Reflections on Wall Street Capitalism

According to Bernie Sanders, our political system is corrupt and our economic system is rigged by Wall Street corporate capitalism.

According to Peggy Noonan, a conservative pundit, many young people have lost faith in American capitalism because of the economic earthquake in 2008 and the after shocks which have left them with uncertain futures.  Their faith has been shattered so they are turning to Sanders in droves.

According to Nick Hanauer, a venture capitalist and author of The Gardens of Democracy, for long-term survival, American capitalism must put the common good (justice for all) on a par with profits.  I recently heard Nick on NPR and was amazed at his insight, wisdom and common sense.

According to Kevin Crause, author of One Nation Under God, much of the American church has been coopted and manipulated by corporate capitalism to provide moral legitimacy for Wall Street and Christian nationalism.  One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America has been reviewed by Randall Palmer in the Feb. 3, 2016 Christian Century.  It wasn't always this way in the American church.  The following quotations are from the Palmer review:

     Building their case from scripture, evangelical reformers in the 19th and early 20th centuries excoriated capitalism as inherently inconsistent with the mandates of the New Testament.  Charles Finney thought the term 'Christian businessman' was an oxymoron because capitalism necessarily elevates avarice over altruism.

Jerry Falwell, Norman Vincent Peale and Billy Graham were among the many clergy who were influenced by The Committee to Proclaim Liberty.  Key capitalists were Sid Richardson, James L. Kraft, J.C. Penny and Walt Disney.

     The Committee to Proclaim Liberty enlisted still more clergy to perform the marriage between capitalism and Christianity, and by the dawn of the Eisenhower administration, all of this had somehow morphed into a kind Christian nationalism.  Billy Graham played a key role.

     They found no shortage of politicians willing to fly in the face of history to assert that the United States is a Christian nation, and no shortage of clergy willing to fly in the face of scripture to baptize free-market capitalism.

The Iowa Caucuses take place today.  White evangelicals here in Iowa seem more than willing to marry capitalism and the church, and to promote the Christian nationalism heresy.   

Pope Francis and Catholic social teaching provide a different alternative.  See the Feb Sojourners magazine for an excellent summary in the article, "Economic Democracy and the Common Good."  The common good would emphasize justice for all and cooperatives and some socialism, but not state socialism.  The early church stressed generous sharing, priority of the poor, and equality in community, and kingdom of God Jubilee justice.

Another variation of a more just economy can be found in the book The Gardens of Democracy by a venture capitalist.  Upcoming I will do a blog review on this book.  Here are a few excerpts:

      This book was conceived in the wake of the . . . 2008 Recession when giant financial institutions were obliterated, the net worth of most Americans collapsed.

     At the same time, this has been an era of radical economic inequality, at levels not seen since 1929.  Over the last three decades, an unprecedented consolidation and concentration of earning power and wealth has made the top 1 percent of Americans immensely richer while middle-class Americans have been increasingly impoverished.

Are the 2008 Recession and the vast income and wealth inequality related?  Hanauer thinks so.  He has concluded that "radical inequality and radical economic dislocation are causally linked: one brings and amplifies the other."

Book review to come