Capitalism vs. Communism

EDITORIALS

Pick up a book, paper, or magazine that is discussing capitalism and communism, and you are almost sure to find the two systems treated as opposites. Certainly one can contrast them, just as one can contrast communism with democracy. But capitalism and communism do have some elements in common.

It is generally accepted that no nation in the world is genuinely communistic. Both the Soviet Union and Red China would agree to that. Indeed, the Soviet Union is socialist by its own designation—the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Thus one would be forced to say that the worldwide struggle is between the capitalists and the socialists. Here again, however, one needs to be quite careful; there is a clear distinction between democratically socialist countries, such as Sweden, and dictatorial states like the communist countries. The most uninformed person quickly discovers that socialism is in a significant way capitalistic. What then is the difference between capitalism and socialism if both are capitalistic? Socialism is state capitalism; the state owns the means of production. Capitalism is individual or private; the means of production are owned not by the state but by individuals or groups of people.

The myth of the profit motive must also be destroyed. Capitalism is criticized constantly as immoral because of the profit motive. State capitalism or socialism also is, out of necessity, profit-oriented. Without surplus or profit there would be no economic progress. Moreover, there would be no teachers, no physicians, and no political leaders. They are not engaged in commodity production and must be supported by those who are. What is even more obvious is that if farmers consumed all they produced, a lot of people would go hungry. They must produce more than they consume if non-farmers are to be fed.

It is clear that when communists or socialists lambast the profit motive, they are not really saying they are opposed to profit. They couldn’t be and survive as nations. What they are saying is that they object to who makes the profit and how it is distributed under capitalism. The socialists want the state to get the profit and to determine its distribution. In the case of the Soviet Union, a small clique of self-perpetuating bureaucrats does this, also determining what goods are to be produced, and how much of the profits should be diverted from consumer goods to bombs, missiles, planes, armies, navies and space flights. In the end the people, except those who enjoy special privileges of power, pay the bills by what they must forgo, and the workers who produce the commodities do not get the full return of their labor. In traditional capitalism individuals rather than the state get the profits and determine their distribution. Since great masses of people share the profits, great masses determine the allocation of them. In West Germany capitalism has demonstrated a marked superiority over the socialism of East Germany, which is tied to the Soviet Union’s economic theories.

Since men are sinners subject to greed, laziness, the will to power and a dozen other liabilities, it is obvious that no system will work perfectly. Both economic systems are subject to men’s frailties. But the wider the diffusion of the profits and the greater the number of people who determine their distribution, the less likely a consolidation and misuse of power and profits. In developed countries, capitalism, despite its weaknesses, has a lot more going for it than socialism. But too often private capitalism has resulted in only a tiny percentage of a population controlling most of the country’s wealth. This unenlightened procedure has often promoted the rise of state capitalism.

In the United States the government by its power to tax has curbed capitalism so that wealth can no longer be increased from one generation to the next. This may be seen in several ways. First, no large amount of wealth can be passed on intact from father to children. The estate taxes are so prohibitive that the overwhelming proportion of a large estate would go to the government. Henry Ford II has retained only a small proportion of the money made by his father and grandfather. The rest went into the Ford Foundation. The multiplied wealth of the Rockefellers will, in a few short years, go either to the government or into foundations. John Kennedy’s father’s estate has wound up in the family foundation. Thus capitalism as an accumulating system, passing on and adding to succeeding generations wealth and power, simply is non-existent.

Moreover, in the United States recent legislation has been adopted to regulate foundations and to require the distribution of income and principal to charitable causes. Since the lifespan of foundations will be limited, it is obvious that they will have no controlling effect on American society. Most of their assets will go to educational, medical, humanitarian, and religious causes. This will enable private foundations to assist good causes that then need not look to government for financial support. It will make funds available for enterprises that government could not, would not, or ought not to fund.

A good case can be made for private capitalism from Scripture. Karl Marx himself recognized it even as he argued against it. He said that capitalism owes its life to the Mosaic commandment “Thou shalt not steal.” This is the foundation for the imprescriptible right to private property. The commandment not to steal is valid only if there are things that uniquely belong to a man and cannot be taken from him without breaking the command. Thus Marx said that Moses commandment was not from God (whose existence he denied) but a man-made ordinance designed to protect the property of the haves from the have-nots. But in the Bible the right to private property is always linked with responsible stewardship. Every man shall give account of the use of his material possessions to God. Capitalism that leaves God out of the picture can be a great evil, but capitalism combined with Christian stewardship can do more good for more men than any other economic system.

