For Spring Break this year my family went on a Disney Cruise. We’ve been on a number of cruises, and one of my favorite things about them is it forces me to go offline and catch up on reading. One of the books I read this time was The Anti-Greed Gospel by Malcolm Foley, which I’d heard about on a recent Holy Post podcast episode he was featured on. One of the main points of the book is that greed, more than hate, is the source of racism (and even racial distinctions themselves), because racism is ultimately driven by a desire to exploit others to further one’s own economic interests. Economic exploitation is obviously the basis of chattel slavery, but Foley also makes a compelling argument that it is also what fueled lynchings, Jim Crow laws, the Klan and other systemic forms of discrimination and brutality toward Black Americans after the Civil War.
It’s a worthwhile read for its insightful take on America’s racial history and its analysis of positive and negative ways to combat racism and its effects. But he also connects greed to capitalism in a way that I personally found thought-provoking, especially as someone who has long believed in the power of free markets and the profit motive. And there’s maybe no better place to think about these topics than on a cruise.
A cruise is really capitalism in a nutshell. It is simultaneously a perfect illustration of inequality, unpriced externalities, and positive-sum opportunity that raises living standards for everyone. They bring a level of service and opulence that was once reserved for royalty to the first-world masses, brought to you by an army of friendly and incredibly industrious third-world workers. Whereas citizens of wealthy countries are usually far removed from those who make their phones, clothes and countless other cheap luxuries, a cruise puts them face-to-face. This is both a valuable cultural experience (your dinner and housekeeping staff are assigned for the duration of the cruise, so you usually get to know them a bit) as well as an unavoidable reminder of economic inequality.
The starkest example of this came as I was walking by a young girl, dolled up in a Disney princess dress she probably picked out at the pricey on-ship “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique,” telling a story to the Southeast Asian cabin steward outside her room. This being Disney, he listened with rapt interest and responded by telling her “Wow, you’re so intelligent!” A sweet moment, until you consider that he’s working a ~9-month contract away from his own family (such staff usually have about a two-month break at home before their next contract). I don’t know if he had young kids himself, but nearly all of the workers we talk to do, and here he is doting on some little rich white girl while only occasionally getting to hear his own kids’ stories over spotty Zoom calls during his very limited time off.
This sort of thing could make one want to join a global proletariat resistance and rise up against the capitalist exploiters, until you think about what would happen to these same individuals if the cruise industry ceased to exist. This is essentially what happened for over a year during COVID, so we don’t have to wonder. Did all these workers come to realize their exploitation and find better, more humane work at home? Maybe some did, but for everyone we talked to, COVID was a scary and economically difficult time, and they jumped at the opportunity to sign back on once ships started operating again. Compared to their opportunities at home, a cruise job enables them to provide better lives for their families and work their way up in an organization that develops and values their skills. I’m certainly not saying the cruise companies are philanthropic organizations and some certainly treat their workers better than others (Disney seems to be among the better ones, but they also work with fatter margins compared to their lower-cost competition which are often not very profitable), but these workers’ anxiousness to return shows that this is an advantageous arrangement for them, and they’ve judged their lives to be better off with these opportunities.
This is capitalism. It exacerbates inequality, yes, but healthy capitalism also creates mutually beneficial opportunities for economic gain. Its power comes from its harnessing of human self-interest and the power of profit motives to incentivize production and innovation which creates a virtuous cycle of productivity and prosperity. But because capitalism works with the human condition (particularly its tendency toward greed), neither does it sufficiently limit its potential for evil. Specifically, it encourages exploitation if not corralled by a state (or other competitive factors) with sufficient power to regulate it. Capitalism is thus remarkably effective, but not good. It’s an amoral system that’s only as good as the people participating in it.
Against this, many ask: did Karl Marx have a point? Marx’s fundamental critique of capitalism was its tendency to exploit and perpetuate class differences to the detriment of workers and the benefit of those with capital. This was not an entirely invalid critique, and he sought a system that would result in a more even distribution of wealth (a noble goal). The problem with his solution - socialism - is that it works against the human condition and depends on individuals acting contrary to their best interest (by forgoing most of the fruits of their labor), which requires coercion to achieve its ends. And coercion will never be as effective (or morally defensible) a motivator as self-interest in driving human achievement and innovation, so socialism ultimately leads to a death spiral of shrinking productivity and increasing reliance on force to drive production. But socialism does correctly identify the main problem with capitalism, which is its tendency to harmfully exploit those with less power or wealth.
I believe Marx’s fundamental failing was not in his identification of capitalism’s potential harms, but in his misunderstanding of their source. Marx was an atheistic materialist, and so he could only envision materialist explanations and thus proposed materialist solutions implemented (ultimately involuntarily) by the state. But Foley identifies the deeper source of capitalism’s failings, which is its reliance on a human vice: greed. If you’re a Christian (as Foley is) who has bought into the “good” framing of capitalism, the centrality of greed as the engine of capitalism should give you pause. Yes, we should care about the material needs of society and in this sense should see capitalism as useful. But we must also care about the treatment of individuals and see greed as the morally corrosive and unsatisfying vice that it is. Most of all, we must recognize its potential to unfairly exploit others.
