The Capitalism vs. Theocracy Wars

Capitalism, with its side effect of democracy,  is on a collision course with all the world's many theocracies.  Democracy is the natural outcome of Capitalism because Capitalism--the ideology of maximizing greed--requires that individuals be free to control and drive markets with their individual purchases; democracy is when individuals are free to control and drive their government with their individual votes.   This is what all the fighting is about; this is why there is such fanatical rancor over the forthcoming U.S. election.  It is not a question of changing the person who runs the country; neither candidate is personally popular.  We are voting on the ideological underpinnings under which theology this country will be run:  Shall we further the great experiment of democracy--or will the nation decide it has it already gone too far?  We Americans are in a full-scale religious war with ourselves, absent only the shooting.  Outside the US, this war has already escalated to killing by whatever means possible.  

Theocracies are non-elected power centers that attempt to control society with the consent but not the voice of the populace.  Theocrats do so by appealing to the very attractive idea that it is a Supreme Being who is the real leader—not they themselves—and it is He who controls the world.  Of themselves--being mere theocratic menials (a difficult calling they didn't ask for)--they are merely the instruments of His Will.  Their difficult calling has been authenticated via their direct line to God and, of course, (How dare you ask?) is thus not subject to popular election.  It is this claimed direct line to their theocratically-derived power that requires the priesthood to demand that supernatural miracles occurred.   If there were no supernatural miracles, then their line to God would also not exist, and they would have no standing to control society.¹  Thus, supernatural miracles are essential to all theocracies --not because they were  involved in the formation of the faith, but because they provide the imprimatur of the control theocrats exercise to dominate their flock.

Indeed, the historic foundation of a theocracy does not logically require supernatural intervention to have occurred at all.  “Faith” is supposedly the foundation of theocratic religions. Yet the word “faith” means “belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.” (American Heritage).  We have faith that our parents will love us and forgive our small sins.  We have faith that practicing the golden rule is mutually beneficial.  We have faith that dealing honestly with people is best in the long run, even though evidence shows this is often not the case.  True faith is choosing to live our lives as if  the underlying belief were true. (Indeed, if miracles were real and observable, faith would not be necessary--and religion the poorer for it.)  Therefore, the central faith of any theocracy is not that certain odd things did happen in ancient history.  Truly living one’s faith is to behave in a  way as if they did , even if  there is little evidence that such behavior is objectively worthwhile.   We must turn the other cheek, even though it may be struck again.  We must love the sinner even though he will hate us all the more.  We must give to the poor, even though they may squander the money on drink.  

However, theocrats demand--more strongly than acting charitably--that we “believe” (i.e. profess) that certain miraculous events occurred in the past (virgin birth, water into wine, bodily ascension into heaven) with the threat that otherwise our entire religion would be a fraud.  This is the mega-threat: Believe as we dictate or you will have wasted the entire spiritual investment of your life.  (Plus, you'll go to hell.)

Of course, the real reason for these threats is that if these miracles contra naturum did not occur, the only fraud would be the power of the theocrats over their flock.   Anyone can choose to act in a way consonant with the belief that historic miracles did occur, whether they did or not.  It doesn’t have to be true that Jesus was the Son of God for you to voluntarily obey the Ten Commandments.  There is no necessary connection between religious belief and religious action.

Socialism--and its weak sister, liberalism-- is just another theocracy.   Their “friend when all friends are gone"” is not a supernatural being but a supernatural idea: that “the State” --not a Supreme Being--will take care of you in your deepest need.  Socialists will never ask for your vote on this central doctrine because they have not the slightest interest in changing it.  One reason so many liberals are atheists is because the idea of God competes directly with their own State-as-God religion. 

The most interesting side-effect to liberalism is that subsidiary article of faith—the “blank slate.”  The blank slate idea is that humans are born as completely neutral beings (tabula rasa ).  Thus, according to childless celebrity Gloria Steinem, children are born without any natural predilections.  If little Johnny likes to play with toy guns and climb trees, and little Mary sit around with Barbie dolls, it is because they were programmed into such stereotypical behavior by their benighted parents.  Left un-indoctrinated, children would not deviate into guns and roses.  (As I said, she is childless--and clueless--ask any parent.)  The reason the blank slate doctrine is such an important article of liberal faith is because it “proves” that is the culture we have been taught at our mother's knee that—for example—holds Negroes back.  If genetic evidence were allowed to be introduced—Ha!  Try that—it might suggest that there may be a physical/mental difference between the average Negro and the average Caucasian.  A--gasp!--racial difference that the State-as-God cannot accept, because no social engineering can make unequal people equal.  And that just isn't fair. 

Any suggestion that any racial or gender differences exists at all infuriates liberals who congenitally forget one of the foundational pillars of democratic Capitalism—that while all humans--racially or sexually defined or not--so clearly vary enormously in terms of their individual gifts, all men are equal before the law.   Note that "ethnicity" (the politically correct term for "race") has nothing to do with this democratic (and Constitutional) article of faith.  The practice of democracy easily negates this difference, but Big Brother cannot find a workaround, a grave deficiency that drives liberals into chronic states of apoplexy.  They pervert this fundamental article of democratic faith by proclaiming their own theocratic miracle--the belief (which butts squarely against all evidence the eye can see)--that all men are created equal, i.e. a blank slate.  And therefore, any claimed inequality is a priori racist, sexist, ageist, etc., (and if they could only burn you at the stake for expressing it).⁴  Thus, any test that shows one "ethnic group" superior to another, is a priori "racist." (Note they do not argue that the test is wrong.)     

