Mr. Hellströms kommentarer

Religion is a primitive form of philosophy, and there is no religion that holds classical liberal/capitalist ideals in very high esteem. Capitalism is a social system based on individual rights, including property rights and most, if not all, religions that are of any significance are anti-laissez-faire, anti-reason and anti-individual rights. This means that religion is a philosophical enemy of freedom (just like socialism, conservatism, mutualism, environmentalism etc.).

Some advocates of capitalist system base their political views on religious beliefs, and primarily on Christianity*. This is deeply disturbing since Christianity is fundamentally incompatible with capitalism. The Christian worldview views man as a low, sinful, irrational and selfish being. This view is primitive, irrational and mystical. Christian morality is in its essence altruism, and altruism is totally incompatible with capitalism (and cannot serve as a proper philosophical foundation), because altruism says that one ought to sacrifice oneself for others. Leonard Peikoff said it best:

”Can they [Christians] praise the profit motive–while extolling selflessness? Can they commend the passion to own material property–while declaring that worldly possessions are not important? Can they urge men to practice the virtues of productiveness and long-range planning–while upholding as the human model the lilies of the field? Can they celebrate the self-assertive risk-taking of the entrepreneur–while teaching that the meek shall inherit the earth? Can they glorify and liberate the creative ingenuity of the human mind, which is the real source of material wealth–while elevating faith above reason? The answers are obvious… no religion, by its nature can appeal to or admire the capitalist system; not if the religion is true to itself.”

The Bible is full of violations of people’s rights, and in many places such violations are viewed as moral, and sometimes such acts are even committed by God. This can hardly be combined with laissez-faire capitalism.

Since Christianity opposes important aspects of the capitalist system, such as profit, profit motive, wealth, selfishness etc. Christian advocates of capitalism are always in philosophical conflict with capitalism itself. Capitalism as a system enables selfishness – a sin according to Christianity. The right to own property is the right to use ones possessions and dispose of them as one pleases, which is a fundamentally selfish thing. One cannot praise capitalism and remain true to Christianity, since vital aspects of any of them goes against the other (Christianity, i.e. the Bible both advocates violations of rights and view important features of capitalism as immoral). Christianity’s view on worldly possessions is very anti-capitalist. Capitalism begins with the production of goods and services and continues on to keeping, using and trading those products. This is done to improve ones situation. Let this stand in contrast with Christianity which says that worldly possessions are not important, and that the rich are morally inferior to the poor.

Christian advocates of capitalism cannot convincingly defend it since their religion in it self is extremely anti-capitalist, and until the defenders of capitalism and freedom also espouse reason they cannot hope to be successful in their pursuit of a free and prosperous society.

(This post doesn’t make the contributions that Christians have made to the development of free-market theories less important, but rather shows how Christianity in itself goes against capitalism, or in other words, is a poor philosophical foundation for the free-market and capitalism. Christians like the Spanish Scholastics helped to develop advanced free market theories, but it isn’t their contribution in this field that is criticized in itself, but rather their philosophical foundation, which is fundamentally flawed.)

*Many American libertarians are religious, and several prominent libertarians are in fact fundamentalist Christians (Ron Paul comes to mind). Although it’s true that several prominent libertarians are atheists, they regularly praise religion or avoid the topic as such.