Capitalism—How Does It Work?
Jan 13th, 2012 by Randy Toman
Capitalism—-one form of economic systems and it is just that, a system. The standards injected into that system are coming to capitalism from another source. Those sources will give capitalism its moral and ethical boundaries, how it will be run. Capitalism could never be said to force morals or ethics onto the greedy person who by working the system made money and by doing so created any number of jobs which the system would demand anyway.
The greedy venture capitalist can never be honored as a righteous person he can only be advertised as a good person through some platform. The laws that direct the operation of capitalism, again are just that, they act as a form of punishment when violated and a reward when used within those laws of operation. The laws are internal and native to the system and/or the laws imposed through government regulations. They have nothing to do with the righteousness or evilness of the person’s character working the system. He alone stands to do right by the system or if evil, to pervert and twist it into the greed and abuse we see in today’s system.
The perversion of both Capitalism (the economy) and Republic form of government can only lead to less and less liberty. In both cases it will not be the system that is causing the perversion and destruction but the character of the people who are in control of those systems.
We must realize that man’s material choices (what he does and how he acts) flows from his spiritual moral beliefs. Morals and ethics concerns are intertwined with economic choices. In fact, the founder of modern economics, Adam Smith, was the instructor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow; and his book “The Wealth of Nations” (1776) was developed out of his prior book, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”. (1759)
Isaiah 1:22 “Your silver has become dross…”
Have we not cheapen our coins and printed our paper without the backing of gold—the paper is back by nothing but the government’s word which is fast becoming worthless. With the government about to raise the debt ceiling another $1.2 Trillion cheapening our money even more and setting——–still another poor example of leadership.
The Puritan work ethic was foundational to America’s success. From the year 1623 when the Puritan’s jettisoned the Communistic economic system, which almost caused the colony to perish——-they put in place a Biblical individual enterprise system, and from that date there has been no famine in this land.
Our nation has been cultivated with liberty as no other nation in history, yet we find in these days a perverted capitalistic system with greed and power ruling the halls of banking and government. Why is this? God is out and something other then righteousness has taken its place. Liberty is a Christian idea and a gift of God.
Proverb 13:11 KJV
“Wealth gotten by vanity (fraud) shall be diminished but he that gathereth by labor shall increase.”
Proverb 14:23 KJV
“In all labor there is profit: but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury.” (Extreme poverty)
We Shall See——-and very shortly
Free enterprise capitalism is the best and only right economic policy, but as you point out, even it will fail in the absence of ethics and morals. What we have today is not real free enterprise, but an increasing fascist system, where the government teams with favored businesses (normally the largest ones) to smash free competition.
American free enterprise has degenerated into economic darwinism, where the goal is not ethical competition but a greed-driven practice of destroying competitors and taking advantage of every situation to squeeze employees, vendors, and customers out of everything possible.
This will not make for a free and happy society, whether you label it “free enterprise” or immoral theft.