I've never been able to come to terms with the teachings of Jesus as I understand them, and the unfettered free-market capitalism that most people in our country, Christians included, bow down to.  Page after page, quote after quote, Jesus seems to refute this economic system completely.  What part of capitalism, in the current form that is now foisted upon the world, would Jesus have approved? Or, what kind of an economic system most closely resembles Jesus's life, all of the things that He said, and all of the things that He did? The issue that I'm raising in this chapter is big enough for another book altogether.  I have been afraid to even raise the subject of capitalism due to a) my lack of qualifications to talk economic theory, and b) even I know there are some things that are so deeply embedded in our nation's psyche that to even broach the subject in a negative way is tantamount to heresy or treason.  I think it is simply too important not to include at least a preliminary discussion of it here in this book.  Mel Gabler is rolling over in his grave right about now.
          Many people get our form of government, which is a representative democracy, or a republic, confused with our economic system, which is capitalism.  A nation can be capitalist without being a democracy, as in the example of current-day China.  A nation can be a democracy without being capitalist, as many of the European countries were socialist democracies in the 20th century.
          Modern capitalism has its origins in 18th-century Britain.  The earliest form of capitalism was called mercantilism, which is simply defined as the distribution of goods in order to realize a profit.  Practiced from the time of the Roman Empire on through the golden age of Islam and into the Middle Ages, mercantilism gradually evolved into the economic practices that would eventually be called capitalism.  Since Britain led the way into the Industrial Revolution, and since they had both the largest navy in the world and the largest empire, the British government of the late 18th and early 19th centuries became, by far, the foremost advocates and purveyors of free-trade capitalism.          
          What this free trade meant then, and what it's still supposed to mean today, is "you let us sell anything of ours in your country, and we'll let you do the same in our country."  The problem with this idea, as nice as it sounds, is that each and every country on this planet is at a different stage in their development, whether that means industrial, economic, political, educational, or anything else.  This has the potential to create an extremely unlevel playing field.  The "developed" nations have all sorts of advantages over the "underdeveloped" ones.
          The rule of thumb throughout the history of mercantilism, and later capitalism, is that lesser developed nations would protect their "infant industries" by levying tariffs, or import taxes, on the products from other countries that matched those from these "infant industries."  This would make these foreign products considerably more expensive and thereby less attractive to buy than the domestic ones.  The advocates of protectionism, as it was called, argued that this was the only way to grow an industrial economy of one's own instead of being relegated to providing nothing more than raw materials and cheap labor to the more developed countries.
          Obviously, the more developed countries didn't look kindly on protectionism.  At the same time, they would hypocritically protect certain elements of their own economy, most often agriculture.  Britain, for example, during her climb to the top of the capitalist ladder, banned the export of woolen products from her colonies, thereby killing the superior wool industry in Ireland.  A few years later, it did virtually the same thing to the excellent cotton products coming from India, debilitating that industry as well.  This action by more developed nations in defense of their own industries has been called "kicking away the ladder."
          Any guesses as to which country in the world acquired the well-deserved reputation of "the mother country and bastion of modern protectionism" of its infant industries? Why, it was the fledgling United States of America.  It was our own Alexander Hamilton, in his role as Secretary of the Treasury, who is credited with being the father of the infant industry argument.  He argued that the only way new industries in America would become internationally competitive was with the generous help of the federal government in the form of import duties (tariffs), or, in rare cases, prohibition of imports.  Interestingly enough, the foremost economists of the time, especially Adam Smith, thought the United States should focus on agriculture and warned sternly against infant-industry protection.  Smith wrote the five-volume series entitled The Wealth of Nations, universally acclaimed as the Bible of capitalism, and is a man whom we're supposed to revere but not actually read.  Thankfully, for the future prosperity of our nation, the US government at the time dismissed this patronizing suggestion and throughout the 19th and well into the 20th century, the United States was the most protectionist country in the world.
          After World War II, with the British Empire on the outs, the now-mighty United States acquired the religion of Free Trade, while at the same time quietly protecting its own steel industry and its farmers with protective tariffs and massive subsidies.  It, too, began the process of "kicking away the ladder."
