Liberal Capitalism vs Fundamentalism: The Battle of the Century
There's something about fundamentalism that is dangerous regardless of the kind, regardless of the creed.
That much I'm pretty sure about. But readers are going to have to forgive me here since a lot of what follows is thinking out loud. This fundamentalism problem—and it is a problem—keeps rearing it's ugly, irrational head.
At it's core religious fundamentalism is anti modern. This is true of the Islamic fundamentalists, Jewish fundamentalist and Christian fundamentalists. I think this is so because all three faiths originated among rural people. There was always a mistrust of the urban and the urbane. All three religious saw cities, which can only exist through division of labour, as centres of sin. From Sodom and Gomorra to New York and Los Angeles the fundamentalist has always looked upon major urban centres as inherently wicked.
Perhaps had these religions evolved in an urban culture they would have a different view. I don't know. I know that throughout American history the religious folk were the rural folk. They saw the major cities as the centres for all that is wrong with the world. They were centres of vice and greed which meant centres of social freedom and capitalism. And that never set well with the fundamentalist.
Capitalism is inherently anti-fundamentalistic. The fundamentalist puts a restricted, stilted version of their religion at the centre of everything. They take the culture bound words of some ancient mystical writing and attempt to apply it to a modern age. There is a conflict inherent in this. But for the fundamentalist the ancient word supersedes that of anything since then. So instead of looking for truths that apply to the modern world they attempt to restrict and confine the modern world so it will fit the ancient text.
But capitalism undermines this. It appeals to consumers with new ideas. The British economics writer Samuel Brittan explained this conflict in his essay "Capitalism and the Permissive Society." Allow me to quote something he said that is very important: "...to the extent that it prevails, competitive capitalism is the biggest single force acting on the side of what it is fashionable to call 'permissiveness', but what was once known as personal liberty. Business enterprise can, of course, thrive and prosper alongside a great deal of 'moral' prohibitions and prescriptions, whether enforced by law or public opinion. But the profit motive will always be kicking against such restraints and seeking to widen the range of what is permissible - whether it is a nineteenth- century publisher launching an attack on orthodox religion or a twentieth-century theatrical or film producer challenging conventional concepts of decency and decorum. The profit motive will act both to stretch the existing law and as a force for its liberalisation. "
This is something the conservative will have to understand. Capitalism rewards the entrepreneur who challenges, successfully, the status quo. He gets rich by providing what people want or need regardless of the moral strictures of some ancient faith.
This is why classical liberalism was such a revolutionary force in the world. It was not merely an economic creed as the conservatives want us to believe. Yes, it did support economic liberalisation and markets. But it also challenged the ruling class as well by calling for an equality of rights and a devolution of power. It demanded the separation of church and state. In fact much of classical liberalism first dealt with freedom of conscience before moving on to economic freedom. And it opposed the wars of the ruling classes because war destroyed individual rights, concentrated power, and made the combatants poorer. War was everything that liberalism was not.
And classical liberalism, the foundation of modernity, was, in Brittan's terms "kicking against" restraints. It did promote what the conservatives call permissiveness. Brittan wrote: "Indeed, the basic arguments for the so-called 'permissive' morality were developed by thinkers in the nineteenth-century liberal tradition from John Stuart Mill onwards (one has only to think of his lifelong campaign against the subjection of women - the genuine article before which 'Women's Lib' groups pall). Many of the classical ideas of nineteenth-century liberalism did not come on the statute book until the 1960s. The battle is still far from won, as can be seen from the sentences still passed on 'obscene publications' or the hysterical and vindictive attitude adopted by so many authority figures towards the problem of drugs."
