Capitalism is known for being a selfish greed driven economic system. What would it look like if people ran their businesses with altruistic integrity? If capitalists sought solutions that were win-win by intuitive instinct. What about if the businesses would welcome competition and abhor the idea of being a monopoly? If the businesses cared for their stakeholders just as much as their shareholders? Basically, what if we Baptized Capitalism and claim it for Christ? How would it be different?
Let us first establish what Capitalism is. We can say Capitalism is an economic system where persons engage in mutually beneficial transactions in pursuit of their self-interest. This isn’t a hard and fast definition but for the sake of argument we’ll use it. We can see how Capitalism can go poorly. Companies don’t offer beneficial products. Companies focus on self-interest at the expense of others. The individuals fail to recognize what would be the best for them personally.
There are many ways for Capitalism to go wrong and there are plenty of real world examples of Capitalism going wrong. What would a Baptized Capitalism look like? We will look at “mutually”, “Beneficial”, and “self.” Capitalism can be corrupt if it fails to properly order these three elements. A Baptized Capitalism would deliberately have a well ordered system.
MUTUAL
The mutual part of Capitalism is the “quid pro quo”. You get something for something. The typical Capitalist worries little about whether or not the other party is better off after the transaction. The focus is more on whether or not the Capitalist can find a buyer for their product and make satisfactory profit. The mutual here actually means consent to the transaction as opposed to truly mutually beneficial. If the customer is stupid enough to make a stupid decision, then the capitalist shrugs off any culpability.
The Baptized Capitalist would care about whether or not the other party benefited. The words of Jesus that we should all hold close to our heart, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34) In a Baptized Capitalism, then capitalists would stop deals if they knowingly could be harmful to the other party. It would be a more interdependent type of relationship. Win-Win relationships would be the goal if not the norm for all transactions. Furthermore, the capitalist would take pride in the advancement of their clients. They would take pride even with their competitors! Imagine a Capitalism that celebrates the wins of their competitors and avoids eliminating their competition.
BENEFICIAL
As of now, the main metric of value is money; the all powerful dollar. In a Baptized Capitalism, the value metric would not solely be about dollars. A person would be paid of course, but there’s more to life than making profit. There is the flourishment of mankind, the joy of life, the tragedy of loss, the bliss of ignorance, the nostalgia of times gone by. Currently, all of these things are represented in terms of currency.
A Baptized Capitalist would be willing to pay more or less based on other values besides ROI. Family heirlooms often have no value to anyone besides the family member themselves. A Baptized Capitalism would be able to incorporate value metrics that go beyond the dollar. These decisions would be distinctly different than current Capitalism, but still be rational. Because the Baptized Capitalist is working with a different metric and a more sophisticated measurement system for determining something’s benefit.
A simple example would look at a companies Profit Margins. If the profit margins can be shrunk in exchange for high employee satisfaction, then it would be. Profit would become a “Yes” or “No” question. The idea of “is the profit worth the effort?” would be considered archaic. Similar to the passage in Ephesians.
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. — Ephesians 4:17-14
Profit would be a minor category. You want to make profit to sustain business of course. But the Baptized Capitalist would place greater emphasis on the mission of the company being performed than on the ROI. Imagine mining companies that refuse to expand because they do not want to displace the local population. Imagine major corporations willfully breaking up their monopolies in order to provide more jobs that were cut as a cost saving measure.
SELF
This would be the biggest change. A Baptized Capitalist would have a drastically different idea of self. We already talked a little about it in the mutual section. Here, we will talk about the eschatological destination of man; Heaven or Hell. Currently, Capitalists makes decisions about their living situation while they are alive on Earth. A few think about the living situation after their death. Even fewer thinks about their souls condition in their eternal reward.
A Baptized Capitalist would want to be right with God in their transactions. Imagine if there would be no perjury, no manipulation, no false promises, and anything else that would provoke the wrath of God. I hear wonderful stories of car mechanics that could have charged hundreds of dollars for simply turning something on and off, but didn’t because they wanted to have a clean conscience at night. How many Capitalist clock-in, shut down their personality, clock-out, and then begin to resume the life they were living. Such dehumanizing jobs ought to be adjusted some how some way that promotes the eternal salvation of both employee and customers. Imagine the vice industries disappearing over night, because they want to avoid not just damning themselves, but also the people who create and buy their products.
I’m not a perfect Catholic by any stretch of the imagination. I’ll be lucky to even be called Average, but I always said that if people adopted my purchasing habits, then Capitalism would crumble over night (Especially when I was living a promise of poverty.) I like silence in the chapel, a good book to read, some boardgames would be nice, go dancing, watch a movie. In an economy based solely on MY purchasing behavior, the NFL would disappear, Casinos would disappear, coffee shops would disappear, etc. If you Baptize Capitalism, then I wouldn’t be surprised if so much of the world we live in now would crumble away. I can’t help but wonder what would take its place…
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