Toward a Capitalistic
Renaissance
24 June 2009
Volume 11, Issue 25
Access now the ÒThe Wonder
Springs ChronicleÓ Front Page: http://www.wondersprings.org
To make a donation to the Wonder
Springs community please do so at the address below, or follow the donation
links on the website.
PDF link http://www.wondersprings.org/pastarchives/2009pdfflies/listicrenaissance062409.pdf
HTML view http://www.wondersprings.org/pastarchives/2009printfiles/files/listicreniassance0624709.htm
There is beginning in this
land and around the world a groundswell of common people sensing what seems to
indicate that we are sojourners in an epic time.
Bankrupt are the bastions of
American enterprise, the auto industry. It seems that like their railroad
brethren, they did not recognize the business school standard, which they were
in the transportation business, rather than creators of automobiles. Of course
the railroads were helped to their demise by General Motors and Standard Oil,
which bought up privately owned public transportation, shut them down, and
eliminated true market choice for American land based conveyance.
Automobiles were preceded in
stupendous change, by the meltdown catastrophe of the financial universe. From
which the concept too big to fail has now redefined the wisdom of Forrest Gump,
ÒStupid is, as stupid does, donÕt mean nothinÕ.Ó
LetÕs see – cheap
monetary policy, coupled with easy credit, financially leveraged to the utmost,
speculating in unregulated commodities, or bundled in high-risk real estate securities
did not last forever. It sure seems our enlightened leadership believed that it
would and even more amazing, that they can bring it back just like before.
Of course the oil players
are back at it again, betting that economic recovery and unlimited demand
increases are just a fall economic recovery away.
Then recent news indicates
that solar activity is at a long time low, creating cool temperatures and the
potential for a greatly decreased world food supply. All the while global
warming alarmists are still promoting an agenda, that mankind can control
climate by limiting carbon emissions and animal flatulence, or just have everyone
painting their roofs white.
What is missing in the
debate of TV pundits discussing the this or that, is that it really isnÕt about
this or that at all. The real issue is the concept of human enlightenment.
Broken down into its most basic tenet we see the inability of humanity to save
itself from itself. The problem is not at all about the stuff, the problem lies
within the philosophies or religions of man.
While many would say we need
a religious revival to set the record straight, the history of religious
revivals really isnÕt that much different than what we have just discussed.
Furthermore while they have had some localized effects, many times those
effects are short lived and the accompanying legalism has quickly exacerbated
any positive results.
What is needed is a common
solution. What we describe as common sense. The problem with all this, in the
above scenarios (and many more) seems to have been caused by a total lack of
common sense, most of the time reinforced by common arrogance or narcissism.
Looking at our current state
of affairs it looks like common sense does not apply. The reason for that is
that our educational system does not recognize the reality of the common
reality. Put another way we are all too specialized to understand anything
outside our specialty. In essential liberal truth, we really are a product of
our environment.
Just as the United States is
the most capitalistic nation in history, it is also the most specialized. What
we have failed to understand is the linkage is cause and effect. The success of
capitalism, going back to Adam SmithÕs ÒWealth of NationsÓ is based primarily
upon the specialization of labor to do specific tasks and do them well.
Smith believed that an
ÒInvisible HandÓ governed the creation of wealth through the application of
financial capital. The interpretation of just who or what constituted the hand
was dependent upon the capitalist, God, karma, the Force, but for our
discussion the important fact was that the ÒInvisible HandÓ was not the hand of
the capitalist entrepreneur. The capitalist used specialization of his work
force to put the hand into motion thereby creating new wealth.
Just as with the Founders of
the American republican experiment, that specialization always was to take
place within a well-understood common moral framework. In other words there was
a right and a wrong, there also was good an evil and human progress and
enlightenment must always take place within that tension. The Founders and
Smith understood the reality of natural law as the basis of common reasoning
and regulation.
