Money, Greed, and God Review: Part 1

So I promised a book review on Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and not the Problem by Jay W. Richards. I thought it would be interesting to hear exactly how capitalism could be the solution, because honestly capitalism has caused some major atrocities in the world. Things like slavery, imperialism, and wars. To be fair, however, it has brought good as well. capitalism has allowed people the ability to have a say in who they become, rather than relegate them to the role they were born in. It is also only fair to say that true socialism/communism which seems to be the either/or alternatives to capitalism, have created many more atrocities than capitalism and has not achieved the success that capitalism has. I do need to clarify my statement above by saying that true socialism/communism is not what Americans like to call socialism that occurs in England or France, but is rather the Socialism that has occurred in places such as the U.S.S.R. or The People’s Republic of China that was employed on the road to becoming Communism, which then failed miserably.

Anyway, I am going to review this book one chapter at a time. This is due to the fact that it seems to have a lot to chew on. So I am not going to try and give my impressions on the whole book till the end. Rather, by reviewing each chapter, I hope to help take you through my thoughts and impressions as I journey through the book. So first, a little about the author.

Jay W. Richards comes from the Discovery Institute of Science and Culture. Probably one of the most right wing of right wing groups when it comes to religion and politics. He has co-authored at least four other books, two of which seem to deal with the issue of Intelligent Design. He has two Masters Degrees in Theology, Divinity, and a PhD. in Philosophy and Religion.

Introduction Review

Summary 

In the introduction, Richards begins by stating all the evil results that are visible due to a capitalistic society from ecological issues to exploitation issues. However, Richards believes that pastors do not have the right to speak out about economics, at least when it comes to capitalism, because they are foggy on the issue. Richards then states that he will attempt to work through the fog by debunking eight myths about capitalism: The Nirvana Myth, The Piety Myth, The Zero-Sum Game Myth, The Materialist Myth, The Greed Myth, The Usury Myth, The Artsy Myth, and The Freeze-Frame Myth. Richards states he will address each myth in its own chapter. He then finishes the introduction by asking the question, how is wealth created? He states the economists are unable to answer the question, but a Christian can. This is because material wealth is created by something immaterial, it is created through Spirituality. This is because we are created in God’s image, which includes creativity and by being free to use our creativity, we can create wealth. In the end according to Richards, a good Christian should be a good capitalist.

Questions and Concerns

I only have two concerns with this introduction, of which only one is of great concern, that being Richard’s idea that pastors are not qualified to speak on the issue of economics, at least when it comes to critiquing capitalism. Richards in fact picks up on a quote used by Rick Karlgaard, in which Karlgaard equates pastors who speak about economics to being eunuchs who speak about sex. I feel Richards is way off with his comparison. The first of which is that everyone who lives in a society is a part of the economic structure of that society. They may experience the structure from a different viewpoint than others, but they still experience the structure, and it is important to understand how an economic system affects people at all levels of a society, whether that viewpoint comes from an intellectual economist, a pragmatic economist, a pastor, a billionaire business owner, a small business owner, a high scale wage earner, or a small scale wage earner.

Another reason that I feel Richards is due to the fact that some pastors can even witness both the negatives and positives that an economic system produces on a global level, especially some of the pastors who are able to use their position to travel the world through the use of mission trips and see how economic on one side of the world can affect the economic system on the other side of the globe in areas that are often ignored.

Finally I feel he is wrong in his assumption, because economics is a huge issue in the scriptures. Almost one third of Jesus’ parables deal with economics, Jesus speaks more about mammon than he does of Heaven and Hell, and approximately 1 of 7 verses in Luke deal with money. Therefore, it is my opinion that pastors should have the right to speak on issues of money and ought to speak about money, especially when the topic is on how one ought to spend and earn money in a moral capacity.

A smaller issue that I have with Richards is that I don’t think he acts very kindly towards those he disagrees with. It only took him only two paragraphs to call a group of people that he disagrees with a condescending name. Now it was just “snooty liberals” but for someone who is writing a book as a Christian, I found it very unloving and very un-Christ like. I mean it is one thing to blurt it out, but it is another thing for someone to write it in a book, and go over it numerous times and allow it to remain in there. To me it shows bad scholarship from someone with a Ph

I do have some questions however. First, Richard’s says that capitalism does not promote greed. However, I wonder what he would have to say with the fact that during our last economic boom, the middle class did not gain any wealth. I also wonder how he would explain the fact that since the 1970’s the middle class has relatively maintained the same level of wealth while the upper classes have gained wealth exponentially. Now to be fair, that is not to say that capitalism has to be based on greed. But I would say that in our current society, capitalism does result in greediness. I hope he addresses these issues later on in the book.

            My last question is how does Richards come to the belief that Christians ought to be capitalists? I have heard some people make this claim, but I have never been convinced that they are right. To be fair, I have heard people claim that Christians ought to be socialist/communist. But then again, they have not convinced me either. I operate under the belief that a Christian does not have to be one or the other, rather the Christian must be willing to give to their neighbor, whether that is through the state or through charity. I am however sure that Richard’s will address this question in the book.