Capitalism changed the entire world. The rural gave way to the great cities and industrialisation. The self-sufficient, isolated farm family gave way to the nuclear family. It changed how people dealt with each other. It changed how people viewed their own relationships. It created romantic love! Prior to this period family was tied to land for survival. And marriages, even in the West, were routinely arranged to benefit the entire family—to increase the chances of survival. But with industrialisation the ability to marry for non-economic reasons became possible. Sociologist Barry Adams wrote: "Capitalism laid the groundwork for voluntary relationships based on personal preference, the precondition for 'romantic love.' Capitalism did not cause romantic love, it allowed it to flourish." John D'Emilio and Estelle Freedman, in their book Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America, note that "Sons and daughters not only chose mates with less attention to property and family considerations but some young people even disregarded parental opinion altogether. Operating within a political climate that decried tyranny and exulted the rights of the individual, some children married over parental objections while others failed to inform their parents at all."
This revolution in the family was a liberal revolution. It allowed people to choose their own mates without having to conform to the wishes of the authority figures in their life. And it made it possible for them to survive without the property that would be handed to them. The relationship between parents and children was permanently changed. The child could more easily reach a stage where they could survive without the parent and this limited the parent's ability to enforce traditional modes of living upon the child.
It is not immediately apparent to everyone how this happened. In a market economy as capital accumulates it can be turned into capital goods which are used to produce the final products for consumption. Accumulated capital created more productive machinery which made workers more productive. For instance the old hand loom gave way to the massive mechanical looms which produced far more with far less labour. Each worker became more and more productive. That meant they became more valuable. That drove up wages substantially. During the Industrial Revolution wages grew so rapidly that the previous need for child labour disappeared. The parents were now productive enough to support the family without children contributing to their own upkeep—something that was necessary on the old farm. Eventually productivity rose to such levels that many women ceased working as well.
This increased wealth allowed them to shun the demands of their family when it came to choosing partners. If parents "cut them off" they could still survive. They were freed from these parentally imposed restraints.
Capitalism also undermined religious orthodoxy. Increased wealth for the average person allowed them to do something unique in human history—spend considerable time educating their children. The ancient texts were subjected to rational scrutiny by more and more generations of children. That undermined the fundamentalist world view.
The rise of tolerance and the decline of theology were also caused by capitalism in another manner. In his book Capitalism and the Permissive Society Brittan wrote, "Capitalist civilisation is above all rationalist. It is anti-heroic and anti-mystical." He points out that the capitalist, as a profit-maximiser, is forced to ignore the "traditional, mystical or ceremonial justification of existing practices." The capitalist who doesn't do so will lose out to the capitalist who does. Thus Brittan concludes, "The breakdown of theological authority, the rise of scientific spirit and the growth of capitalism were inter-related phenomena." Intimate Matters notes that in the United States the government shifted its focus from morality to property with the rise of the libertarian ideology that spurred on the Revolution, "The new laws formulated by the American state and federal governments took a laissez-faire attitude toward the regulation of the family in general and that of sexuality in particular. In the early 19th century, property rather than morals offences preoccupied legislatures and courts."
D'Emilio and Freedman point out that after classical liberalism became the dominant ideology in the United States that there was "an overall decline in state regulation of morality and a shift in concerns from private to public moral transgressions." Because classical liberalism removed the church from state power "state regulations of morality declined noticeably. ...according to Robert Wells, 'government in the American colonies gradually lost interest in prosecuting sexual sinners..." "Thus with the formation of state and local governments during and after the Revolution, and the gradual separation of church from civil authority—a process that extended into the 1830s—the prosecution of sexual offences lost the central place it had held in early colonial society." D'Emilio and Freedman realise that expanding sexual freedom in the United States was "protected by the laissez-faire attitude toward morality and commerce." And it should be noted that much of the morals legislation and enforcement that is associated with Victorian America came about under the influence of so-called "progressive" movements of the Left. Censorship laws, prostitution laws, the increase in the age of consent were all brought about by social purity groups that had a decidedly collectivist, antilaissez-faire attitude. Even in Victorian England the legal persecution of gay people had a strong boost from the Left. Oscar Wilde was convicted under a law, which left-leaning Feminist Review brags was pushed through by "Social purity campaigners, who by that time had been joined by feminists such as Josephine Butler, combined with socialists...."
It is easy to look back from the vantage point of today and condemn the society of the 1800s as being repressive. However, we must remember that the forces of classical liberalism were taking root and each generation experienced a freer, more tolerant existence.