[Note: What is fascinating about the liberal Prime Directive--"There are no racial differences"--is that these differences are required by Darwin's laws. These are the very laws which liberals uphold (theoretically) in their politics with undying fervor. Yet Darwin clearly states that organisms genetically adapt to their environments.  Thus each different race consists of a group that has optimally adapted to its specific environment. And each environment is different than others. In some, superior strength is rewarded, in others superior intelligence; in some resistance to high altitude sun and thin air, in others, resistance to long winters. No one should be surprised that people transported from their native environment (that their gene pool has spent 100,000 years adapting to), will be statistical sub-optimally-adapted compared to the local natives.  Yet this heresy astonishes (and infuriates) liberals every moment of every waking day.]

Capitalism, on the other hand, is the opposite of all centrally controlled organizations.  This includes all theocracies including socialism, communism, etc., in which The Church or The State directs society with a minimum of input from the governed. Elections are incidental in socialism, as in England and Sweden, where the people get to elect politicians who serve as powerless window dressing, and who have little or no effect on how the country is run. Those two countries (and many, many others) are run by a self-perpetuating (In the EU it will become hereditary) cabal of unelected bureaucrats who cannot be fired or replaced except under the most extreme circumstances.  As in theocracies, they cannot be fired by popular acclaim, i.e., a vote.  They can be defrocked by their superiors, and then only for the most grievous and most public of sins, i.e., contradicting a superior.  Like their theocratic brethren, these bureaucrats produce a huge quantity of "rulings" and other laws which are never voted upon. (When was the last time anyone was asked to vote on something that effects us all--the Interstate Highway speed limit? When did you get to vote on the adoption of the metric system? On fluoridation of the water supply?)    Incredibly, the so-called "democratic" government of Great Britain is refusing to let the People hold a referendum (much less a vote) on whether to suborn British sovereignty  to the European Union!!! 

Thus, although Islam and Catholicism (to take two leading theocracies) seem to exist in categories separate  from economic systems, in fact they all converge on the issue of power and control.   Who controls society?   Democratic Capitalism is the only system that permits the people to control their own fate.  In a theocracy, piety—that is, profession of belief -- is the supreme virtue; in Capitalism, it is the act of doing something.  This is the true nature of the religious battle between liberals and conservatives:  Liberals believe in the profession of The Word.  Conservatives believe in the expression of The Act.  Liberals try to control the playing field by controlling the permissible use of the word, i.e., language.  Look at the long list of "politically incorrect" words, phrases and sentiments they have declared taboo. (In a recent PBS forum, although it was the topic of the discussion, none of these enlightened adult speakers could bring themselves to utter the word "nigger" on the air--as if to do so would call down divine retribution.  With visible squirming, they all called it  "the 'n' word."  And blushed even at that.)

Conservatives, less attentive to language, believe that action speaks louder than words. Conservatives believe that getting things done is the best way to win the political battle—and the less said, the better. While the liberals march in front of TV cameras waving their bare breasts and great banners, conservatives work fully clothed behind the scenes, amassing petitions, crafting legislation, burgling the Democratic national headquarters, etc.  There is as much difference in the mental make-up of conservatives and liberals as between men and women. Neither can understand the mindset of the other.

There is, of course, a very large elephant in the room.  Conservatives are notoriously religious.  Many conservative political organizations are simultaneously Christian-based.  How can anyone claim that agnostic liberals are fighting "religious" wars when they are not "religious," while conservatives who are religious are not fighting religious wars?  The answer is simple:  Conservatives have managed to separate (more or less) their public politics from their personal religion.  Their religion is held on a high private plane; their politics on a low public road.  Liberals have made their public politics their personal religion.   True, Conservative Christians often cross the public/personal line with their hysteria against abortion, Darwinism and birth control, but the great majority have the spiritual fortitude to maintain the private-public separation of church and state.  This is where all theocracies belong--in the home.  Unlike liberals, conservatives do not believe the next election means they are voting for their new pope. 

Counter-arguments to this thesis will be supplied by libertarian-anarchists who will reflexively suggest that a modest monarchy operating under a capitalistic economic policy would be the best of all possible worlds.  Yes, certainly on paper.  (E.g., Hans-Hermann Hoppe's “Democracy, the God That Failed.” Thanks to Lew Rockwell.)  Asian countries are trying to go that way. But what this (and all utopian paper tigers) leave out is an overwhelming difficulty.  Any societal model that leaves out the ability to channel human greed and simultaneously the right to let social failures fail, is itself doomed to failure.  The primary reason democracy works at all is because it is the only system that puts effective limits on human greed, and permits institutions to fail.  The hell of failure is not barred to anyone. 

No, Democratic Capitalism is not perfect.  (What system is?)  Yes, it is even a terrible system.  But (so far) there is none better (~Churchill).