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By Ernesto Tinajero
The choice we are facing today comes down to Gilded Age Capitalism and New Deal Capitalism. Gilded Age from the end of the Civil War to the start of the Great Depression saw some of the biggest jumps in industrialization and the move from a mercantilism in which the U.S. relied on imported goods from the old world, to being one the biggest manufacturing powers in the world. The Capitalism that marked that age can be summed up in the biblical passage in that everyone did right in their own eyes with similar injustice flowing from the Temple of Mammon. This is the age that saw the building of the railroads uniting a far spread country into one. The rise of inventions like the light bulb telegraph, telephone and many other technological innovations fed the economy. Yet, not everyone shared in the country’s new wealth.
The problems with the Gilded Age capitalism were many. There were very many periodic depressions, the dividing of people into two classes of rich and poor, the rise of monopolies, and the thinking of labor as a dehumanized workforce. The last was important, because the poor during the era worked long hours, 10-12 hours a day, seven days a week in substandard and dangerous work environment and at an age many today would find appalling. Kids as young as 5 year old were working eight and nine hour days. It was the Christians of the day that fought hard to eliminate the excess that Mammon worship leads to. Christians were the voice of justice.
With the Great Depression, the country turned to a different model of Capitalism, New Deal capitalism. Here the idea was that capital and manufacturing had to be regulated by more Christian values of justice and love. The banks could not speculate in the stock market and were regulated. A more complex view of markets came into view, that markets had to account for the sin of man. Without consequences and checks and balances, markets would act amorally and ultimately immorally, for the love of money certainly is a major root of evil.
In a way it was a return to the founding principles of fairness and checks and balance. This era that lasted from 1929 until about 2000 withe erosion starting of it in 1980s equally saw an explosion greater than the one of the Gilded Age. Computers, modern technology that we have come to view as common arose in this New Deal Capitalism. It also saw the largest rise in the middle class and poor classes in the history of the republic.
There were tensions though. Where to draw the regulator line, what is the best use of the safety net and many such questions. The lasting slander was that New Deal was a form of socialism, which by any definition doesn’t fit, but sense The answers are more complex than simply the socialistic or Gilded Age capitalism. The welfare could be taken advantage of and there is a need to be constantly fiddled with. The results were extraordinary though. No period in American history was the standard of living as high for as many people as during the New Deal Capitalism.
Well, since Ronald Reagan, the Gilded Age capitalism has made a startling comeback, with the predictable results of more concentrated wealth at the top and all the horrors the biblical minor prophets. Gilded Age Capitalism, at its core, worships money or what the church has called mammon worshiping. The Golden Calf worship has been condemned since Moses day, through to the prophets of the Tanak and joined by the Jesus and the New Testament writers, which opens out a mystery. In the Gilded Age, the church was light in the call for justice and the poor. Today, it is silent about Mammon worship. In past, Mammon was listed as one of the princes of hell, and today, the property gospel in its many forms has become the leading evangelical theology. The comeback of Gilded Age Capitalism has met little main stream resistance from the church. The church only offers a radical reinterpretation of its teaching about money. It is a mystery and a challenge for Christians. How do we find the strength to challenge Mammon? Pope Francis has reminded all Christians that the values of Mammon are not compatible with the values of Jesus. We can’t worship Mammon and Jesus. It is long overdue in a nation of Mammon worship for Christians to say enough is enough. Mammon or Jesus. Choose.
Good start, Ernesto. You don’t have a deep analysis of the evils of unregulated capitalism that result in the great divisions of wealth, with the accumulation of Capital in the hands of a few, how this leads to endless war, warfare being an easy way for capital to be controlled by a few, and globalism, with its absentee rulers. I agree with your alternative, but I don’t like the name. It would be a highly regulated capitalism, as the size of the accumulation gets larger, and relies, I believe, on social equalitarian values close to early Christianity and Jesus. Of course, this is what Early Marx talked about, and has been variously called New Deal, Marxist Humanism, Democratic Socialism, and Christian Socialism. I like the more descriptive terms of Socialist Humanism or, as adopted by a good sized group of political activists, Socialist Alternatives. Proposals these forward looking people are making are Guaranteed annual income, graduated taxation and income distribution, basic rights to health, housing, and jobs, and all done in the context of seeing that Black Lives Matter.
Whether you call it socialism or not is not so interesting as the need to discuss how to bring it about before the world and our civilizations, both indicators of our love of God, collapse.