To all religious believers who have ever questioned the capitalist system:
One of the biggest intellectual frauds in capitalist society is the widespread belief that capitalism is compatible with the teachings of major religions such as Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Capitalists have a vested interest in getting you to believe that capitalism is a spiritually wholesome and irreproachable way of life in order to make you more willing to accept and uphold the system. If they can make you believe that capitalism is endorsed by the great religions and is part of God’s plan for the world, then they can get you to believe that anti-capitalism is a sin and that whoever opposes capitalism is an enemy of God, religion, and morality, and your personal enemy as well. The capitalists’ goal is to divide the working class against itself by pitting workers who are religious believers against workers who fight capitalism, whether those class-conscious workers are religious or not. This is a highly effective way to weaken working-class resistance to capitalism and to prevent the growth of solidarity among workers.
Marxists are well armed against this bogus belief because they understand that the ideological content of a society’s culture, which includes its religions, becomes permeated by the ideology of the class that owns and controls the means of production. In other words Marxists recognize that ruling classes have the power to corrupt and distort religion for their own selfish ends. These distortions are the source of many religious beliefs that are anti-progressive, anti-people, and anti-worker. Thus in a capitalist society, mainstream versions of the major religions are so steeped in the self-serving ideology of the capitalist class that they become little more than capitalist versions of those religions, teaching their adherents to believe that God loves capitalism and reserves special places in heaven for capitalists and obedient workers who cooperate with the system no matter what cruelties it inflicts on human beings.
Is it really true that the Buddha or the God of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam could love the capitalist system? Let’s look a little deeper into this question by considering the Golden Rule—Do unto others as you would have them do unto you—also known as the ethic of reciprocity. Most of the major religions count some version of this rule among their fundamental teachings. If capitalism is really compatible with religion then its fundamental principles should agree with the Golden Rule. Here are a few versions of the rule as stated in the teachings of some major religions:
Buddhism: Treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. The Buddha, Udana-Varga 5.18
Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. Hillel, Talmud, Shabbath 31a
Christianity: In everything, do unto others as you would have them do unto you; for this is the law and the prophets. Jesus, Matthew 7:12
Islam: Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself. The Prophet Muhammad, Hadith
Baha’i Faith: Lay not on any soul a load that you would not wish to be laid upon you, and desire not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself. Baha'u'llah, Gleanings
Confucianism: Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself. Confucius, Analects 15.23
Hinduism: This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you. Mahabharata 5:1517
Jainism: One should treat all creatures in the world as one would like to be treated. Mahavira, Sutrakritanga 1.11.33
Taoism: Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain and your neighbor's loss as your own loss. Lao Tzu, T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien, 213-218
Now let’s ask one simple question: Does capitalism agree with the Golden Rule, this basic ethical principle of reciprocity taught by so many of the world’s religions? We must first identify the fundamental principles of capitalism in order to see whether they agree with the ethic of reciprocity. What are those principles? It is often said that the basic principle of capitalism is “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work” or “capitalism is about giving everyone an equal opportunity to succeed,” neither of which seem contradictory to the Golden Rule. The only problem is that these premises are absolutely false; capitalism has nothing to do with fairness or equal opportunity. Remember that capitalists have the means to poison the cultural environment with all sorts of false ideas to make capitalism seem more acceptable to the people. The idea that capitalism is about fairness and opportunity is one of those false ideas that have been fed to the people by the preachers of capitalist-friendly perversions of morality and religion. The fundamental principle of capitalism is exploitation of the worker, and that means an unfair day’s pay, an unfair day’s work, and unequal opportunities. It also means repression of workers at home and colonialism and imperialist wars abroad. That’s the complete opposite of the ethic of reciprocity. The capitalist doesn’t want to treat you the way he wants to be treated. He wants to take the whole pie and leave you with the crumbs, and if he has to lie, steal, and kill in order to get it, then he’ll do just that. He wants to exploit you, and in order to do it he imposes conditions on you and the entire working class that he would never agree to impose on himself. In fact, if capitalists started practicing the Golden Rule they would cease to be capitalists at all and the entire capitalist system would collapse. Thus the very existence of capitalism depends on having a class of people willing to flout, ignore, distort, destroy and spit upon the Golden Rule. Perhaps God could love and forgive the capitalist, but he could never love capitalism.
It is clear that capitalism is an outrage against the Golden Rule. But what kind of society would be in agreement with the Golden Rule? Clearly it would be a society without exploitation, oppression, poverty, or war. The New Testament Book of Acts describes just such a society created by the early Christians. It sounds to this writer like a society based on the Golden Rule.
And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things in common .... Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. Acts 4:32–35
This is a society without capitalists, in which the people are unified rather than divided by class; where there is no poverty, exploitation, or war; where property is held in common, and where wealth is distributed to every member according to need. Consider in particular the statements about common property and distribution according to need. These principles are shared with the kind of society Karl Marx had in mind when he described communism in Section I of Critique of the Gotha Program:
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour ... has vanished ... after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banner: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
All sincere religious believers and proponents of the Golden Rule should consider which form of society is more in keeping with the teachings of the great religions and the ethic of reciprocity: capitalism or the communism of the apostles and Karl Marx. And I respectfully ask all believers to consider that you may have more in common with Marx than capitalist distortions of religion have led you to believe.
Photo by Mikol, cc by 2.0
