Caesar and Mammon Don't Love You. Jesus Does.
A free market, like a free man, only stays free by losing its life in order to save it. Man is taller when he bows to God. Likewise, capitalism only stays human when capitalists aspire to a kingdom that is higher than the bottom line. When we make ourselves slaves of “market forces” and pretend there is no human being for the economy to be for and about, we become slaves. When capitalism and market forces become gods and not servants to the human person, paganized capitalism becomes utterly inhuman.
Case in point: The pagan capitalism regnant in China, where parents sell their children in order to play online games. It is excellent, orthodox, libertarian, free market capitalism in which the iron laws of supply and demand are worshipped as is proper for a pagan. And yet, some tiny cavil of Christian moralism troubles my conscience and I keep thinking that, in an ideal Christian society, the state should have the power to interfere with this transaction. I know that sounds Marxist and socialist, but still, I can’t help thinking that a Catholic conception of the common good would say that all is not well with this pure and pristine form of individualism untrammelled by government.
Yes, it’s true the state cannot instill virtue but only restrain evil. Still, restraining evil is not a bad thing and something Caesar does every day. I don’t care, for instance, that the guy on the road next to me is a virtuous saint. I care that he doesn’t drive like a lunatic and I’m content that the threat of tickets, arrest, and jail keep him going the speed limit. Similarly, I don’t care if Goldman Sachs is not staffed by the twelve apostles. I just want to know that when they try to ransack the economy for their own profit while it is crashing like the Hindenburg, Caesar will punish them, make them give back their ill-gotten gain and whack them so hard they never try it again. When Caesar instead goes to bed with these thieving strumpets, I do not call that a triumph of free enterprise over meddling government. I call it the Wedding of Hudge and Gudge.