As Brittan wrote, "The important point, however, is that both the political and economic philosophy and the capitalist practices of a century ago set in motion a train of events and ideas which eventually undermined the status-ridden conventional society of the time and brought into being the more tolerant England of today." This is why, he argues, that "The breakdown of theological authority, the rise of the scientific spirit and the growth of capitalism were interrelated phenomena."
The fundamentalist is opposed to classical liberalism in all forms. He is opposed to freedom itself. His is an authority based faith. As I wrote in my essay on Islamic fundamentalism in our first issue of New Liberal Review: "Reason required questioning while faith required obedience. Questioning required liberty while obedience required authority alone." To question within any of the fundamentalist sects is to sin. The final "authority" is the book—whichever book they use and one is required to obey under all circumstances. All of life's questions are answered in the book and those that aren't are not worth answering.
We have seen what the Islamic fundamentalists are capable of doing. We have only had glimpses of what Christian fundamentalists can do. They were the backbone of the Ku Klux Klan. In the school "text book protests" in West Virginia, led by their ministers they were capable of shooting at people and attempting to blow up school buses. They even attempted to assassinate an entire school board by setting a bomb to go off in the building during a school board meeting. In Florida a fundamentalist minister killed a doctor who performed abortion and on his way to his execution sounded like one of the 9/11 terrorists who bragged how all his death would do was send him to a Heavenly Paradise early. He had no regrets and the penalty of death was no deterrent.
The similarity between these groups was well illustrated in an article by the Christian Fundamentalist, and advocate of theocracy, Gary North. North entitled his diatribe: "Osama bin Laden Meets Will and Grace". North quotes a promo for a documentary on the rise of American culture in Islamic nations. It says:
"As satellite television and movies invade the homes of Muslims in the Middle East, many perceive it as an insidious cultural invasion by the U.S.—overt propaganda created to undermine their religious and cultural identity. From the overt homosexuality of 'Will & Grace', to the exaggerated violence of American action films, these powerful images project a value system that can inspire, as one Egyptian television executive states, 'a kind of shock and rejection and hatred.'"
"Yet many Muslims can't take their eyes off these images, as they've become virtually impossible to ignore. In Kurdistan, students say that American films reflect a people with greater freedom of expression and choice. 'Our youth are being affected by these media products. They are enjoying it, they are consuming it, and they are imitating what they see, says Angy Ghannam, a news editor for Islam Online in Cairo, Egypt."
According to North the Islamic fundamentalist is upset because Hollywood portrays a culture where individuals are free to pursue their own values instead of traditional, customary ways. It's that damn "liberalism" that is at fault and the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Centre did so because they hate liberal social values. North concurs with them. He doesn't condemn them so much as sympathise with them. He merely disagrees on one thing. The Islamist thinks such entertainment is meant to destroy Islam. North says they are wrong: "These Muslim critics overestimate Islam's importance for Hollywood. Hollywood's overt propaganda is designed to undermine America's religious and cultural identity. Undermining Islam is merely icing on the cake of anti-custom."
North argues: "The onslaught of American entertainment is irresistible. The satellite network, the video, the DVD, and the Internet respect no borders. They respect only profit and loss. As technology gets cheaper, it penetrates lower economic strata like a bunker-busting bomb. What the Hutterites and Amish understand, some mullahs may understand but cannot enforce. If you don't stop the zipper, you can't stop Madonna. Culture is a package deal."
North's complaint is the same as that of the Islamist. He says "Islamic authorities are losing their hold on their people because the materialism of the West is taking root in the Middle East." But this materialism of the West also threatens Christian fundamentalism. "Christianity has been struggling with the moral pollution of mass entertainment for two generations."
But Hollywood merely sells what people will buy. It's the market at work. It uses the technology produced by capitalism, combines it with the profit motive and produces products that people are willing to pay for. The Fundamentalist wants to see a conspiracy. I see a mirror. Entertainment doesn't control as much as it reflects the values of the audience.
Like their Islamic counterparts Christian fundamentalists do not merely preach against sin. They demand that the state take action—punative action.
