This Is Our City

From “Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior” by Helmut Schoeck: “The duty to do a good deed, or to avoid a harmful action, exists in fact only if I can be causally responsible for something. Neither could there be guilt nor could I have a true sense of guilt that it would be wrong to exclude from my conscience unless I withdrew from that responsibility. Sometimes I can extend my responsibility to forebears and successors…Yet the guilt, conscience, responsibility, so much discussed today…have little in common with actual concepts of this kind.”

Rick, thanks for the link to the book review. McCarraher gets some things right and others wrong. He is right that most politics is controlled by corporations. In economics it’s called “regulatory capture”. He is wrong that the US has anything close to a capitalist system. FDR and Johnson destroyed the last vestiges of capitalism. Carter/Reagan made only slight changes. Today the US has what is called “market socialism” that leaves a small space for markets but is mostly controlled by the corporations through the state. Another name for our system might be fascism, but without the racial implications. He is wrong about the US melding Christianity and capitalism. Capitalism is Christian economics. It developed from Church scholars searching for the just price and finding it only in free markets. The combining of the Christian elements of respect for property, free markets and the rule of law in the Dutch Republic created the system we call capitalism.

Paul, you do not have to remember the review of Graeber' book. It is right here in all its glory in Books and Culture, May June. Click on the book review at the site here. Or go to http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/2013/mayjune/love-stronger-than-deb t.html?paging=off

Rick: I do not remember the review that you mention of Graeber's book. Thomas Merton was opposed to communism as an economic theory; however, he lived in a monastery where the Christian ideal from Acts was practiced; receive according to need, give according to capacity. He said that could only be achieved in a monastery. Christians are to be motivated by LOVE, not material gain. "You cannot serve God and money." "Love of money is the root of all evil." Christians by their very actions must transcend whatever economic system they are in. Free market capitalism is, like every other human ideology, flawed and imperfect. This article mentions that loving your neighbor (social justice) through purchases that consciously promote human welfare, rather than maximize profit or to maximize material gain, is needed. Its point is that that doesn't go far enough.

Then there is the strange contest Christianity Today is sponsoring to send in the best story of an example of “the Common Good”. At the SAME TIME Jim Wallis Sojourners magazine is sponsoring a contest to send in the best story of “the Common Good”. Sojourners was given a $300,000 grant by George Soros, the atheist billionaire and promoter of global socialism a few years ago. Sojourners says "Rather than just offer you more “ideas” about “the common good, we are going to offer you some stories about how ordinary people are creating it. Watch. Listen. And then create your own story for the common good." This has been a key socialist phrase for over 100 years and was recently adopted by the Democrat party. Timing is everything. Jim Wallis’s newest book, released this week is titled, On God's Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn't Learned about Serving the Common Good. The phrase was proposed by the democrats in 2005. Google; Common Good and the Daily Kos. This is getting scary.