Why Does God Allow Capitalism?

Why Does God Allow Capitalism? 

By C.A. Matthews

It’s a question that’s often on my mind, day and night. Yes, I actually lose sleep over pondering it. Or maybe it’s just gives me something to mull over in the dark hours as I lie awake suffering from a particularly nasty acid reflux attack or sheering pain radiating down my arm from a trapped nerve. Either way, it does make one wonder why the Creator of Life, the Universe, and Everything (including the brilliant Douglas Adams) would allow such an abomination as capitalism to exist on the Good Earth.

After all, if God (or your Higher Power, if you prefer) made us in his/hers/its/their image why would he/she/it/they possess such a sociopathic personal attribute that would allow capitalism to flourish? Why would God allow any part of his/hers/its/their nature to become so cold, cruel and downright mercenary? If it is as 1 John 4:8 says, “God is love,” then how could something as unloving and inhumane as capitalism come out of the human heart which was created by Compassion itself?

Case in point: Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Why would any celestial being create such a vile creature as DeVos to begin with is beyond me as well, but let's hold off on that discussion for another day. The thing is DeVos exists—in the here and now—and she’s demonstrated repeatedly that she has no regard for the civil rights or feelings of her fellow human beings. As a billionaire, she’s already suspect as a sociopath, but with DeVos it goes much further than mere self-centeredness. 

Betsy DeVos and her family benefit directly from keeping students in debt for the majority of their working lives. Apparently she is also profiting from the heartache and terror of recent immigrants by taking their children and putting them up for private adoption to the highest bidders.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of anything less compassionate or more evil than stealing children from desperate families in order to make a quick buck. 

Even sicker, these immigrants are only seeking a safe place in America to raise their children because they were forced out of their homes due to US military interventions and shenanigans. In other words, if we hadn't bombed their countries back to the Stone Age and/or unleashed criminal despots friendly to American Big Business to rule them, these folks wouldn't currently be refugees seeking asylum here. They'd still be living in their native lands.

Unfortunately, DeVos is  not engaging in a new activity for Americans. All you have to do is crack open a US history text (even a poorly written one intended for Betsy's private schools) and turn to the chapter on the Civil War and its antecedents. There you will find sad illustrations of kidnapped Africans in chains being sold as slaves, permanently separated from their loved ones. Once enslaved, African women were often raped by their white masters and overseers, and those children were taken from their mothers to be sold on the auction block. There certainly was no “love” involved in breeding “livestock” as slaves were thought of by their owners.

Euro-Americans have always bought, sold and used other human beings—starting notably with the Native Americans. Whites drove the "Indians" off their lands, eventually killing or containing them on reservations. Native American orphans were kidnapped and educated to become “white” in Carlisle Schools but without all the benefits of possessing a European genetic heritage and bank account. 

The common denominator in American slavery seems to be the more red, brown or black pigmentation in your skin, the more likely you are considered less than human. Persons of color traditionally have had less civil rights and today are more likely to be killed, kidnapped, sold, or adopted out to the wealthy, and their families placed into eternal servitude (student loan and medical debt being forms of wage slavery).

What causes one group of humans to create slaves of another group of humans? The simple answer is, of course, greed. The mechanism greedy Americans use to exercise their need to hoard and take wealth from (or use the very body of) others is known as capitalism. It works on the profit principle. If an activity makes a capitalist profits, then it is allowable and heartily encouraged.

Jacking up college tuition and creating a student loan system that keeps former students forever paying off loans is a perfect example of capitalism functioning as it was designed. And what Betsy DeVos and her capitalist posse are doing by taking children from immigrant parents and making money off their misery is on the par with 19th century slave owners.

So, why does the Almighty allow "slavery in all but name" to continue? Is it a test of some kind? Are we supposed prove to our Higher Power that we can become better human beings by doing all we can to take down our corrupt capitalist system? Are we supposed to expose—and perhaps punish—the elitists hoarding the majority of the material wealth on the planet and wielding all of the political and military power? I don’t know.

Unlike others, I don’t see capitalism as an inevitable step in the evolution of civilization. At best, it’s a spurious path that ultimately leads to a dead end and many prematurely dead people, such as those Americans without adequate health care forced to ration their insulin and ultimately losing their lives. Only until the world embraces the concept of community (as demonstrated in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, verses 44-45: “[They] had all things in common...”) will we begin to see each other as equals, deserving of love and respect. Only then can we begin to heal the wounds of racism, sexism, ageism, classism...

Isn't it time we used the hearts, minds and hands we've been created with to fight the selfish destructiveness of capitalism in the world? There is such a thing as "free will," and as long as we can exercise ours, shouldn't we at least speak out against evil and refuse to cooperate with it? 

Why does God allow capitalism? Maybe it’s not God that allows it but us.  We each need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and decide which side of the moral struggle we want to be on as the spectacle of capitalism becomes grimmer in the coming days.