          By the time Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher joined ideological hands in the 1980s, they had agreed to do away with the ladder altogether.  In cahoots with the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the World Bank, the United States and its now junior partner, Britain, threatened, bullied, coerced, and cajoled the poorer Developing Nations to abandon all protectionist tariffs like the ones that had so helped both Britain and the United States in their periods of industrial growth.  They forced these nations to liberalize the flow of money in and out of their countries, thereby allowing Western multinational corporations to not only buy up the very infant industries that might allow these poor nations a chance to break the cycle of poverty and dependence, but also allowing blatant speculation and manipulation of their currencies, much to the benefit of Wall Street Hedge Funds, but likewise much to the detriment of these Developing Nations.  Finally, they removed all government regulations that might have given these nations a small chance at someday becoming real, functioning capitalist countries instead of the weak, dependent, vassal states that we see so many of these days.  To add insult to these grievous injuries, the United States still hypocritically protects through subsidies and tariffs the only two industries that the poorest of nations have any chance of reaping export capital from, textiles and agriculture.
          The United States, led by the Clinton administration, pushed hard for NAFTA, or the North American Free Trade Agreement, which created an open zone of supposedly free trade from Mexico to Canada.  The problem is, the US still protects whatever it feels like protecting, and even when the courts that are supposed to oversee violations find them guilty, they ignore these courts with the impunity of a big brother playing his little brother in a game of backyard football. The Canadians were incensed over the US tariff on imported timber, and while the United States timber industry was happy about this, the price of a 2-by-4 is now considerably more expensive to American homebuilders (and by extension, American home buyers) than it would be otherwise. This is especially important in light of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.                 With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, capitalism reigned alone and supreme throughout the world.  There was no longer any need for the United States to even pretend that what they were doing was fair to the Developing World, for we possessed the military and economic weapons to force recalcitrant nations to either play the game by our rules, or face becoming isolated, outcast nations.  
          This form of economic hegemony is one area in which Democratic and Republican administrations seem to be in almost perfect harmony.  The only difference is in tone, or style. Bill Clinton used a velvet hammer to get what he wanted–George W.'s is more like a mailed fist.  Bill Clinton preferred more partners in crime, the Bush administration prefers working alone.
          Today, multinational corporations roam the earth like giant predators.  Many of the largest corporations have operating budgets much larger than some developing nations.  (This is an interesting list. According to the Institute of Policy Studies, of the world's 100 largest economic entities, 51 are now corporations, and 49 are countries.)  With the help of the American government, the IMF, the WTO and the World Bank, whose leaders play musical chairs in and out of the CEO positions in these corporations and then back into the government, the center of world economic power is increasingly incestuous, the checks and balances more and more minimal.
          This form of hyper-capitalism, the privatization of everything, is creating an ever-larger gap in the world between the haves and the have-nots.  You can call this bleeding-heart liberalism, or you could call it a refutation of everything that Jesus Christ ever lived and died for.  Wasn't it Jesus who said in Luke 6:46, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do the things I say?" The problem isn't that the cheerleaders of this form of capitalism are wrong about the efficiency of markets or the creativity of enterprise.  It's that they have made false idols of both, usually without ever acknowledging that markets work best when well regulated, that private enterprise simply can't meet every human need, that government has always played a crucial role in our economy, and that the profit motive can be socially and environmentally destructive as well as dynamic.
          The main arguments against government intervention and government regulation have always sung the same tune." Government is incompetent, government is corrupt; there is too much government already in our lives; private citizens in open competition with each other can do a much better job and provide much better services than some faceless bureaucrats in Washington." And on and on.  I would simply insert the word "bad" every time in front of the word "government"–then I might agree.  But it seems pretty obvious to me that the deregulation of everything has brought on a flood of corporate malfeasance the likes of which the world has never before seen.  Human nature is such that greed is too much of a temptation without the strong checks and balances that good governance can provide.

The politicians are in the pockets of the corporations! They can't be objective arbiters when they owe their seats to the same people they are supposed to regulate.

          I couldn't agree more if I said it myself.  Our current system of government is corrupt.  We've replaced political government with corporate government.  Politicians and corporations are so hopelessly tangled up with one another that it is simply ridiculous to think that the government in its current state could fairly and impartially regulate corporate America.
          In the meantime, is it truly fair and just that basic needs such as water and electricity and health care are in the hands of private corporations whose sole raison d'être is to make a profit, and who, by their very nature, do not have the welfare of the people as its primary goal?  This contrasted with government, whose primary goal is the welfare of all of the people, not just the ones who can afford their services, and is not by its nature supposed to be concerned with profit.  Whether government works as it is supposed to (it usually doesn't) is another issue. 
          It should be our goal as Christians as well, for it says in 1 John 3:17, "Whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart to them, how does the love of God abide in him?" If government has not properly fulfilled this role, the answer is to fix what is wrong with government.  The answer is to disentangle the government from the corporations, get them out of bed with each other.  The government cannot possibly fulfill its role as the guardian of the people when its influence has been bought by entities whose purpose has nothing to do with the welfare of the people with the exception of its own shareholders and executives.