The Perils Of Publishing Satire

We are still smarting from some of the letters we received about, Gordon H. Clark’s essay, “A New Discovery in the Quest of the Historical Jesus.” An earlier experience had taught us that some people are likely to miss the point of a satirical piece and take it at face value, and so we supplied the information on the contents page that the essay was a “satire on scholarship.” That wasn’t enough, we find.

Let it be plainly said that Gordon Clark continues to be one of the doughtiest defenders of a high view of Scripture. We hope that his friend from student days who wrote to lament his capitulation to modern criticism will restore him to his rightful place.

Satire, according to one dictionary, is “the use of trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm, for the purpose of exposing or discrediting vice or folly.” Clark was spoofing those who tear apart and demythologize Scripture. Unfortunately, in recent years such way-out theories about Scripture have been advanced that Clark’s “theory” on “the gospel of diet” is perhaps not a whole lot kookier than some that are seriously meant. And he carried off his spoof with great skill. At least one editor blinked hard for a few moments when he first began to read about Clark’s “discovery.” For those who recognized the piece as satire, it was good fun. For those who didn’t, it came with a crunch.

Jesus used satire; Paul employed it in Corinthians; Ecclesiastes has some of it. As a literary form it has great value. We hope that those who were fooled will read Clark’s essay again and enjoy it for what it is.

Conserving The Faith

Bad-mouthing the Pope, albeit in dulcet tones, has become something of a fashionable pastime for reform-minded Roman Catholics. Many of them consider his stands on birth control, celibacy, clergy dissent, and ecumenicity to be frustratingly conservative and preconciliar, if not stubbornly reactionary.

His recent (January 5) apostolic exhortation to the world’s bishops was seen by some renewalists as a slap on the wrist of the theologians, and a slap on the back of his brothers in the episcopacy. Paul, speaking on the fifth anniversary of the end of Vatican II, pointedly reminded the “savants” that “however necessary the function of theologians, it is not to the learned that God has confided the duty of authentically interpreting the faith of the Church.” And, warning against radical demythologization, he lamented that “even the divine authority of Scripture is not left unquestioned.…”

The Pope’s frank message was a call to renewed obedience on the part of the bishops: “We shall take pains so to present to the men of this age God’s truth in its integrity and purity that they may gladly understand and assent to it.… That means trying to use a language easily accessible to them, answering their questions, arousing their interest, and helping them to discover, through poor human speech, the whole message of salvation brought to us by Jesus Christ.” And it was a defense of the Gospel against weakness of faith, narrowness of vision, and the inroads of secular humanism.

Barbara J. Nauer, assistant professor of English at Forest Park College in St. Louis, writes in a recent issue of the Jesuit magazine America: “His vocabulary has been disturbingly Tridentine. But the Pope’s general message has always been clear: mystery, the ineffable, the transcendent, the divine continue to impinge on the affairs of men, whether men see and understand this or not. The Kingdom and the world are not identical.”

We wish the pontiff would direct the same kind of concern to stripping away the extra-biblical accretions that through the centuries have fastened themselves to Catholic dogma. Nevertheless, evangelicals, and indeed the Church as a whole, in an important sense can be glad for Pope Paul’s avowed conservatism. It has served as an anchor against the most devastating of reform riptides that threaten to destroy the old in favor of the new.

We applaud Paul, as chief spokesman for the branch of Christianity claiming 580 million adherents, for courageously—often at the expense of popularity—sticking to his assertion that the primary task of the Church is, as he told the bishops, to preach Christ “as the Son of God made man to save us and to make us sharers in his life, and not as a merely human figure, however wonderful and attractive.”

Close Open Admission

Student riots are not new to this age, as we read in the article on page four. But today reasons for student rioting are often novel. As a result of student pressure, admission to the City University of New York is now open to anyone with a high-school diploma, whether or not he can read and write. And many graduates—both black and white—of New York City high schools cannot do either at anywhere near the college level. Presumably, those who enroll in City University will be helped to develop these basic skills.