Related articles: 

Migrant Children Are Being Given to an Adoption Agency Linked to Betsy DeVos 
https://mavenroundtable.io/theintellectualist/news/migrant-children-are-being-given-to-an-adoption-agency-linked-to-betsy-devos-9j_wI0EkdEuS55b6qnzwsA/

Tally of children Split at Border Tops 5400 in New Count
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/tally-of-children-split-at-border-tops-5400-in-new-count

The Trump Administration is Making Immigrant Parents Pay $800 for DNA Tests to Get Their Kids Back
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/trump-administration-making-immigrant-parents-161314120.html

High Price of Insulin Leads Patients to Ration the Drug
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/01/641615877/insulins-high-cost-leads-to-lethal-rationing

Education Department Awards Debt Collection Contract to Company with Ties to DeVos
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/01/11/education-dept-awards-debt-collection-contract-to-company-with-ties-to-devos/

*** 

 From Faithful America:

Church volunteer Scott Warren was put on trial in June for giving immigrants water and first aid. His case ended in a mistrial -- but Trump's prosecutors are about to try again, with a second trial starting November 12. Scott could face years in prison, just for giving shelter to people in need.

Scott volunteers with No More Deaths, a Unitarian-Universalist ministry that offers water, food, blankets, and medical aid along the border in Arizona. His arrest was a clear attempt by the Trump administration to crack down on immigrants -- and on all Americans who welcome the stranger and show love to our southern neighbors. 

Let's show the Trump administration that these scare tactics won't work: Christians and other people of faith are still paying attention to this story, we are still committed to human rights for immigrants, and we will not stand for this crackdown on Good Samaritans!

Add your name now to tell federal prosecutors: No second trial for Scott Warren -- drop all charges at once!

Thanks for everything you do to love your neighbor and resist intimidation.
In peace,
- Rev. Nathan and the Faithful America team

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From Credo:

Here's a frightening idea: Grand Canyon, sponsored by Coca Cola. Yosemite, brought to you by McDonalds. Acadia, a subsidiary of Aramark.

Under a scheme hatched by former disgraced Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, that could be the eventual fate of America's national parks.

Reporters recently uncovered shady plans between the Interior Department and national park profiteers, the RV and hospitality industries, and enemies of public lands to privatize national park campgrounds, allow commercialized food trucks and other services at parks, limit benefits for seniors and increase prices.¹

This plan would be a massive giveaway to corporate interests and Trump donors who stand to profit from national park privatization. We must speak out now to stop it.

Tell the Department of the Interior: Stop the privatization of national parks. Click here to sign the petition.

According to the recently discovered memo, the Trump administration’s “Made in America” Outdoor Recreation Advisory Committee recommends privatizing national park campgrounds, which are currently managed by the National Park Service, instituting blackout dates and restrictions on senior benefits, increasing fees, expanding infrastructure that could harm wildlife habitat, and allowing mobile food trucks and camp stores on national park grounds.²

These measures will not only limit access for seniors and low income people to these pristine public lands - selling out our national parks to private interests will also line the pockets of Trump donors. Jerry Jacobs Jr., the billionaire chairman of Delaware North, a massive food service and concessionaire with deep interests in America's national parks, sits on the “Made in America” committee, donated at least $167,700 to Trump and stands to make massive profits if the Interior Department follows through with this scheme.

Privatizing America's national parks is another example in a long line of actions by the Trump administration to hand over public lands to private interests and donors, whether it's the fossil fuel industry, mining companies or corporate food and lodging. According to Western Values Project Deputy Director Jayson O’Neill, "Privatizing America’s public campgrounds and jacking up national park fees to appease big-business concessionaires and powerful corporate campaign donors is just the latest egregious attempt to rip public lands out of public hands."³

Activism to protect our national parks from Trump donors and corporate interests works. Thanks in part to more than 143,000 CREDO members who signed our petition, the names of historic locations at Yosemite National Park will be restored to their well-known names, a big victory over billionaire Jacobs, who brought a frivolous lawsuit against the NPS.⁴

We must speak out loud and clear that our beloved national parks are America's public lands, not a private, money-making playground for billionaire Trump donors. Click the link below to sign the petition:

https://act.credoaction.com/sign/national-park-privatization?t=9&akid=34738%2E9999572%2EwBJzBW

Thanks for speaking out.
Heidi Hess, Co-Director CREDO Action from Working Assets

References:

1. Frederick Reimers, "A New Plan to Make Camping in National Parks Worse," Outside, Oct. 21, 2019.
2. Alexander Nazaryan, "Trump advisory council recommends expanding private business in national parks," Yahoo News, Oct. 11, 2019.
3. Yetta Stein, "Plans to Privatize National Parks Outlined in Trump Admin Memo, Would Enrich Donors & Special Interests," Western Values Project, Oct. 11, 2019.
4. Josh Nelson, "Victory: Yosemite keeps historic names," CREDO Mobile, Sept. 9 2019.

 ***

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