I am not an anti-capitalist. I believe capitalism to be the worst economic system, except for all the others. Two things can be true: capitalism can be at once the most effective system for harnessing human beings as they are to be more productive and to power a healthy and growing economy, while at the same time doing nothing to improve upon the human condition it depends on, and in fact, can be an impediment to doing so. If a system depends on a vice, then those opposing that vice will find themselves in opposition to that system. This is a quandary: we must find a way to war against the harms of capitalism while preserving its value as an engine for human flourishing.
This is not a novel realization. After all, the existence of anti-trust laws, environmental and workplace regulations, accounting and compliance rules, etc. all exist to balance this tension. But I think it’s something Christians on the right especially need to be reminded of if they see threats to capitalism (such as from some on the political left who may adopt the “Democratic socialist” label) as the ultimate evil to be opposed. As with Critical Race Theory, it’s important to recognize that flawed arguments and understandings can still be based on some truth, and we ignore that truth at our peril. To be a Christian who finds themselves downplaying the sin of greed in order to preserve an amoral economic system that they are (literally) invested in, is to be a Christian who ignores Jesus’s warnings about mammon:
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” - Matthew 6:24, NKJV
In fact, Jesus so recognized the temptation of greed that he spoke about money more than any other topic. Surprising, perhaps, given the prevalence of what some have called “crotch Christianity” - ie, a tendency of popular Christian teaching to focus on issues of sex, gender and reproduction far more than Jesus did. Do you know what else Jesus spent a lot more time talking about? Caring for those in need. His early followers even applied this teaching by establishing a community of economic solidarity in which possessions were shared, not unlike the communist ideal promoted by people like Marx, but which succeeded because it was motivated by voluntarily obedience to God and love for others rather than government mandate.
So, what do I, a former libertarian for whom the “free minds and free markets” mantra still resonates, conclude from all of this?
First, economic systems like capitalism and socialism are creations of man and thus flawed. That’s not to say they’re equivalent, but we - especially Christians who recognize that economic prosperity is not our highest calling - can criticize capitalism and learn from its critics (including socialists!) without treating this as heresy. We can engage in policy discussions that attempt to encourage economic growth while mitigating harmful effects and excesses through regulation and limited redistribution, without labeling everything “Marxist Communist!” There is no perfect economic system, and economic policymaking is an exercise in evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of various options and trying to choose the least bad ones.
Second, what may be the appropriate economic system for a state to establish at the scale of a nation likely isn’t the ideal economic arrangement at the scale of a community. As Christians, we are called to give generously, not be motivated by greed or desire for wealth, and seek the well-being (including economic) of our fellow man. It isn’t reasonable to expect those principles to be applied by everyone in a diverse nation, but this is ultimately what it means for Christians to be counter cultural. Not anti-cultural, but different in a way that makes their culture, their community and ultimately their nation and world better. We don’t need to live in either an Ayn Randian capitalist mecca, or a Marxist communist utopia, to live out this calling.
Finally, we must not live out these commands to be generous in ways that are self-serving and perpetuate inequality but rather adopt a posture of solidarity with those less fortunate than us and lift them up. Foley points out that while generosity is good, it can often take the form of paternalistic charity that may relieve someone’s short-term suffering but not address the underlying systemic problems that led to their misfortune. If philanthropy allows disadvantaged communities to survive slightly more comfortably but ignores the root causes of their disadvantage, then it’s not true philanthropy and could even be argued to be harmful if it serves to preserve a system of unequal opportunity that the giver benefitted from. What this means is that while I do not believe national economic policy must perfectly reflect the Christian’s calling to generosity, it does mean that to really live out our calling to live in solidarity with others, we should advocate for reforms that address the systemic sources of persistent inequality. No, we cannot expect or realistically desire equal outcomes for every individual, but we also must not be blind to the fact that continued differences in economic outcomes across entire demographics are a sign of a systemic bias that a just and good society should seek to correct. Similarly, while I do not believe Christians should see government as their primary vehicle for generosity, I do believe it is a vehicle. We pay taxes and should want those taxes to be spent well. Yes, that means national defense, roads, disaster relief, law enforcement, etc. But I also believe it should mean that we support government generosity on our behalf as well, whether that means high-ROI forms of international aid like PEPFAR, or prudent forms of financial assistance for the poor of our own country like school lunches, Medicaid and the EITC.
My prayer is that I may live out my calling to holistic solidarity with the less fortunate which is not limited to meeting immediate physical needs, but which also sees the bigger picture and seeks opportunities to support systemic solutions. And I pray that our nation, and especially its Christians, would realize that we do not owe our allegiance to a particular economic system, and that wise generosity at the national level is an appropriate means by which to care for those in need.