow, it sure prefigured this.
I don’t understand the title. You don’t need to believe in GOD, to understand economics
Okay, so what was your post?
I’ll dig it up sometime. I’ve said it over and over anyway.
Capitalism and the free market has nothing to do with religion or a Protestant work ethic. The Hindus, the Jews, the Buddhists, the Taoists, and even the Atheists and the Agnostics (this applies to many scientists) work just as hard, if not harder.
(I believe the Atheists and the Agnostics will have a harder time developing a strong work ethic, but sometimes they put their faith in science, generating an equivalent work product).
In fact, it is the freedom of religion that is integral to a free market. I don’t care what you believe in or if you believe in anything ... that’s between you and God. However, this notion that somehow Protestant Christianity and capitalism are somehow tied together is bunk. In fact, I would argue that Protestant Christianity is sometimes socialistic.
That seems to be kind of a dangerous concept. Too often we tend to think that economic freedom goes hand-in-hand with the other types of freedoms we enjoy; I think China's proving that you can have the former without the latter.
Atheistic Marxism is our nation's **most** serious threat. Government K-12 schools are the Marxists **most** important weapon!
Yet....Few conservatives are even aware of the threat, and are not prepared to shut these government school Marxist madrassas down! Some foolish conservatives sensing that "something" is wrong thing the schools can be reformed. ( They cant'!)
And...There are plenty of private schools, too, that are more than willing to play the role of "Useful Idiot".
Our bill of rights, (freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of petition, freedom to bear arms), are necessary in order to have a free market. It is possible to have some of these rights and not have a free market, but I would contend such rights then are superficial.
Service to others is the very basis of economic prosperity. Europeans, Democrats, and other under-achieving America-bashers try to say the rich somehow got their wealth by taking it from others and gov't needs to 'spread it around' but they're just lying to justify stealing our production.
The big point that's missed is that when we get rich while doing the right thing, our wealth is not our primary goal. We do His will because that's what we do.
The easiest response to those claiming that a free market is “immoral” is to ask, how “moral” is economic coercion?
My argument was that prosperity cannot be brought about by coercion and that China's economic growth had to come from their free entrepreneurs and not slave labor. But the important question is the one you raise, whether coercion is moral.
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