In his chapter on economics and the “goods life,” Brad Gregory has a kvetch-fest about free markets and consumerism (that echoes Francis Schaeffer on Aquinas):
The earlier and more fundamental change was the disembedding of economics from the ethics of late medieval Christianity’s institutionalized worldview, in conjunction with the disruptions of the Reformation era. What needs explanation is how Western European Christians, whose leaders in the Reformation era condemned avarice across confessional lines, themselves created modern capitalism and consumption practices antithetical to biblical teachings even as confessionalization was creating better informed, more self-conscious Reformed Protestants, Lutherans and Catholics. Conflating prosperity with providence and opting for acquisitiveness as the lesser of two evils until greed was rechristened as benign self-interest, modern Christians have in effect been engaged in a centuries-long attempt to prove Jesus wrong. “You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” Yes we can. Or so most participants in world history’s most insatiably consumerist society, the United States, continue implicitly to claim through their actions, considering the number of self-identified American Christians in the early twenty-first century who seem bent on acquiring ever more and better stuff, including those who espouse the “prosperity Gospel” within American religious hyperpluralism. Tocqueville’s summary description of Americans in the early 1830s has proven a prophetic understatement: “people want to do as well as possible in this world without giving up their chances in the next.” (288)
To his credit, Gregory does not exempt the Roman Catholic Church from the guilt of avarice. He observes that the Renaissance papacy was not too bullish on self-denial.
. . . the popes and cardinals at the papal court, along with wealthy bishops in their respective dioceses — who, already long before the Avignonese popes and their courtiers intensified all these trends in the fourteenth century, so often sought to augment their incomes through simony, pluralism, and a deep participation in the monetized economy through the purchase of luxurious material things and the borrowing of large sums of money. (253)
At the same time, he credits the papacy with an effective rejoinder to modern acquisitiveness, the Church’s social teaching:
They reiterated the claim that the natural world is God’s creation, intended by God for the flourishing of all human beings; repeated that economics and the market are not independent of morality; reasserted that the right to private property is not absolute, but is rather subordinate to the common good; restated that unrestrained acquisitiveness does not serve but rather impedes genuine human flourishing and eternal salvation; confirmed the biblical view that the pursuit of affluence above love for God and service to others is idolatry; argued that minimizing workers’ wages in order to maximize profits is exploitative and immoral; and insisted that the poor and marginalized, as a matter of justice, have a moral claim on the more affluent to share with and care for them. (296)
What is missing from this social teaching and from Gregory’s account is where human beings, who are supposed to be dead in trespasses and sins, are supposed to summon up the reservoirs of virtue to carry out such social teaching. His summary does mention eternal salvation on the plus side and idolatry on the down side, but where is grace and how do fallen people become good apart from the supernatural work of the Spirit? Not even the best of the church’s sacramental system and all of that papal charism could prevent popes from padding their accounts, nor did the theology of the medieval church prevent the hierarchy from raising revenues through the sale of grace — as in indulgences.
If the Reformation contributed to modern acquisitiveness, at least it supplies a good explanation for why people are selfish and want to acquire lots of cheap stuff. It is called depravity. The Reformers also knew that the only genuine remedy and the only way for people to lead a selfless life is through the operation of the Holy Spirit. If we want the redeemed and lost to live virtuously, we need to redefine this notion of human flourishing, call it some kind of moral subsistence, and double-down on efforts to beef up the authorities — parents, teachers, pastors, neighbors — who create expectations that restrain human viciousness.
In the meantime, Gregory’s history needs to avoid the kind of sermonizing that follows from an assumed theology, or he needs to write his own version of How Shall We Then Live?
Old Life 
I’m going to remind you of this piece when I get you on the golf course. Right when you’re getting ready to putt…
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The problem is that human history has shown us that the “equalizer” soon becomes the “exploiter”. Witness Communist party officials who have somehow become billionaires in China. We can preach to people, but ultimately we depend on the Spirit kindling goodwill in their hearts toward their fellow man (which you mention). Otherwise we just end up passing assets from one unvirtuous fellow to the next.
See the story I posted on my blog yesterday, “Like Big Government? So Do Dishonest People.”
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Heh. Having spent 35 years in the telecom industry and endured deregulation, numerous consolidations, takeovers, mergers, sell-offs, predatory pricing and many additional tweaking, shrinking, and expanding of everything from the long distance business to shady price subsidies in the local exchange, I can assure you that there is nothing more sleazy than what goes on in the telecommunications world. Well, maybe the automotive world, too. Then again, there’s the securities markets. Anyway, your point is well proven.
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And of course the Feds decide to just throw money at them in the name of helping “the poor”.
“I can assure you that there is nothing more sleazy than what goes on in the telecommunications world. Well, maybe the automotive world, too. Then again, there’s the securities markets.”
Hilarious.
Reminds me of this:
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Here is an excerpt from a book I am currently reading that goes to the heart of the matter: “Let us focus in on particular people and , in particular, an unusually candid conversation among two bankers and two journalists in a Wall Street bar. The journalists are suggesting that the bankers should be grateful to society that it bailed out their industry and saved their jobs. The bankers disagree, arguing that their jobs are to their own credit and, in particular, their smartness.
Jane Feltes: You think you got to keep your job because you’re smart? You got to keep your jobs because you guys got bailed out. You guys got bailed—
Bar Patron #2: No, no, no, no, no. That’s not what happened with my job. I mean, survival of the fittest
Bar Patron #1: Because I am smarter than the average person
Davidson: And even if the government bails out your industry that failed, you still say it’s because you’re smarter.
Bar Patron #1: No. The government bailing out an industry was out of necessity for whatever the situation was. The fact that I benefited from that is because I’m smart. I took advantage of a situation. Ninety-five percent of the population doesn’t have that common sense. The only reason I’ve been doing this for so long is because I must be smarter than the next guy.
Bar Patron 1 credits his job entirely to his own talent. Notice that he does not deny the plain fact that society has just bailed out the whole industry, saving many “smart” people from together wrecking the whole system. What he claims is that this plain fact is nevertheless wholly irrelevant to what bankers are due. The feeling seems to be widely shared in the industry. Bankers feel very sure of their entitlement to enormous benefits and therefore feel mystified and even victimized by the suggestion that they are overpaid. Indeed, in interviews with bankers about the Occupy Wall Street protesters, bankers privately say that their critics lack the appropriate sense of gratitude.”
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Erik – speaking of film clips, following your recommendation I watched “A River Runs Through It” this past weekend. Pretty good cinema. If you enjoyed that one as much as you’ve said, you would also probably like “Nobody’s Fool” (assuming you haven’t already seen it). Newman felt that it was one of his best character roles. I agree.
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George,
Thanks for that recommendation. It’s in the queue. I never get tired of “A River Runs Through It”.
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The Trailer:
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“Nobody’s Fool” is festooned with excellent one-liners and quick jabs. You can read most of them at IMDB, but my favorites are:
Sullivan’s son, Peter: “So if you’re not a father to me, how come you’re a grandfather to Will?”
Sully: “…’cause you gotta start someplace.”
and
Judge Flatt to Chief Quinn regarding Officer Raymer: “Ollie, you know my feelings about arming morons: you arm one, you’ve got to arm them all, otherwise it wouldn’t be good sport.”
followed by
Judge Flatt to Sully: “Here we are again, Mr. Sullivan”
I like to use the last one in instances of deja vu just to confuse people.
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Another great movie from that era is “Murphy’s Romance” with James Garner & Sally Field. One of my favorites.
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A River Runs Through It is a decent adaptation of a much better novella. I hope you’ve both read it.
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I have.
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