          The odious corruption scandals on Capitol Hill featuring Jack Abramoff are mainly centering on Republicans because Republicans are the party in power at the moment.  When the tables turn and Democrats become Kings of the Hill, unless something drastic is done, I have little doubt that they, too, will seep to the depths of their ideological counterparts.
          The only way for politicians to truly disengage from the influence of corporate America is to not allow corporate money in any elections.  The government should pay for elections.  Each viable candidate should receive the same amount of funds, and the campaign season should be shortened, as it is in Britain and throughout much of Europe.  There have been a few brave politicians fighting for campaign finance reform, but they seem to be pushing a large rock uphill.
          Hannah Arendt, probably the most referenced political philosopher of the twentieth century, said this: "All our experiences–as distinguished from ideologies and theories–tell us that the process of expropriation (the transfer of another's property to oneself) which started with the rise of capitalism does not stop with the expropriation of production; only legal and political institutions that are independent of economic forces and their automatism can control and check the inherently monstrous possibilities of this process. What protects freedom is the division between governmental and economic power."

Ok, smart guy; you sure are long on problems and short on solutions. Assuming anyone buys into any of this, what does one do? What can anyone do?

          You're right about that–I probably am short on solutions.  My goal here is simply to raise awareness of these issues, and that goes for the rest of the book as well.  People who ask, "What can I do?" need to remember that it's a marathon, not a sprint.  My first task is to make people aware of the questions, or that even these sorts of questions exist before we can ever begin to tackle the solutions.  Knowledge is the key, but curiosity is the spark.  Once people start to accept that some of these deeply held concepts that are buried in their psyches might be built on rickety foundations, then, and only then, will their minds be free enough to challenge some of these concepts, and from there, discuss possible solutions.
          I truly believe that as Christians, or I should say, as true followers of Jesus, we have in His life, in His works, in what He said, and in His death, a moral and ethical blueprint for how to treat our fellow humans.  It's all there.  Sometimes I get the feeling that Jesus is also someone who we are taught to revere but not to actually read.  Many of the actions taken by our government on our behalf that we condone seem so antithetical to what Jesus actually says that it defies all logic.  The only explanation for this is that for all we think we know about Jesus and the concepts that He taught, we are actually bombarded from a very young age with a very different set of concepts about patriotism, loyalty, and the unquestioned righteousness of our economic system.  There's this idea that as Americans we can do no wrong, even if this means doing to others what you most certainly would not want done to you.  Jesus said, "You cannot serve God and mammon", and, "For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:13&15), and yet from the time we are barely conscious as toddlers we are spoon-fed the joys of consumerism, the righteous pursuit of material wealth, and the step-on-your-neighbor-on-the-way-to-the-top mentality that pervades our society in the name of unbridled capitalism.  These two sets of paradigms manifest a dichotomy that Christians learn to accept and live with, because they simply believe that there is no other way.  Alternatives are quickly branded with a host of pejoratives designed to frighten away the curious.  We are supposed to remain loyal, meek, and unquestioning.  Governments are well aware of the awesome power of public opinion–that is why they work so very hard to control it.  That is why it makes the government so happy when the mighty strength of Christian opinion is largely consumed with two issues, abortion and gay rights.  Abortion is important.  It is an important issue precisely because it goes to the very heart of how we treat our fellow man, the innocent who hasn't been given a fair chance at life.  I believe it is no more or less important than how we treat our fellow man in every other life and death situation.  Paul says in Romans, "Let no one seek his own, but each the other's well-being." "For out of the abundance of the heart (a man's) mouth speaks," says Jesus.
          The gay rights issue, on the other hand, is a big, fat, red herring.  And I'm afraid that the evangelical Christian community has fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.  The fact that Mike and Mike, or Jill and Jill want to be married by a Justice of the Peace and maybe even adopt a child is nowhere near, NOWHERE NEAR as important as the way that our government systematically treats the poor in our own country, or allows huge corporations to gobble up basic industries in poor nations, thereby perpetuating the cycle of dependency.  It is nowhere near as important as the arrogant impunity it takes to bomb anyone anytime our government feels like, with such disdain for international law that it won't even join the International Court of Justice.  Nowhere near as important as a government that continually lies to its own citizens in an absurd tragicomedy called The War on Terror, where up is down, and in is out, and we are all supposed to shut up and believe it all in the name of their beloved patriotism, no matter how immoral or obscene or unchristian the situation becomes.  This is a government that comes up with a catchy slogan called "The Clear Skies Initiative," which is immediately seen for the farce that it is by the fact that this administration has done everything in its power to block environmental protection, and until very recently, officially denied the concept of global warming.