Furthermore they believed
that wealth was best illustrated in the accumulation of private property. To
believe that todayÕs consumerism is truly private property in the classic
capitalistic model, seems to stretch the limits of credulity. Perhaps when
consumerism is linked with excessive credit, the better model is a modern type
of feudalism or slavery, which true capitalism should efficiently replace.
So back to the specialized auto
industry. The car salesman sold you a dream of a gift of personal
transportation that you deserved. The finance manager found some company that
would finance the dream with nothing down. The service manager hoped you would
return the vehicle for all routine services. The car dealer dreamed of being a
pillar of the community. Together with the car manufacturer and the auto
unions, everyone did quite well financially. All the specialists never looked
beyond the present, because the future is always better than the past. That is
the essence of the American Dream.
What got lost in the auto
industry and on most Americans was the fact the car was just a mode of
transportation, a quite expensive and generally reliable mode of transportation,
but still just a car. Much of the expense and profit was created essentially for
kitsch, only obtusely related to the transport reality.
A similar discussion could
take place over the recent real estate bubble, but in that case much of the
hype was for kitsch as a sound investment, one you could liquidate at anytime
in the future for substantial gain.
The excesses of capitalism
has long been a feature the American landscape. Perhaps the spin on real estate
speculation being the most consistent. Our public land grants to railroads to
build to the Pacific being one of the most overt. The concept of Òbuild it and
they will come, and you will get rich,Ó took on new meaning. The problem was if
they came, the land could not support most of the comers, and those who managed
to make it, didnÕt make enough for the railroads to make a profit. The lack of
common sense again shows its timely reality.
Throughout history there has
been an enlightened effort to curb the excesses of capitalism. Most of those
rely heavily upon some sort of enlightened government elite to moderate and
regulate the robber barons, the speculators, or just the evil schemers. This
enlightened minority is but a bureaucratic bumbling of specialization, again
not understanding the principles of common natural law upon which true
capitalism soundly based.
President Obama seems to be
taking his election victory as a mandate to not let this current crisis go to
waste, even though it seems that all he has done is to shift the deck chairs on
the Titanic from the laissez faire deck to the new deal deck. His enlightened
specialists donÕt seem to realize that the world economy just hit a big
iceberg, there is a hole in the hull, we are taking on water rapidly, and the
pumps are failing. Thankfully we are told this will be all over soon. His
enlightened specialists have come to our rescue, and lifeboats are not needed
because, we can hope to change the iceberg through melting liquidity, (once
called excessive debt).
Long before the Enlightenment
came the Renaissance. Renaissance means essentially revival or rebirth. What
the world needs now is a revived or reborn enterprise paradigm in which
capitalistic wealth creation is again focused upon the Invisible Hand and not
just the hand of man grabbing anything that he thinks he might want at the
expense of others.
The Renaissance man was not
known for his specialization but his generalization. The broad basis of the
renaissance experience allowed for an unique perspective that a specialist could
not comprehend. The proverb ÒA jack of all trades, master of noneÓ seems to
make good sense in the world of the specialist. In actuality many Renaissance
leaders were truly broadly gifted and used those gifts to greatly develop both
the breadth and depth of human civilization.
Simplifying greatly, the
Renaissance began as human reason sought to understand a Creator who had
designed human personalities to do more than struggle to exist and to take up
space upon this earth. Mankind, created in the image of God, was uniquely given
the task to create, not ex nihilo, but use his human gifts to recreate the
given universe toward the fulfillment of human opportunities as stewards of
GodÕs creation. This reordering of creation begins with the understanding of
natural law, first relating to common human morality, but extending to all GodÕs
wisdom, specifically through GodÕs word in unity with His creation.
As this humanization of
western culture took place, about midway through the continuum from Renaissance
to Enlightenment, occurred a profound Christian religious awakening called the
Reformation. That Reformation again focused Christianity beyond mundane pious
religious practices, to the finished work by the death of Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, on a Middle Eastern cross for the justification of sinful humanity. Three days hence he was
raised from the dead according to the scriptures and the testimony of many
reliable witnesses.
