To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost quote of Ben Sasse who stated that a government that is big enough to put a business out of business for following the First Amendment is too big. This appeared in the Heidelblog.
On the other hand, we saw in Jim Crow First Amendment rights being used to deny other people their rights. Now either Sasse doesn't see that other people's rights are being violated when they cannot participate as equals in the marketplace, or he doesn't see that the people whose rights are being violated don't deserve to have equal rights in the marketplace. In either case, Sasse's statement about the size of government should be followed with the question, is a state that is big enough to enforce just laws too big? And in either case, Sasse's statement is more of an attempt at marketing the issue in favor of his views than anything else.
What should also be noted is that while those who advocate the correction of social injustices in ways that violate conservative politics are accused of having inadequate eschatologies by the Heidelblog and other Christians, somehow conservative political views are being advocated. Does that imply that conservative political views have an inadequate concern for social justice?
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August 19
To George Stanciu and his blogpost on the good and bad of Capitalism and how the Christian is to live in such a system. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog
This article shows a good attempt to take a balanced approach to Capitalism. Stanciu did miss one point, that America didn't employ Adam Smith's free trade principles until sometime during the FDR administration. Up until that time, America employed protectionism in order to allow its industries to grow and become competitive.
There is a repeated theme in Stanciu's article, it is that of reductionism and the problems it causes. Adam Smith's reducing human motivation to self-interest, the self-reducing ethic of maximizing profits encourages us to follow the rules only when it costs less to follow them than to break them, and Capitalism's reducing of the labor power of the worker to a commodity making the worker disposable. In the end, the biggest reductionism that we see in Capitalism is that it leads us to reduce the study and practice of economics to that of commerce--a point made by Chiléan economist, Manfred Max-Kneef. Whereas commerce is primarily concerned the buying and selling of goods, the Greek root in the word economics infers a more comprehensive and holistic approach to the study of our system.
I appreciated Stanciu's borrowing from Martin Luther King, Jr. in his description of our society as being thing-oriented. Martin Luther King, Jr. made that observation in his 1967 speech against the Vietnam War. But King had much earlier said something else that pertains to Capitalism. That it leads us to measure life by the things we buy and accumulate rather than how we have contributed to others.
Now some Christians believe that only Christians should enlighten the use of Capitalism by society. That is simply an effort to have one's cake and eat it too. But the constant reductionisms made in Capitalist economic systems causes many of us Christians to start off as Don Quixotes only to see exhaustion change us into becoming cynics. As King would say, not only should we help the individual victims we find on the road to Jericho, we should change that road itself so that there are fewer victims. That implies changing our economic system. And that is the real challenge for the Christian in our Capitalist economic system; it is to work, with some unbelievers, in order to change our economic system so that there are fewer victims on the road to Jericho. For to do charity work only while riding in on the coattails of Capitalism causes the Church to repeat serious mistakes from the past. For we find that in the pre-revoutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain the Church stood with wealth and power. When those respective revolutions came, the Church and the Gospel she is suppose to preach was unnecessarily persecuted.
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August 21
To Joe Carter and his blogpost on whether income disparity is a moral issue. This appeared in the Acton blog.
Perhaps if Carter referred to the Scriptures instead of some principles, he would see why income inequality can become a moral issue.
Of course he speaks about income inequality as a whole implying that all instances of wealth inequality neither pose moral problems nor raise any red flags.
What do the Scriptures say? James says the following to the rich (see https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+5%3A1-6&version=NIV:
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.
Now some may argue that James is talking to rich individuals. But how does his message not apply to groups of wealthy owners who practice the same treatment of workers that individual wealthy owners do? In addition, we might ask what is the difference between unpaying an employee and keeping their wages from them? Isn't the difference in that when a business owner underpays their employees, they are keep some of the employees wages rather than all as mentioned by James?
Or we can go to Jeremiah 22 and read what Jeremiah has to say to the son of Josiah (see https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah+22%3A13-17&version=NIV ):
“Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness,
his upper rooms by injustice,
making his own people work for nothing,
not paying them for their labor.
14 He says, ‘I will build myself a great palace
with spacious upper rooms.’
So he makes large windows in it,
panels it with cedar
and decorates it in red.
15 “Does it make you a king
to have more and more cedar?
Did not your father have food and drink?
He did what was right and just,
so all went well with him.
16 He defended the cause of the poor and needy,
and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?”
declares the Lord.
17 “But your eyes and your heart
are set only on dishonest gain,
on shedding innocent blood
and on oppression and extortion.”
Notice the same sins that James preached against is what Jeremiah preached against. And again, what is the difference between underpaying employees vs not paying them at all? Are not both examples of exploitation?
Or we can read what Isaiah wrote (see https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+58%3A1-3&version=NIV ):
“Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
2 For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.
Carter cannot see the moral factors that can, though not always do, be involved when there is income disparity. And he cannot see the moral factors because he hasn't dealt with the human elements that can be involved with certain degrees of income disparity. He doesn't not deal with the results exploited workers have to suffer through as a result of income disparity. And he doesn't mention what the wealthy did in order to create income disparity. If he had, then perhaps he would admit that there can easily be a moral factor involved with the existence of income inequality. And again, income disparity becomes a group problem when a group of those who are wealthy act like an individual who is wealthy who exploits their workers.
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