Foner\'s Capitalism and Morality Foner\'s

¶ … Foner's Capitalism and Morality

Foner's position

Eric Foner insists that Christian self-restraint is at odds with capitalism and that, therefore, morality and capitalism are non-synonymous. There are two kinds of approaches to the philosophical perspective on freedom. The one kind, possibly hedonistic, sees freedom as the non-existence of restraint and the possibility of achieving whatsoever one desires. The other kind, most notably religious in character, sees freedom ass the potentiality of transcending one's material and corporal passions and, via necessary rules and regulations (religious or other), achieving that which one's rationality (rather than passions) ascribe as best to one's development.

Both types of perspectives are personified, Foner claims, by America's political system. On the one hand, you have the Conservative party that epitomizes the latter perspective of freedom or liberty. Via emphasis on reverence for traditional values and classical systems of society, it insists that an individual can only upgrade him or herself and develop if certain regulations and principles are placed into effect.

Liberalism, on the other hand, seeks to overturn these principles and insists that freedom can only be gained by questioning of 'archaic', 'outdated' values and systems and working towards one's relative happiness and one's particular state of fulfillment that often varies from individual to individual as it does from country to country and from age to age. Liberalism upholds relative morality as well as relativism in general.

The Christian Right, which is so prominent today, is particularly discomfited by the changes wrought by Liberalism within the last half century in America, and, seeking to cling to Christian definition of Liberty, seeks to veto these very changes that, it insists, challenges its definition of liberty. Foner concludes by saying that capitalism is at odds with morality (particularly Christian morality) since capitalism stands for self-aggrandizement and self-absorption, whilst Christianity represents the reverse.

Refutation of Foner's positions

Distinction should be made between morality in general and Christian morality in particular. There are many religions that do not see purchase of money in the same way that Christianity does. In fact, the misnomer 'money is the root of all evil" originates from St. Paul (Johnson, 1987). In a practical sense, money can be the root of much good too. See, for instance, all the effects of philanthropy that are wrought in the world. Arguments can be ferried back and forth regarding the value of social beneficence to developing countries, but the root of the matter is that people would be far poorer, more illiterate, fewer in number, and less happy without the aid that wealthy individuals and countries supply it. There have been numerous stories of wealthy, scrupulous, extremely religious individuals who benefited the world without distracting one bit from their religiosity. Abraham, founder of the Christian religion (via the O.T), is an example in kind. He was extremely wealthy. And although capitalism in its technical sense did not then exist, capitalism in Adam Smith's sense of the world always existed. Competition and facility in deception and other money-involving corrupt stratagems existed then as it does now.