Capitalism Or…?

First let me say I am not an extreme right wing conservative that believes everything but capitalism is evil and of the devil. However, I have been thinking a lot about the contrast of what we do and what we have seen others do economically and with their governments.

First, a list of what we can all agree on that we hate:
1 Greed
2 Poverty
3 Abuse
4 Corruption
5 People Hurting

So this is just a small list but it covers many of the things in the political arena that seem to cover much of what both sides of the political isle should hate. (And they do in their root values)

So now that we agree on what we don’t want, now we have to figure out how to fix it. Well, let’s look through history and answer some questions.

1 Can anyone show an example of a government, country or economics system that did not have all the things in the list above? (I couldn’t find one)
2 What countries across the last century have had the least amount of poverty?
3 What were their government and economic structures and practices?

I keep hearing of the evils of capitalism. Capitalism is not evil. Socialism is not evil, heck; you might be able to make an argument that even a dictatorship is not evil (especially since most of the Old Testament was a form of dictatorships). So since the forms are not evil what is? PEOPLE ARE!

This is what our founding fathers knew and understood clearly. The reason democracy and capitalism is so valued is not because it does not have evilness in it (the people running it are evil) but because it (compared to other forms) empowers an individual and their communities to fight against the evil more then any other form of government or economics.

I do recognize I am combining government and economics, mostly because they are so closely tied together. You really can not separate the two in our globalized world today (at least in my opinion). Now I know this is not an in-depth study but an honest conversation about the critiques I keep hearing. I recently heard the statement: “The overeducated, in all their education, end of not really knowing anything. They are so caught up in their books of discussion and philosophy they forgot to look at their history books.” – There is something of truth in this statement that I find revealing about our culture/political leaders today.

I believe the more power the community and the individuals have the more power they can work to become free from all the things listed above, both in government and economics. That power is best given through a democracy/capitalistic system in today’s global economy.

I know many want to fix the things in the list, I agree! However the solution is not to mimic failed forms that are happening around us and have occurred historically – mainly version of socialism. In an evil world with evil man we want to think we can fix it. Well we can’t! But we can work against it. If we think somehow we can fix it and remove power from one evil man and give it to another and that will fix it… well that just sounds ignorant. I see that way of thinking in things happening today.

Example: We don’t trust the evil insurance companies so now we want the government to do it. Then we will have another group of evil people running it and they will create their own evils. (I know this issue is deeper then this but this is simple yet accurate representation of the dialogue.)

I have been told by some of my more liberal friends that Jesus would support welfare, government insurance etc and that is why they are liberal and why I don’t represent Christ. My response is this: I believe they are very un-biblical because they have put their hope in man in a way that denies the reality of scripture and the sinful nature. They have put their hope in man and their various forms of government instead of what Christ left to do his works, the church.

If we ignore humanity we ignore reality and will be doomed to repeat ourselves over and over again; failing and trapping the very people we wish to free!

OK…thanks for hearing my thoughts on this controversial issue.