These poorly equipped students need help, but open admission is not the answer. The upgrading of the secondary school system, which is needed badly, cannot be done overnight. Until the problem is solved at this level, perhaps crash programs or summer sessions could be initiated—as at some universities—to help those students who want and need a college education meet admission requirements.

Candid Candidacy

Without endorsing him, we wish to commend Senator George McGovern for openly declaring his candidacy for the Democratic party’s nomination to the Presidency. We need more, much more, candor in politics. For someone who obviously is running for the nomination to pretend that he is not certainly does nothing to contribute to the honesty and openness we desperately need in our relationships with one another.

We also need more exposure to the ideas and approaches of those men who are serious possibilities for the Presidency. Early formal announcement gives the public the chance to observe the problems of the country in light of the candidates’ proposals to meet them. And the longer a candidate is exposed to the glare of publicity, the better the voters’ opportunity to see whether he seems capable of enduring the grueling pressures of office. The Madison Avenue type of approach in which a candidate is promoted in much the same way that soap or cigarettes are—by image making, snappy tunes, clever jingles—should have no place in political campaigns.

We hope, moreover, that the candidates to replace President Nixon do not feel they have to oppose him at every point. Indeed, part of the candor politics needs much more of is the willingness to back a good idea regardless of who else promotes it. Too often measures seem to be supported or denounced not on their merits but rather on their associations. The incumbent President should not hesitate to take good ideas from the contenders, nor they from him.

By the ordination of God we in the United States live in a democracy; this means that as voters we all are part of the “powers that be” (Rom. 13:1), in that we have the power to select our leaders. To fail to exercise that power responsibly is to evade a stewardship entrusted to us by God. Early declarations by candidates and intensive scrutiny of their views should be encouraged, so that we can better judge their fitness for public trust.

Ecumenical Retreat

Time and time again over the last twenty years the General Board of the National Council of Churches has adopted ambitious programs only to see them founder for lack of funds. The General Board supposedly has a mandate from NCC member denominations to make ecumenical policy, but it lacks the wherewithal to implement the policy and make it stick. Because the denominations still hold the purse string, they have a de facto veto over General Board actions.

It was with such problems in mind that the NCC in 1969 undertook to restructure itself. A task force of ecumenical strategists well aware of the realities was appointed a year ago, and last month it proposed to the General Board a plan for a successor organization to the NCC (see News, page 44). The plan called for a decentralized structure wherein programs would be undertaken only when there was direct denominational support. To this extent at least, the task force’s plan is commendable. The effect, we can hope, would be to put an end to pronouncements in which the NCC purports to speak for 42.5 million churchgoers but in fact represents the views of only a fraction of these.

Not about to give up its political clout, the Genera! Board refused to accept the task force’s recommendation that the plan be presented to member denominations for study. First, the board said, a committee must be created to revise the plan and give it a more authoritarian orientation. In this action the General Board took a decidedly backward step.

A Season For All Men

The rainy season will soon be here, supplanting the season of sleet and snow. If only it could also change the prevailing indoor climate of smoke, which regrettably knows no season. Whatever the weather outside, in buses, planes, restaurants, and even elevators, at lunch counters and PTA meetings, it is the same: a white-gray, foul-smelling haze. The problem of inclement weather indoors is so acute that many people—the surgeon general of the United States, Dr. Jesse L. Steinfield, is one—suggest that legislation be passed to protect the non-smoker from the clouded air. To bring this to pass (and to decide on the constitutionality of such laws) will take time. Meanwhile, perhaps smokers could take note of a healthful principle of togetherness—that my rights stop where another’s begin (or perhaps that my air stops where another’s begins)—and exercise self-restraint. That would be a season for everyone to share and enjoy.

Ethics On The Line

Was there really a plot to kidnap Henry Kissinger and to set off explosives beneath government buildings?

Some speculation on the alleged scheme centers on whether it would have been consistent with the stated ideals of the Berrigan brothers and the other Roman Catholics indicted in the case. For their sake and for the sake of the Church as a whole, we hope that the government is mistaken and that these clerics did not violate their previously stated precepts of non-violence. The Church is in bad enough trouble without having to live down a reputation for harboring kidnappers and bombers.