They don't want to just persuade women to stop having abortions. They want to arrest women who have had abortions and punish them. And if you ask you'll be surprised how many will admit they want these women executed. For many fundamentalists executing women who had abortions—along with the doctors and nurses who performed them—is just the beginning. They debate amongst themselves but the list of capital offences is somewhere around 40.
Gary North, a Calvinist who likes the teachings of the Calvinist theologian Corneleus van Till and Rousas Rousdonny—who was his father-in-law— promotes a doctrine called theonomy or the rule of God. His theocractic ideas makes bin Laden look like a raving libertarian. North, unlike bin Laden, even claims to be a libertarian. But the claim is absurd.
Consider how this fundamentalist theocrat thinks. For him all aspects of human existence should be controlled by a fundamentalist, Calvinist, interpretation of the Bible. "The laws of the kingdom of God extend just as far as sin does: This means every area of life." The theonomist wants these Biblical laws enforced.
As they see it all law is enforcing someone's moral viewpoint. Therefore it's just as good to enforce theirs as anyone else's. In a very real sense they assume the morality of the man who stops a rapist is no different than that of the rapist himself. All law is morality enforced at the point of the gun and their morality is ordained by God so promoting God's morality by force is acceptable. The logic is the same for the Taliban.
For North this means the death penalty preferably by stoning people to death. He writes: "The question eventually must be raised: Is it a criminal offence to take the name of the Lord in vain? When people curse their parents, it unquestionably is a capital crime (Ex. 21:17). The son or daughter is under the lawful jurisdiction of the family. The integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death. Clearly, cursing God (blasphemy) is a comparable crime, and is therefore a capital crime (Lev. 24:16)."
North's father-in-law and mentor, R.J. Rousdoony put it this way: "Peace with God means warfare with the enemies of God. Christ made clear that allegiance to Him meant a sword of division (Matt. 10:34-36). In a sinful world, some warfare is inescapable. A man must therefore pick his enemies: God or sinful man? If a man is at peace with sinful men, he is at war with God. Peace in one sector means warfare in another. God alone, however, can give inner peace now, and, finally, world peace through His sovereign law (Micah 4:2)."
The theocrat wants to take state control. They will appeal to liberty now so as to work their agenda but they are quite clear that when they have power liberty will be abolished and they will have a monopoly. North writes: "So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God."
Fellow Calvinist George Grant puts it this way: "Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land—of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ. It is to reinstitute the authority of God's Word as supreme over all judgements, over all legislation, over all declarations, constitutions, and confederations. True Christian political action seeks to rein the passions of men and curb the pattern of digression under God's rule.."
Like the Islamic fundamentalists these Calvinists want total control of the powers of government. And when they have it then all pretence at liberalism will be thrown out the window. Executions will be routine and not just for murderers but for many. Adulterers, disobedient children, advocates of non-Christian religions, fornicators, homosexuals and a plethora of other groups have all been targeted for execution. And the books these Calvinists put out are not shy at listing the groups. They always argue they are merely protecting the "sanctity of the family" but North is honest: "The integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death."
These fundamentalists, in public, will try to hide their agenda. But they want theocracy and their theocracy will be bloody. They operate under the radar. They appeal to liberalism for their rights. They demand tolerance for their views. But they will not return the favour if they gain power.
This idea of turning the other cheek is temporary. North writes: "Nevertheless, this one fact should be apparent: turning the other cheek is a bribe. It is a valid form of action for only so long as the Christian is impotent politically or militarily. By turning the other cheek, the Christian provides the evil coercer with more peace and less temporal danger than he deserves. By any economic definition, such an act involves a gift: it is an extra bonus to the coercing individual that is given only in respect of his power. Remove his power, and he deserves punishment: an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Remove his power, and the battered Christian should either bust him in the chops or haul him before the magistrate, and possibly both."
And: "It is only in a period of civil impotence that Christians are under the rule to "resist not evil" (Matt. 5:39). When Christians are given power in civil affairs, the situation is different, and another rule is imposed....We pay the bribe until the day that God's adversaries lose power, but not one day longer." Once they have power it coercive submission that they demand.