          Greed and hypocrisy, hypocrisy and greed.  These are the sins Jesus spoke of over and over again. Our current form of unfettered, unregulated capitalism is brimming with greed and hypocrisy, hypocrisy and greed.  It is our duty as Christians, and our right as American citizens, to express our opinions on all of these large issues.
          One must remember that large shifts in public opinion take time.  Abolition, Women's Suffrage, and the Civil Rights movement all took quite a bit of time to change the deeply embedded concepts in the public's collective brains.  In each case, there stood a few lonely, brave souls willing to challenge the status quo against insuperable odds, and in many cases, real danger to their lives.  We, in our busy lives, find little room in them for such lofty projects.  That's okay, at least for now.  Our charge is to equip ourselves with knowledge, information, and awareness. We can't even begin to contemplate change unless we understand what it is that we have to change.

          Globalization is one of those $10 words that is both easy to define and hard to explain.  Quite simply, globalization is the integration of the world into one marketplace of ideas, products, labor-force, and economic system.  That's the easy part.  What is not so easy to explain is why some aspects of globalization are a good thing, while many of the economic aspects of it are positively tragic for the Developing world.
          With the introduction of the Internet, high-speed communications, powerful computers, and the constantly improving conditions of global travel, the advent of the Age of Globalization was a foregone conclusion.  When I can both read the Karachi Times and then buy a guitar from a seller in London on my computer in California all before my second cup of coffee in the morning, I have engaged in the benefits of globalization.  The marketplace of ideas has benefited greatly from globalization.
          To the extent that a person wants to, he or she can find out almost anything about almost anywhere, armed with a decent computer and an Internet hookup.  All that is needed is curiosity.  The world is much less of a mystery to those who have accepted this largely free gift.
          Have you noticed that the price of clothing has gone down over the past several years? Shirts that used to cost $80 can now be had for $35, pants, shoes, coats, virtually all clothing costs less than it used to.  This is the work of globalization as well, but this is an aspect of it that is far less easy to put in the "positive" column.  There is a heavy price being paid for cheaper prices, both here in America, and in the countries where these items of clothing are being manufactured.
          When President Bush, or any American president in the modern era talks about spreading democracy and freedom around the world, they never mention by name the most important thing that they want to spread: free-market capitalism.  This is the essence of economic globalization.  The world is one giant open market.  It sounds like a good idea, this global bazaar; the free flowing exchange of goods without governmental intervention or regulation, almost eliminating political borders.  The market is king.  The market is inviolable, inerrant. Whatever price a product can be sold at in open-market commerce is the right price; supply and demand will determine the correct price for that product.
          To do real justice to the subject of economic globalization would require another book (and a more knowledgeable author).  Suffice to say, globalization is the end game of free-market capitalism.  In this global market free-for-all, the rich are definitely getting richer, while the poor are not only getting poorer, but there are constantly more and more desperately poor.  The difference in this poverty, as opposed to the poverty of previous generations throughout modern time, is that it is not the result of scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich.  There is enough food in the world to provide every human being with 3,500 calories a day. Jeremy Seabrook, who has written an excellent book on globalization and poverty, says this: "The opposite of poverty is not wealth, but sufficiency." Through globalization, the poor are encouraged to bypass sufficiency and become consumers.  Again, Jeremy Seabrook: "Poor people can expect consumerism instead of relief from poverty, economic growth instead of security, Coca-Cola instead of safe drinking water, junk food instead of adequate nutrition, and products from entertainment conglomerates as a substitute for ancient cultures."
          The dirty little secret of economic globalization as practiced by the wealthy nations of the world is that it is just an updated form of colonialism.  In the place of colonies are markets.  It is a process of wealth extraction, from the poor to the rich.  The poor are being driven off of their small plots of farmland and into large ghettos in ever-expanding megalopolises in the name of a "progress" that they see on billboards, but rarely if ever get to taste.
          The genie is too far out of the bottle to reasonably expect a sea change anytime soon in many of the aspects of economic globalization.  The have-nots of the Developing World are putting up what resistance they can, but the wealthy nations have all of the power.  The United States and its economic allies hold almost all of the key seats at the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO.  It is a stranglehold that is going to be very difficult to break from the outside looking in.
          This is why I believe that the only way that this situation is going to change anytime soon is by changing the thinking of the people within the wealthy nations.  For that to happen, citizens of these nations need to view this problem as a moral issue, not an economic one.  For the moral issue of the effects of economic globalization to gain any traction in the United States, Christians need to stand together at the forefront and provide moral leadership.