Our hope is a bit dimmed by two considerations. The first is that historically the Society of Jesus is no stranger to political intrigue. The Jesuits, of whom Father Daniel Berrigan is one, were long associated with dubious casuistry. And though there has been reason to think they outgrew these in modern times, a passage in Berrigan’s book No Bars to Manhood gives pause. Berrigan recalls a comment made after he was summoned to Jesuit headquarters during one of the many times he was called on the carpet. “Do you want to know why you’re in trouble so frequently?” a Jesuit friend asked him. “It’s because you and some others show us what Jesuits can be. And that’s why we can’t stand you.”

The alleged absence of fixed norms is not, of course, peculiar to the Society of Jesus. It is at least as old as the Sophists of ancient Greece. And as new as situation ethics, which prevails to an alarming degree among today’s ecclesiastical radicals.

Remythologizing The Demythologized

This is the age of demythologization. The process extends well beyond the demythologizing of the Bible and has reached some of the heroes of American life. For example, at the Thanksgiving season Time magazine, in its religion page, rather airily laid bare a number of the foibles and failures of the Pilgrims of Plymouth fame. Evangelical historians have increasingly attacked the popular notion that the United States was founded as a Christian nation; they have given the impression that Christianity had little if anything to do with its birth. And George Washington has recently been accused of money-grabbing and of padding his expense accounts during the Revolutionary War.

The pendulum seems to have swung from uncritical adulation to hypercritical rejection. The need now is for a better measurement, an objective appraisal that balances achievements and strengths against failures and weaknesses. Certainly our Pilgrim forebears were human beings who did and said things we all regret. But they were also great people whose vision and accomplishments should be acknowledged. We have no wish to defend any wrong that Washington did; but on balance we reaffirm our gratitude for the yeoman service he rendered his country and the wisdom reflected in some of his addresses.

The Bible does nothing to hide the sins and defects of the great heroes of the faith of whom it tells. King David was an adulterer and a murderer, yet he is called a man after God’s own heart—not because of his weaknesses but because of his justifying faith that brought him into the family of God. The writer of Hebrews, in listing the great heroes of the faith, dwells not on their failures but on their finest accomplishments.

There has been one whose life was perfect and against whom no charge of fault or sin could be sustained. The rest of us are a hodge-podge of conflicting drives, of failures and successes. We can only hope that others will see both sides with enough grace to speak more of the good than of the bad. And perhaps we can admire afresh some of our tradional heroes.

The Holds In Life’S Countdowns

We live in a day of exploding change, of frantic dashes toward distant goals, of pressures that scream for instant solutions—a restless, impatient day. The Now Generation has no time to wait but rushes to get on with the action.

Yet in this Space Age day of urgency and demand, we had better hear God out: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10); “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isa. 40:31). As space engineers provide for “holding” the countdown at certain points before liftoff until all systems are Go, so God imposes holds on our countdowns in life until all systems are Go.

The late V. Raymond Edman of Wheaton College saw the delays of life not as disappointments but as disciplines that prepared one for the bigger things of tomorrow.

Before Moses arose to lead his people from bondage, he languished in long obscurity in the desert. Before David ascended to the throne, he sorrowed in Adullam—and became a man after God’s own heart, a leader headed in the right spiritual direction. Before victory on the mountaintop, Elijah had to go to Cherith and Zarephath, where he learned the secret that makes prayer work, that takes words beyond the ceiling of the soul to the very heart of God. Afterward he asked for—and got—life-giving water for his desperately thirsty world. Paul, who was “turned on” to the power of God, spent years alone in Arabia getting the Gospel branded into every fiber of his life.

These people of God and hosts of others in history discovered the realities of God during periods of postponed accomplishment; such discovery could not have been made in the rush of turbulent activity, for which they were better prepared by having been delayed.

Whether it’s inactivity for activity, weakness for strength, silence for speaking, infirmity for health, sitting for service, forsakenness for friendship, or obscurity for opportunity—God never wastes anyone’s time. There is a higher purpose to his placing a hold on one’s countdown toward destiny.

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