Capitalism, Omnipotence, and the Zero-Sum Game: The Ideological Tug of War for the Soul of America
God is all-powerful - omnipotent, literally, able to do all things. At least this would be an attribute that one ought to ascribe to God. It is hard to imagine a monotheistic faith predicated upon a divinity that is unable to affect all things.
In the Christian tradition, God is also abundantly gracious - freely giving, and freely giving up (as in Jesus), for the benefit of all creation. Graciousness implies action, because there must always be a recipient of grace - whether our faith tradition imagines God's grace to be in the form of solidarity, forgiveness, healing, liberation, or other forms. So God is all-powerful, God is always at work, and God is always sending grace to that which God creates. God is therefore not a God of limits, but of limitlessness, who uses God's gracious action to transcend scarcity - in God, there is no scarcity. Put simply, God is unyieldingly generous.
This is difficult to fathom.
We live in a world of explicit scarcity. The American capitalist economic system is formed upon the idea that a semi-regulated free market is the best possible system for allocating and distributing resources - resources that are not abundant, but are in short supply. Capitalism is a system of limitedness, in which market forces ascribe value as a function of scarcity. In the capitalist system, an item has intrinsic value when it can be obtained by few, and certainly not by all.
If that philosophical digression scared you off, I apologize. Thank you for sticking with me (adding a cat photo to the left for those of you who dislike economic theory but enjoy kittens).
But it was important to start from an understanding of God's gracious power, and the market's fixation on limits. Because it is the tug of war between spiritual abundance and capitalist scarcity that currently has American politics in an untenable position: a perpetual zero-sum game.
America is unique in that it purports to be a Christian nation (we are a nation whose founding charter mentions "God" four times), though we have freedom of religion. We also pretend to be a capitalist nation, though adherence to capitalist dogma is not mentioned in the Declaration or the Constitution. We pledge fealty to capitalism despite America's century-long acceleration towards regulation and intervention in the free market.
Given that the Christian God is omnipotent, abundant, and gracious, and that the capitalist market is obsessed with limits and scarcity, it is only natural that theology and economics should come into conflict.
Except that this conflict has not lately been much of a contest.
Since the GOP won the White House and seized the Supreme Court in January 2017, our political discourse has been a constant zero-sum discussion, in which one idea must win, and one must lose - or, where some lives must win, and other lives must be lost.
Nowhere is this more apparent than the gun control debate. Following the tragic deaths of 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the majority party rejected discussion of gun control, shifting the narrative to mental health - as if gun control must lose, and mental health must win. We see this in the ruling party's stance on climate change and regulation - as if the climate must suffer in order for businesses to prosper. And we see this explicitly in conservative narratives over LGBTQ rights. Republican orthodoxy holds no room for religious beliefs and gay marriage to coexist. If gay marriage wins, religion loses - for the Party of Pence, God may be all-powerful, but God's power evidently drops to zero the minute one bakes a cake for a gay wedding.
America's conservative leaders renounce the God who is all-powerful, always active, and always gracious when they pursue the zero-sum game. They operate on the flawed premise that God's action has winners and losers, and that policy must be shaped accordingly. Driven to pursue ideological purity amidst a freewheeling commander, Republicans fix not just their planks, but their entire platform, to a zero-sum system.
The only solution to the vicious cycle of the zero-sum game is a theological reorientation of values. All Americans must recognize that the forces of religion and the forces of capitalism formed this country - for better or worse. To break the cycle, we all must understand that we live with both abundance and limits. We need not choose limits and discard abundance - and similarly, we need not choose abundance and cast off the pragmatic reality of scarcity.
Ryan Panzer is a theological thinker, beer drinker, corporate trainer, and Badger basketball fan. He likes God and enjoys the business world - and imagines he isn't the only one. Comments, questions, criticisms, and rants can be sent via Twitter to @ryanpanzer.
In the Christian tradition, God is also abundantly gracious - freely giving, and freely giving up (as in Jesus), for the benefit of all creation. Graciousness implies action, because there must always be a recipient of grace - whether our faith tradition imagines God's grace to be in the form of solidarity, forgiveness, healing, liberation, or other forms. So God is all-powerful, God is always at work, and God is always sending grace to that which God creates. God is therefore not a God of limits, but of limitlessness, who uses God's gracious action to transcend scarcity - in God, there is no scarcity. Put simply, God is unyieldingly generous.
 |
| My love for this Bloody Mary was abundantly clear. |
We live in a world of explicit scarcity. The American capitalist economic system is formed upon the idea that a semi-regulated free market is the best possible system for allocating and distributing resources - resources that are not abundant, but are in short supply. Capitalism is a system of limitedness, in which market forces ascribe value as a function of scarcity. In the capitalist system, an item has intrinsic value when it can be obtained by few, and certainly not by all.
 |
| This cat's love has some limits. He was not amused during this photoshoot. |
But it was important to start from an understanding of God's gracious power, and the market's fixation on limits. Because it is the tug of war between spiritual abundance and capitalist scarcity that currently has American politics in an untenable position: a perpetual zero-sum game.
America is unique in that it purports to be a Christian nation (we are a nation whose founding charter mentions "God" four times), though we have freedom of religion. We also pretend to be a capitalist nation, though adherence to capitalist dogma is not mentioned in the Declaration or the Constitution. We pledge fealty to capitalism despite America's century-long acceleration towards regulation and intervention in the free market.
Given that the Christian God is omnipotent, abundant, and gracious, and that the capitalist market is obsessed with limits and scarcity, it is only natural that theology and economics should come into conflict.
Except that this conflict has not lately been much of a contest.
Since the GOP won the White House and seized the Supreme Court in January 2017, our political discourse has been a constant zero-sum discussion, in which one idea must win, and one must lose - or, where some lives must win, and other lives must be lost.
Nowhere is this more apparent than the gun control debate. Following the tragic deaths of 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the majority party rejected discussion of gun control, shifting the narrative to mental health - as if gun control must lose, and mental health must win. We see this in the ruling party's stance on climate change and regulation - as if the climate must suffer in order for businesses to prosper. And we see this explicitly in conservative narratives over LGBTQ rights. Republican orthodoxy holds no room for religious beliefs and gay marriage to coexist. If gay marriage wins, religion loses - for the Party of Pence, God may be all-powerful, but God's power evidently drops to zero the minute one bakes a cake for a gay wedding.
America's conservative leaders renounce the God who is all-powerful, always active, and always gracious when they pursue the zero-sum game. They operate on the flawed premise that God's action has winners and losers, and that policy must be shaped accordingly. Driven to pursue ideological purity amidst a freewheeling commander, Republicans fix not just their planks, but their entire platform, to a zero-sum system.
The only solution to the vicious cycle of the zero-sum game is a theological reorientation of values. All Americans must recognize that the forces of religion and the forces of capitalism formed this country - for better or worse. To break the cycle, we all must understand that we live with both abundance and limits. We need not choose limits and discard abundance - and similarly, we need not choose abundance and cast off the pragmatic reality of scarcity.
Ryan Panzer is a theological thinker, beer drinker, corporate trainer, and Badger basketball fan. He likes God and enjoys the business world - and imagines he isn't the only one. Comments, questions, criticisms, and rants can be sent via Twitter to @ryanpanzer.
If you have the time, go back and read the Grand Inquisitor wherein Jesus returns to earth and is imprisoned for heresy. If the second return ever actually occurred, I fear that rigid fundamentalists would clamor to nail him back up.
ReplyDeleteHmm, I did not think about ideas (winning or losing) as part of the scarcity perspective. That's so interesting?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wish there were a Children's book about abundance... Is there? -or- Does anyone have a story idea for that?