Chris Matthews finds a clip of delicious irony as multimillionaires come to Washington in their private jets to ask for a multimillion dollar handout.
I don’t understand how so many Christians can assume the superiority of capitalism while simultaneously holding the conviction that socialism is evil to its core. Personally, I think that that they both can be employed and lived out in such a way that can be either prosperous and peaceful, or oppressive and unjust. Isn't it ironic that while capitalism in its fullest has led this economy to the state that it is currently in, we are looking for a socialist solution to deal with this problem?
Are these two approaches commensurable? Can a socialistic approach be used to solve a problem that capitalism created? Or, are we creating an even bigger problem, which is being portrayed here in this video – that is, the wealthy are only going to prey on this multibillion dollar bailout not as an opportunity to address this problem, but as an opportunity to make yet another profit.
Christian or not, all would be wise to consider that Darwin based his theory of evolution on capitalism. Dr. Gerry Lower makes an interesting observation in his article, Religious Capitalism's Embrace of Social Darwinism:
In ideological terms, religious capitalism rejects evolutionary theory in favor of faith in Biblical creationism and "intelligent design" (which is truly not intelligent because it provides no meaningful insight into design or purpose). In operational terms, however, and despite all loathing of evolutionary theory, religious capitalism begins and ends by following an agenda explicitly defined by post-Darwinian political theory, i.e., "Social Darwinism"
It is indeed ironic... but then again, we've seen this sort of thing many times before in more or less the same clothing. Socialist bailouts or Social-Darwinian "survival of the fittest" will all see the same outcome; only perhaps the bailouts will delay the inevitable for these gigantic companies. The slimming of some of these fat cows will be good for the world's economies, and will hopefully redistribute some of horded wealth back to those from whose backs it was made.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see you blogging again, Ben!