In our context this gospel
of Jesus Christ fulfilled not only the requirements of natural law but also the
specific law of God required personal holiness, through the covenant of
unmerited Grace. This reality is as wonderful today as it was two thousand
years ago, but religious intolerance has severed the gospelÕs linkage with
common and natural law and human aspirations.
Fast-forwarding to the
present world, conventional wisdom, is based upon total naturalism. God does
not exist, hence natural law does not exist. When we speak of the Òrule of lawÓ
the concept only includes human produced statutes and regulations. The former
preeminence of natural law or even common law has been systematically expunged
from the record.
Furthermore the human
conscience is just a remnant of some primitive community affirmation ritual.
This ultimately means that everyone does what is right in their own eyes. Taken
to its true logical conclusion human civilization can no longer exist except as
feudalism or fascism. Those who consider themselves more highly evolved attempt
to rule others as a chosen elite. This we see all too common in those who today
seek individual leadership. Therein lies the circle by which we return to
feudalism and the dark ages, when human class structures dominated and unknown
were the human virtues of freedom, liberty, and security.
A cumulative progress of
common and specific revelations of God and nature led to both SmithÕs opus
ÒWealthÓ and the founding of the American republic based upon the freedom of
religious tolerance. That religious tolerance is still the most suppressed
human freedom on earth and is again the focus of those specialists who seek to
control the future by their grossly limited humanity.
If we were to truly
understand the demise of late twentieth century prosperity you will find that
religious and natural intolerance are the underlying diseases. Religious
intolerance only rarely becomes submissive because of the underlying
predilection of humans to sin both against others but also towards God. The
cure for that disease has always been the unmerited grace of God.
However throughout history
and until very recently all humans, either as individuals or as communities
continually had to deal with the natural law of planet earth. Just as with
Babylon in the Biblical book of Genesis, urbanization has always been humanityÕs
best attempt at overcoming that reality.
What modern urbanization has
done is create jungles much more hostile than there wild counterpart. Real
noise and white noise of the city has the effect of sequestering the anxiety
that without God we are really alone. The noise and the action keeps everyone
running away from themselves in search of nothing attainable. As a consequence
everything is never enough, because the yearnings of the human spirit can only
be calmed by gifts of the spirit. By definition materialism is devoid of spirit
and therefore can only make the journey more frustrating – like an
addiction to narcotic drugs.
Contrary to what you hear from all the pundits,
rich and famous, leaders in Washington and around the world, human enlightenment
and knowledge is not going to overcome the vinegar pickle we have created, for
salvation is not a human attribute.
We will learn that hope for
the sake of hope is at best idolatry. At least hope in material stuff has a
form and hopefully a function. We create money like it has no value, because in
itself it has no energetic value. That energetic value and that wealth creation
must come from humans with a capitalistic renaissance worldview. That worldview
understands that human enterprise only functions successfully within the
constraints of common moral and natural law. These laws are the reality of
absolute limits and not human based wishful thinking nor evil manipulation.
That hopeful future is
perhaps best described in an ancient song sung by Old Testament Jews on their
way up to the Temple in Jerusalem for their God prescribed feasts. Psalm 121,
pretty much summarizes the understanding of GodÕs grace as part of our own
pilgrimage.
Psalm 121 – A Song
of Ascents.
I will lift up my eyes to
the hills—
From whence comes my
help?
My help comes from the
LORD,
Who made heaven and
earth.
He will not allow your
foot to be moved;
He who keeps you will not
slumber.
Behold, He who keeps
Israel
Shall neither slumber nor
sleep.
The LORD is your keeper;
The LORD is your shade at
your right hand.
The sun shall not strike
you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
The LORD shall preserve
you from all evil;
He shall preserve your
soul.
The LORD shall preserve
your going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and
even forevermore.
© 2009 under Creative
Commons License 3.0, see website for details.