For the Love of Money?

I've often thought about the state of the world and its obsession with the all mighty dollar. In fact, I have often thought about the USA. A country that seems to place the most amount of emphasis on the accumulation of wealth.

This is the same nation that is regarded throughout the world for possessing the deepest religious values and beliefs.

From quotes posted on this very forum, it seems Jesus Christ himself, the very individual people worship throughout the world, regarded the current monetary system with a healthy degree of critism and contempt.

If this is so, then why do so many religious individuals, especially in the USA, embrace capitalism, and all that this system encompasses so adamantly?

I certainly do not believe that communism is the answer either. Especially when it is implemented and overseen by an authoritarian regime. Yet, I still believe that capitalism isn't without its own inherent flaws.

In a capitalist structure, the majority of the wealth still resides within the hands of a few. Moreover, in regards to my original point, capitalism seems to encourage an existence in which people spend every waking moment of their lives in pursuit of material and financial accumulation.

Could it be possible that the world, and most especially Americans have been deceived? In that money is nearly all that matters in life? Or that conforming to the current system is in an individuals best interests? And if anyone dares to speak out against the current system, then they must be mentally unstable or completely ignorant, and therefore not worthy of anyone's time or attention.

If Jesus was against the monetary system, then why do so many who claim to be religious seem to worship money as their God?


I'm not the best with words, so I hope I was able to get my point accross in a coherent manner.

Thanks.

Money is a means of exchange...

So as much as you consume is as much money as you need.

Everybody likes consuming a lot. Makes them feel good (at least me).

That requires me to have money.

Currency is used so we can exchange skills in a giant "market". I might need one persons ability, but they do not need mine. Through money, I can still obtain their skill and then they get to use that money for someone else's.

Then we go into supply and demand...

I still do not understand why people think money is bad.

reply to post by Matrix777


Somewhere along the line, people came upon the idea that material wealth equates to God's favor. Some call it the Protestant Work Ethic.

Unfortunately, the protestant work ethic became twisted to the point that some think, as long as they're making buckets of dough, they must be doing God's work. For this reason, some think they can lie, cheat, steal, create pronography or sell drugs to children with a clear conscience, believing that if God didn't approve of what they do for a living, they would not be successful. (that's a simplified explanation - I don't mean to infer that all protestants think this way)

Good christians know this is not the case but, some use this to justify their actions in their own eyes.

The Bible shows that prosperity creates laxity in faith, while people are more likely to turn to God in times of trouble.

Perhaps wealth is not such a blessing after all. People loose sight of what's really important when they pursue the love of money.

Well seeing as this thread has taken on a slightly religious tone............

Matthew 13:22

The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.

and then

1 Timothy 6:10

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

Personally, I'm not that religious but I can see how those statements relate to our modern society.

Originally posted by FritosBBQTwist
Money is a means of exchange...

So as much as you consume is as much money as you need.

Everybody likes consuming a lot. Makes them feel good (at least me).

That requires me to have money.

Currency is used so we can exchange skills in a giant "market". I might need one persons ability, but they do not need mine. Through money, I can still obtain their skill and then they get to use that money for someone else's.

Then we go into supply and demand...

I still do not understand why people think money is bad.

I think you somewhat missed my point. I was speaking mainly of countries who pride themselves on following God's word, yet live lives that completely contradict God's teachings.

Why do I think money is bad? Just take a look at the state of the world for starters. Corporations that have taken over governments. Governments who pander to corporations as oppossed to working for the citizens. Third world countries ravaged all in the name of greed and profiteering. These countries are ravaged and yet the citizens of these countries see very little in return. In fact many live on cents a day.

Many wars have been arguably fought with profiteering as a main motivation.

Most people still live pay check to pay check whilst a small few are lucky enough to collect the majority of the wealth. Even here in the first world people struggle to make ends meet. 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce and the majority of them end due to financial difficulties.

People starve to death whilst governments spend trillions world wide on military expenditure.

These are just several reasons why the monetary system could be considered bad.

Unfortunately, "captialism" is not what the West in general and America in particular was about, at least until recently.

The Western economic system was the "Free Market". Capitalism is a newish concept and has to do not with the free exchange of goods and money in the marketplace, but rather the accumulation and deployment of capital (i.e., productive assets be they cash, land, equipment ... or "human") and the destruction of competitors.

Further, the Free Market was constrained by Christian morality (see the Pilgrim Father's / Puritan laws in effect in New England for the first several hundred years - severe punishments for exploitation, fraud and failure).

"Capitalism" seems to have been adopted as the favored term for the Free Market system only in a submissive response to the Marxist/Leninist USSR's adoption of the Communist/Capitalist language prevalent in central Europe in teh late 19th and early 20th. Neither concept was associated with Christianity at the time.

It would seem anti-Soviet counter-propaganda aped the Soviet original and thus the US became self-described as "capitalistic" even though this was emphatically untrue until the mid-Cold War period, when the affect of mass mobilization and indoctrination of WWII draftees came to practical fruition in the form of massive US-based multinational corporations managed and manned on the WWII military model.

Furthermore, capitalism has certain (oft unspoken) connotations. As the most ready form of capital is money, banking is the most common association made when "capitalism" is invoked. The stock markets would be the secondary association. Neither group actually makes anything, nor do they add economic value -- they are merely middlemen who take a lucrative cut of the action win, lose or draw.

Finally, the 20th C economist Milton Freeman did the most damage with respect to the "free market" versus "capitalism" struggle when he posited his "Maximization of Shareholders' Value" theory that divorced public corporations from acting in the public's actual good. Until his idea that making shareholders rich caught on, corporations were considered a luxurious grant made of the sovereign on the basis that the sovereign would be rewarded as well. Theoretically, the American sovereign is the American people themselves, so the corporation was to serve the general interest of the US citizenry.

Under Freedman's idea, this was quickly and permanently jettisoned as an impediment to profit.

The rest is intuitively inevitable.

Joe of the Mountain, MS, MBA, etc etc
Financial Management Consultant to the Big Guys from the Big Guys (one time Price Waterhouse, IBM and Andersen big thinker)

reply to post by Matrix777


S & F.

I think you expressed your thoughts very well.

I believe that Jesus was not against money as such, He was against usurers and other people who worship money. Also He was against people who gain power from having money, and use this power against others instead of helping them.

The usurers are alive and well - thriving in fact, because they lend to the poorest people and have extortionate rates of interest, inflicted on the very people who cannot aford them.

The reason I am anti churches is because a lot of them contain a lot of hypocrites - people who maintain they are 'Christian' but actually follow the opposite beliefs and practices. They give Jesus a bad name.