What capitalism can learn from the religions of the world

What capitalism can learn from the religions of the world (The Conversation)

It may be the season for peace on Earth and goodwill to all men {sic}, but you don’t have to look very far in the financial pages to find stories about businesses doing exactly the opposite...

Fortunately for us, faiths have been reflecting on the nature and limits of money for hundreds of years. They see business as a servant of society, never its master. Ancient traditions give us a caring and respectful attitude to planet Earth, where human greed is restrained, and kindness and compassion towards all living beings encouraged. In Christianity, caring for the weak and the poor has always been central to its practices... The Dharmic traditions of India - Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and my own tradition, Jainism – have never treated animals and nature as separate from humanity...

At root, money has always been a medium of exchange, a fiction which we humans have created to help us deal with everyday needs. Its value derives from the trust that we give to each other. The more we turn money into a factual, materialistic and overarching reality, the more insecure and selfish we become as a society. Financial institutions and professions have forgotten these basic truths about the nature and limits of money. They have distanced themselves from the trust, relationships and conscience which ought to be central to how it is handled. Too often they have become the vehicles for spreading distrust and inequality, by using their political and economic power to benefit themselves at the expense of nature and society...

If capitalism were human at all (let alone humane), the idea of it "learning" from religion might mean something. That title reads like: "What a chainsaw can learn from literary authors." When I got to the second screen of that article and read "the high standards of integrity and protection of the public interest that are supposed to exist among banks, listed companies and consultancies," I gave up. Merry Christmas.

I see this is 3 years old. I am new here and looking through to see what speaks to me. I come from a Jewish family and I married a Christian man. We talk about religion a lot. The thing I read recently was by Marilynne Robinson in an essay on Darwinism where she points out that survival of the fittest is (I am rephrasing) is not a humanist or Christian approach. Seems rather capitalist to me. She also pointed out that the fittest are often fit with guns and ammunition. I will be 69 in march and I hate it but I do get sadder and sadder. Thank God or goodness whichever works for you…for BOOKS! If anyone reads this thread have a peaceful, safe 2025 with some joy mixed in.

I think to many people their belief in capitalism does constitute a religion

Although it's over 130 years old now, Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum, "On Capital and Labour", is worth reading as a historical introduction to Christian thought on capitalism. It's generally viewed as the beginning of modern Catholic Social Doctrine which, while it allows for private property and profit, stresses that these are subordinate to the primacy of the common good.

>3 stefepaul:

an essay on Darwinism where she points out that survival of the fittest is (I am rephrasing) is not a humanist or Christian approach. Seems rather capitalist to me. She also pointed out that the fittest are often fit with guns and ammunition.

One shouldn't confuse so-called "social Darwinism", an unscientific construction based on a crude ideological misinterpretation of Darwin's thought, and science. "Fitness" in biology does not mean the same as in vernacular usage. Briefly, biological fitness is measured by the progeny, and even that is a sort of "deferred" value (because the future is unpredictable) and uncertain when ascribed to individuals. Even when it comes to individuals who don't procreate at all and who would thus seemingly easily be described as biologically unfit, in many species such individuals may still contribute to the propagation of their genetic lineage by ensuring the survival of their cousins.

Guns and ammunition, literally or metaphorically, do not contribute automatically to higher biological fitness. For millions of years this planet was ruled by dinosaurs and may have continued so but for the random event of climate change wrought by the asteroid crash. The disappearance of animals who physically "outgunned" everybody else opened up room for the evolution of mammalian ancestors and eventually humanity.

Individuals compete for resources and mates, yes. This, however, in nature has nothing whatsoever of "capitalism", because those same competing individuals not only sacrifice for progeny and genus, they co-exist in a mutually sustaining network with myriad other species. Neither capitalist accumulation nor capitalist exhaustion of resources are "natural" principles--obviously, because both are nature-ending.

>6 LolaWalser:

Well put.