In mid-April, at Georgetown University, President Barack Obama
said he wanted to “rebuild” our (economic) house upon a biblical
rock. The president used Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount as a
centerpiece of his speech, even though his staff wanted all the
religious symbols behind the podium covered up. Obama argued that
the current downturn “was different” from a normal cyclical
recession and represented a “perfect storm of irresponsibility.”
Therefore, he continued, we “cannot rebuild this economy on the
same pile of sand.” Instead “we must build our house upon a rock,”
we must lay a new foundation. This foundation should be built on
“five pillars that will grow our economy.” This is what he
proposed:
1) New rules for Wall Street
2) New investments in education
3) New investments in renewable energy and technology
4) New investments in health care
5) New savings in our federal budget
Having our president follow the lead of the Bible is a positive
thing. No other person in the world is more powerful, and if the
president of the United States does not look up, then he stands
very much alone. Without moral or spiritual guideposts, his
decisions can appear capricious or motivated by politics or
personal desire.
All this aside, the president’s interpretation of the Sermon on
the Mount is nonetheless suspect. His five pillars are more like
plumbing, staircases, or windows. When Jesus talked about building
our house upon a rock, he was talking about the ground, the base,
the land. He was not talking about anything having to do with the
actual structure.
Jesus was using a metaphor to describe the condition of our
souls. If our souls, or our fundamental beliefs, are not with God,
then we will be swayed by worldly things and led astray. There are
other metaphors in the Bible that address the same issue, such as
the parable of planting seeds in rocky, thorny, or fertile soil.
The seed sown in fertile soil will be able to establish roots and
thrive. The parable is not about what kind of seed is planted or
about some particular arena of economic activity; it is about the
condition of the soul.
To remain philosophically consistent, President Obama should not
have made specific recommendations. He should have made a clear
case for the fundamental economic order he favors. He should have
argued that socialism is the rock and capitalism is the sand.
His pillars—new rules to regulate Wall Street, new government
spending on health care, education, and the environment—are not a
new theology or philosophy.
These are arguments the left has made for decades. They are
plans to alter the allocation of scarce resources in certain parts
of the economy. A capitalistic system would count on competition
and innovation to bring progress and lower prices. A socialist
system uses the government to allocate these same resources by
coercion.
As you read this, you have probably concluded that this is
exactly what the president wants. However, the left knows that
moving to socialism cannot happen quickly. Not in a democratic
country that has a long history of capitalism. As a result, the
president would rather use the current political environment and
financial market crisis to move incrementally toward more
government control over key sectors of the economy.
National health care is not a fix for the financial crisis, nor
will it keep another crisis from occurring, but it is a desire that
the left has had for decades. The liberal cause in America has
always pushed for greater governmental control over the economy,
all in the name of fairness, equality, and social justice. The
financial crisis and recession have provided a new opportunity to
intensify this push. This happened in the Great Depression as well,
when the government used the economic crisis to sow doubt about the
private sector and expand its reach into the economy. Such a
response to the current crisis is flawed on three fronts.
First, the government is at least 75 percent responsible for the
financial market crisis. Alan Greenspan’s extremely easy monetary
policy (1 percent interest rates) and the government’s willingness
to use Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to hold mortgage rates down
artificially and encourage more people to buy houses are a major
source of the problem. Yes, financial firms (and individuals) made
mistakes, but when government creates an artificially attractive
environment to buy houses, it’s easy to understand why a bubble
forms.
A fair analysis of current troubles would never put the entire
blame on capitalism. What’s more, our financial problems today are
no worse than those of the 1980s and 1990s, when roughly 3,000
banks failed. But for some reason, perhaps the recent decades of
prosperity, the American people seem very vulnerable to a downturn.
While 8.5 percent unemployment is painful, it is hard to fathom how
anyone can believe that it signals a complete breakdown of the
capitalist system.
Second, the American system of free market capitalism has been
exponentially better at creating wealth and raising living
standards than any other system on earth. American capitalism is no
longer an experiment. This does not mean that human nature has
changed. Nor does it mean that capitalism is perfect. But people
always tend to think that the grass is greener on the other side of
the fence. Thus when problems inevitably occur, it is very easy for
people to desire fundamental change. This is a huge mistake. There
is absolutely no proof that government allocation of resources
lifts living standards.
Third, men’s souls are undermined by government. When government
assumes responsibility for creating jobs or providing retirement
and health care, some people are encouraged to stop taking care of
themselves. When people count more on government, they lose sight
of God and start taking personal responsibility less seriously.
Socialism is like sand. It promises more than it can actually
provide. Government allocation of resources undermines the human
condition. Why work hard, innovate, or create when success has
limited reward? And why work hard or innovate when lack of success
has little consequence? A socialist system also provides its
leaders ultimate power over others that often leads to its gross
abuse.
Capitalism, despite its flaws, honors hard work and innovation.
As a result, it is like rock. It encourages and allows people to be
the best they can be. The capitalist system rewards people who
serve their fellow man. Those who provide goods and services to
others at low cost and high quality win. Every day consumers vote
with their own hard-earned money on which products or services they
value. Producers who don’t make the grade go out of business, while
those who provide what people want continue to prosper.
It is true that some people on Wall Street either abused or
appeared to abuse the system in order to reward themselves. But
these issues can be handled by creating rules to keep firms from
becoming “too big to fail” and to stop the abusive use of stock
options.
Clearly this will not be enough for many politicians. While
President Obama has not declared socialism better than capitalism,
his use of the rock and sand parable from the Sermon on the Mount
suggests this is what he believes. Because of its history, America
has always run away from this vision.
Our country was founded by individuals who believed in freedom
and responsibility. Only time will tell if that is what we as a
people still believe.
