Jerry Falwell Jr. recently attributed America’s greatness to “free enterprise, freedom, ingenuity, entrepreneurism and wealth.” Yet, the narrative that associates morality with wealth creation is starting to fall apart. It appears that capitalism is not working for everyone. Even Tucker Carlson has complained that the current economic system is destroying families and accelerating changes for the purposes of profit.
In Redeeming Capitalism, Kenneth J. Barnes argues that the moral failures of our economy are evidence of moral decay in our social institutions. The greed and excess of Wall Street and the vast income inequality between the very wealthy and everyone else demonstrate that the moral fabric of our society is in tatters. What we need, Barnes believes, is a lesson in virtue. Barnes, I think, would like to replace Falwell Jr.’s ethic with a truly Christian one. If we want a virtuous capitalism, he argues, we need virtuous people.
Aristotle’s virtue ethics has long been a favorite of Christian moral philosophers, championed by figures such as St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Aristotle believed that humans need to be taught how to live virtuously. Just as our bodies require physical training and exercise, our souls need to be accustomed to virtuous activity. From the family to education to legislation, every level of society aims to form virtuous individuals and thus a virtuous society. Aristotle called this process “habituation.” If we can encourage or enforce moral habits, these habits will become second nature.
So, where does the economy fit into our habituation?
Barnes describes capitalism as a sort of blank slate on which we can write our own morals. “The capitalism we have is the capitalism we have chosen,” he likes to say. If morally compromised people make up the participants of this system, it only follows that the system will have morally compromised results. Capitalism is simply the result of human interactions, so it will take on the values of its participants. If our society valued the classic Christian virtues, he believes, we would not be in this mess.
Yet, is capitalism just a passive subject, allowing itself to be shaped by our own values? Capitalism is, after all, the product of a certain philosophy; it is the economic application of the classical liberal worldview — a worldview with its own ideas about who we are and how we ought to live. Capitalism is a process with rules and expectations for how we are to interact with others within the market.
The essential virtue, the single most important characteristic needed for survival in this system, is self-love. As Adam Smith himself wrote,
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.
Barnes argues, “Capitalism can be changed only through a wholesale change of hearts and minds as people consciously seek to create an economic system that serves the common good.” But we don’t go to the baker and say, “I’m hungry and I need food.” Instead, we say, “I’ve got five dollars, and it could be yours if you give me some bread.” The baker isn’t expected to care about my hunger; he should care for himself, and I will care about my own hunger. Any social good is secondary; it is a byproduct of the self-love of the individuals who buy and sell.
Ayn Rand, the philosopher and advocate for capitalism whose writings have enjoyed renewed interest among conservatives in recent years, gave a new name to the concept of self-love. She called it the “virtue of selfishness.” Capitalism, as Rand and Smith demonstrate, has no interest in charity or benevolence — characteristics that Barnes and other virtue ethicists say are necessary for justice. The capitalist system is not designed to make a charitable society; it is designed to make a society of individuals who, above all else, love themselves.
Capitalism is the single most powerful tool for habit formation in Western society — so much so that our identities are wrapped up in what role we play in the market. We instinctively answer questions like “What do you do?” and “Who are you?” with our job titles. If our very survival depends on putting self first, what sort of habits does that form in us? When grasped by the “invisible hand,” into whose image does it craft us?
Our moral exemplars, the people who embody our society’s idea of success, are men like Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and Jeff Bezos — men who prioritize what is advantageous for themselves, leaving their workers disenfranchised, destitute, and sometimes dead. And the selfishness of our exemplars trickles down to the rest of us. The American workplace is a warzone, a constant battle against coworkers and bosses. We fight for our job against other applicants. We fight our coworkers for promotions. We fight our bosses for better wages, while they fight to keep us doing more work for less pay.
The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how well our parents, teachers, and role models teach us what it means to live a virtuous life, we will inevitably be thrown into the market where our very survival depends on living by an entirely different set of “virtues.” Jesus tells us not to worry about ourselves; capitalism tells us to put ourselves first. A capitalist theology will always look like Jerry Falwell Jr.’s theology.
Miroslav Volf, one of the most influential living theologians, wrote the foreword to Redeeming Capitalism. Acknowledging capitalism’s manifold problems, he writes, “The sufferings of the poor are an indictment against current forms of capitalism; their groanings, like the groaning of the Jews in the ancient Egypt of the great pharaohs, is a cry for redemption and therefore reform.” But the Jews enslaved by Pharaoh did not cry out for the redemption of slavery. They cried out for freedom from it. Virtue cannot make capitalism any godlier than it can make slavery.
We cannot redeem this pedagogy of vice. We cannot shape it into something godly. If we want a virtuous society, it will have to be one without capitalism.
Tylor Standley writes about Early Christian history and economic ethics. He is a co-host of Podcastica Patristica, a podcast on early Christian history and theology. Follow him on Twitter.
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