A Reformed Theological View Of Neoliberal Capitalism

 Either through explicitl statements or silent complicity, many American Christian leaders and laypeople from the Reformed Faith have provided support for our current economic system of Neoliberal Capitalism. Some of them think that our current form of Capitalism has not changed significantly from the past and thus today's Capitalism is part of the American way of life. Others also see significant connections between Capitalism and past Reformed believers all the way back to John Calvin. And thus a continued Church tradition of supporting those with wealth and power is being played out again.

Monica Schaap Pierce (click here for a bio), who is now teaching at Calvin University, has written a Reformed criticism of Neoliberal Capitalism in an effort to put distance between both the Reformed Faith and theology of John Calvin and Neoliberal Capitalism (click here).

What is Neoliberal Capitalism? To be clear, it is not the form of Capitalism embraced after WW II up through the 1970a. That was called the Bretton Woods system (click here and see the abstract and introduction to get familiarized with the two systems).

With Neoliberal Capitalism, we have a severe cutting of  social responsibility for businesses and the markets. That cutting of social responsibility involves the cutting of taxes and regulations. And the point is to have an economic system that is designed to maximize profits for all participants. We should note that maximizing profits is a cannibalizing ethic that devours all other ethics. What isn't discussed in the review is how Neoliberal Capitalism is perhaps the most anti-Democracy forms of  Capitalism. Why that is the case is because in a working democracy, the cutting of regulations and taxes to the bare minimum means that business and the markets are the least answerable to the people.

There is a global side of Neoliberal Capitalism and a domestic side. The global side emphasizes trade pacts that makes government policies answerable to trade pacts while protecting foreign businesses from national government scrutiny. The domestic side of  Neoliberal Capitalism looks to cut regulations that protect workers, consumers, and the environment as well as cutting taxes as much as possible. Both President Obama and Hillary Clinton pursued the global side of Neoliberal Capitalism, President Trump pursued the domestic side. We will have to wait to see how Biden's policies fit in here.

Pierce wants to first distance Calvinism from Neoliberal Capitalism. They have been closely tied together by some since John Calvin is seen as the originator of the Protestant work ethic. Pierce objects to Calvinism being so closely associated with Neoliberal Capitalism for two reasons. The first reason was that doing so only prescribes a single source for Neoliberal Capitalism. But more importantly, Pierce notes that Calvin was for sharing, helping the needy, and was more egalitarian so that people would have neither too little nor too much.

Pierce then describes how the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) addressed Neoliberal Capitalism in its Accra Confession that was adopted by WARC in 2004. 

Accra's problems with Neoliberal Capitalism include its overemphasis on consumerism, its destruction of the environment, and the ever widening wealth disparity between the different economic classes. Pierce mentions that the pandemic only amplified the problems that arise from growing wealth disparities.

Pierce goes on to mention how people of color suffer disproportionately from those effects. An example here is that problems with air pollution disproportionately affect people of color because it is the urban areas that are most affected by problems with air pollution.

Besides the physical problems that Neoliberal Capitalism visits on us, the Pierce says that the Accra Confession says that Neoliberal Capitalism teaches the following falsehoods:

1. Unrestrained competition, consumerism, and unlimited economic growth and accumulation of wealth are best for the whole world.
   
   
2.  Ownership of private property has no social obligation.
   
   
3. Capital speculation, liberalization, and deregulation of the market, privatization of public utilities and national resources, unrestricted access for foreign investments and imports, lower taxes and the unrestricted movement of capital will achieve wealth for all.
   
   
4. Social obligations, protection of the poor and the weak, trade unions, and relationships between people are subordinate to the processes of economic growth and capital accumulation.
   

Some of the above points reminds one of something Martin Luther King Jr. said during his speech against the Vietnam War (click here for the source):

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies... With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just."

Pierce goes on to make the point that Neoliberal Capitalism hurts us both spiritually as well as physically. It hurts us spiritually in terms of the kind of consumers we become, it attacks our concern for the poor and those whose labor is exploited in Neoliberal economic systems, and it feeds or greed and selfishness. It also invades many parts of our lives with advertising.

Reporting on the Accra Confession, Pierce states that Neoliberal Capitalism not only corrupts our understanding of Doctrine of Creation, it hurts our theological understanding of people. Then Pierce continues with how the Accra Confession ends with hope by reminding us of how we are tied to both God and each other.

Now I have tried to give a brief summary of Piece's article because I want people to read for themselves what she has written. What is welcomed here with Pierce's article and its reporting on the Accra Confession. It should be welcomed especially by those who have ties to the Reformed Faith. It should be welcomed unless, of course, other ideologies and loyalties have obscured the damage the Neoliberal Capitalism is doing not just to one's own nation, but to the whole world.