North writes: "God is plowing up the modern world. This is softening the Establishment's resistance to many new ideas and movements, among which is Christian Reconstruction is barely visible at present. This is good for us now; we need the noise of contemporary events to hide us from humanist enemies who, if they fully understood the long-term threat to their civilisation that our ideas pose, would be wise to take steps to crush us."
But it is important to remember that religion and theocracy are not the same thing. Liberalism is at war with theocracy but not at war with religion. And one can be a Christian or a Muslim or Jew without being a fundamentalist as well. Ludwig von Mises, the great free market economist and author of the the book "Liberalism" wrote in his economic tour de force "Human Action": "It is a fact that many varieties of the great historical religions were affected by theocratic tendencies. Their apostles were inspired by a craving for power and the oppression and annihilation of all dissenting groups. However, we must not confuse the two things, religion and theocracy."
Mises notes: "Liberalism is based upon a purely rational and scientific theory of social co-operation. The policies it recommends are the application of a system of knowledge which does not refer in any way to sentiments, intuitive creeds for which no logically sufficient proof can be provided, mystical experiences, and the personal awareness of superhuman phenomena. In this sense the often misunderstood and erroneously interpreted epithets atheistic and agnostic can be attributed to it. It would, however, be a serious mistake to conclude that the sciences of human action and the policy derived from their teachings, liberalism, are anti theistic and hostile to religion. They are radically opposed to all systems of theocracy. But they are entirely neutral with regard to religious beliefs which do not pretend to interfere with the conduct of social, political, and economic affairs."
Liberalism is not a philosophy of war but peace. But social harmony is only possible when people realise that they have to leave other people alone. They can't enforce their religious mandates via the state. Capitalism, like social liberalism, requires limited government and freedom. In the end the rule of religion requires state control of all aspects of man's existence. This is why Mises said: "that theocracy is only possible in a socialist community." Theocratic rule must control private production conducted for individual consumption. It must have a large state. It must limit freedom.
But religion and theocracy are not identical. Faith and fundamentalism are not merely two expressions of the same thing. Liberalism opposes theocracy not religion. As Mises wrote: "It is a distortion of fact to say, as many champions of religious theocracy do, that liberalism fights religion. Where the principle of church interference with secular issues is in force, the various churches, denominations and sects are fighting one another. By separating church and state, liberalism establishes peace among the various religious factions and gives to each of them the opportunity to preach its gospel unmolested."
There is little doubt in my mind that fundamentalism and liberalism oppose one another at a level which is irreconcilable. The world-views of classical liberalism and fundamentalism are too far apart for any real co-operation. While we must fight for the liberty of the fundamentalist we can't forget Gary North's promise—they will use their liberty to take away our own.
But liberty is indivisible. To protect my own freedom I must protect the freedom of the fundamentalist. But I need not ally myself with them. I need not entertain the notion that at some level they are allies in a common cause. I don't have to pretend that they are somehow "liberal" and I don't think they should pretend that they are either. We should make our differences clear. We liberals will protect their freedom even though we recognise that they do not respect freedom. We will grant their right to choose even as they insidiously work to undermine freedom of choice. To do otherwise is not to battle them but to surrender completely to the system they advocate.
All items in this journal reflect the personal opinions of the author and are not necessarily those of the Institute for Liberal Values or its Board members.
Previous (The Red Queen and the Kiwi Worker) - Next (No Political Downside to Pro Civil Unions votes in NZ)
Nannies to Right of Us, Nannies to the Left of Us.
Welcome Home: the journeys of David Mamet and George McGovern.
Dominion Post in needless panic
Does Liberalism Have a Heart?
The moral problems of state power in regards to war.
Kiwi health: spend more, care less
Hurricanes and hot air: the sequel
Morality and Consistency: Why Left and Right both threaten freedom.
Ageing, population and the welfare state.
The bankruptcy of conservatism.
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Institute for Liberal Values, Friday September 3rd 2010. |
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