No, Governor Walz, Socialism is envy not neighborly

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the abortion of communism in Eastern Europe didn’t cause socialists to give up on the ideology. They merely redefined socialism. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said,  “Don’t ever shy away from our progressive values… One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.” Any act of concern for another is socialism. Others have defined socialism as worker-owned businesses. 

Socialist Christians who call themselves “progressive” to fool the gullible see Jesus as a socialist because he healed people, fed the poor and torched the rich. Telling the rich young ruler to sell everything and give the cash to the poor is Jesus advocating socialism. The church in Acts helped the poor so it was an example of a socialist commune. They imply that capitalists hate the poor and vulnerable and will not lift a finger to help them. 

National Conservatism needs better economics

 

Senator Josh Hawley made many excellent points in his speech at the recent National Conservatism Conference, especially on cultural issues. But his economics is lacking. For example, he said, 

“In the name of capitalism, these Republicans sang the praises of global integration while Wall Street bet against American industry and bought up single family homes—so that after the banks took the working man’s job, he couldn’t afford a house for his family to live in. Then Wall Street crashed that global economy—multiple times—and the housing market, and these same Republicans kept right on rhapsodizing. And subsidizing.”

Senator Hawley should know that the US hasn’t practiced capitalism for over a century. The country followed the principles of capitalism from before our founding until the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 that gave it the legal authority to counterfeit money. The Fed’s massive money printing in the 1920’s caused the unsustainable bubble of the roaring twenties that gave us the Great Depression when the bubble burst. Roosevelt’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society piled on the socialist policies that crushed what was left of capitalism. 

What are the social responsibilities of companies?

Last year, the theological journal themelios, owned by The Gospel Coalition, published a paper asking “Do Companies Have Social Responsibilities?”  The author, Dr. Gary Cundill, concludes, “Companies are not human persons that have social and environmental responsibilities; they are legal entities that have legal responsibilities. There can therefore be no useful theology of corporate social and environmental responsibility.”

I agree with Dr. Cundill’s conclusion, but he fumbled his initial question, “What are companies for?” He recalled the Business Roundtable’s purpose, “to deliver value to its stakeholders: customers, employees, suppliers, communities and shareholders.”  And he discussed the Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman’s statement in Time Magazine that “there is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.” 

Biblical Critical Theory Is Not Biblical. It’s Watered-Down Marxism

 

Tags:Book Reviews,Media and Culture,Philosophy,Socialism

02/24/2024•Mises Wire•Roger McKinney

Christianity Today magazine, founded by Billy Graham, chose Christopher Watkin’s book, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture, as one of its 2024 Book Awards and the book most likely “to shape evangelical life, thought, and culture.” Other Christian organizations promote the book too.

Nonreligious readers won’t care, but they need to keep in mind that most people won’t take a class or read a book on economics. I can clear a crowded room just by mentioning economics. But they do read books like this one or listen to pastors who do. Evangelicals make up about 25 percent of voters. So, any plan to change the direction of the country’s economic policies requires reaching them.

Watkin, a lecturer in French studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, trudges through the Bible applying his interpretations to his perception of modern Western culture. He calls his method “diagonalization,” in which he identifies extreme cultural views and places biblical principles in the middle.

But his diagonalization forces him to see only extremes, many of which don’t exist. Much of what he writes is reasonable, but his train derails when writing about the market:

There Is Something Wrong with the Economic Views of Theologians

 

• 

Review of Kathryn Tanner: Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism

An old professor told our class decades ago to believe nothing from the popular press about economics and only half of what the financial press writes. I would add that if a theologian tries to teach you economics, hide your wallet and lock up your daughters! Kathryn Tanner’s Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism is a good example of such the tragic comedy produced by most theologians.

Tanner has taught at Yale Divinity School since 2010 after 16 years at the University of Chicago Divinity School. She is an influential past president of the American Theological Society. Rosemary P. Carbine and Hilda P. Koster say, “Kathryn Tanner is, quite simply, the most accomplished theologian of her generation,” in their book The Gift of Theology: The Contribution of Kathryn Tanner. The errors in her book are so numerous that it would take another book to correct them, so I’ll concentrate on the assumptions underlying her argument.

Tanner’s premise is that capitalism, as evil as it was in the beginning, has morphed into a more horrible monster called financial capitalism. Socialists have over the decades invented stages of capitalism and it’s popular to decry the latest for the dominance of the financial services sector. Yet as usual, they lack evidence. The sector grew from 4% of GDP in 1929 to 8% in 2006 according to a paper in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. While doubling, it’s still smaller than the healthcare or government sectors. The federal government absorbs over 20% of GDP. So, Tanner would be more accurate calling it state capitalism, but that’s an oxymoron.

Killers of the Flower Moon Is about Government Failure

 

Most reviewers of the motion picture Killers of the Flower Moon distill just one lesson from the story: greed is deadly. The love of money leads to evil. But the real lesson should be of government failure.

The movie follows the book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. It tells the story of the Osage tribe during the 1920s oil boom in Oklahoma. Tribal members became very wealthy because of the discovery of oil on tribal land, and many white people committed fraud and murder to steal that wealth.

Government-Enforced Paid Family Leave Is Not Pro-Family

Paid family leave—meaning the government paying or forcing businesses to pay for one or more parents taking time off to spend with a newborn—seems like a slam dunk idea to the Christian Left. According to a recent article in Christianity Today, “Christians Shouldn’t Need a Mandate to Provide Paid Family Leave,” “We should provide the best family leave possible. Christians who own or manage businesses ought to lead the way on family leave.” The article lists three benefits of parents taking time off to be with newborns:

1. Parental leave could save lives. “There is clearly a link—even if indirect—between maternity leave and babies surviving.”
2. Old Testament purification rules, “which in practice gave new mothers a rest after birth,” are similar.
3. Men need to spend time with their children in the initial weeks after birth or adoption. “Research has shown ‘fathers who take paternity leave are more likely, a year or so down the road, to change diapers, bathe their children, read them bedtime stories, and get up at night to tend to them.’”

Point one is debatable, point two is irrelevant, but point three is a post hoc fallacy. Paid parental leave doesn’t cause men to become better fathers; good fathers take parental leave.

Common sense tells us that it’s good for mothers and fathers to spend as much time as possible with new babies. However, the conclusion that businesses or the government must pay for this time is another fallacy—a non sequitur, or a logical leap across the Grand Canyon. Fathers and mothers should save and pay for the leave themselves.