I am a capitalist. Like other economic or political systems, capitalism relies on the basic morality of man. Without the constraints of conscience, capitalism becomes like any other tried but fallen system. Some people might say that there is no system that can last, outside of the Kingdom of God, which is God as our king and no one or nothing else. This is what God has always wanted, and this is what man is still trying to avoid, even all those evangelicals who think their only king is God.
Anyway, capitalism works pretty good when you have basically moral, honest people, taking personal responsibility for their actions, in a free market. People who are ruled by conscience first. Conscience is one of those purely human motivations to do good. Animals don’t have this quality. Computers don’t have it. Things don’t have it. Only human beings have conscience. One might say it is the law written on the heart. Unless a person is an amoral sociopath, or not really a person at all, he has this law of conscience written on his heart.
And that’s where corporations come in. According to Wikipedia, a corporation is “a legal entity (technically, a juristic person) which has a legal personality distinct from those of its members.” Chillingly, this legal personality has the ability to act as a person in matters of contracts, lawsuits, or property ownership. When I was in business school, my professor taught me that it is always feasible to create a corporation in order to remove personal responsibility from myself and place it onto the corporation. Sounded good to me at the time. We like to avoid personal responsibility, don’t we?
But anytime we are able to shrug off personal responsibility, either for our actions or for decisions that affect other people, well, I just believe that opens the door for pure evil. A nonperson, acting as a person in making decisions about the lives of people, means that no one has to bear the guilt of mistreating people or acting unethically - we can simply point our finger at the “corporate person.”
Over the years, corporations have garnered more and more “rights” because of their personhood.
And of course, our local churches are government sanctioned 501c3 corporations with this same zombie-like personhood bestowed on them, that allows men and women to take a pass on their personal responsibility.
Tags: capitalism, Church, corporation, personal responsibility
March 21st, 2008 at 1:55 am
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kgMiLYF-sM4
March 25th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
This is a big reason why companies form — to limit the liability on any of the principals. It was supposed to be about keeping civil courts from reaching into the pockets of — and ruining — the principals should there be some sort of grievance. It has become something quite else.
But it seems like your real point is tucked deeply into your last paragraph. Any plans to untuck it?
March 26th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Well, Jim Grey, I probably will untuck it, much to the dismay of many. Much discussion has been made of this lately in my home. -t
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:54 am
The following link, takes you to a “utopian” article, entitled “Home of the Brave?” which I wrote and appeared in the American Daily which is published in Phoenix, Arizona on March 14, 2006.
http://www.americandaily.com/article/12389
John Steinsvold