Capitalism, Communism, Christianity and China
November 22nd, 2009
Wondering now about communism and capitalism. The latter holds man to be a beast who will do any and all things for gain, and for which reason requires laws and regulations, and which are never sufficient to deal with the beast, and so ends up in simply crippling the economic machine produced by the beast or in providing for more corruption; for again: the beast is prepared to do any and all things, but for the restrain of the whip, be it the market or the government. And so we have an externally restrained beast, not unlike a hungry and wild animal except bestowed with rationality.
The communism have someone, the human, who is basically good and is corrupted by the economic systems of capitalism and its ancesters in some market. And yet the most that (materialist) communism can offer is a coercive environment where production and exchange can take place, but where the beast lurks about.
Since communism is nearest to the commune of Jerusalem, what is needed is the Christian spirit to inhabit the bodily commune and to guard against the ever destructive deadbeat and to encourage the members of the commune to replicate Jesus and his disciples in the acquisition and distribution of resources. Sermons would be preached to the entire commune/nation and all people would be encourage to give as Paul told the slaves of Rome to give, namely cheerfully and diligently for the prestige of Christ, and of taking no more than they needed.
Kant would tell us that the human is not a beast, but a rational creature who has this uncanny characteristic, that he is impressed by the moral law and involuntarily regrets violations on his part of that law (which gives dignity to the human). Nevertheless the human freely makes a choice to violate that moral law if it violates self interest. Our own rationality leads us to do this when we consider that there is no promise of reward in the moral act (as purely conceived, i.e., independently of God) and often definite pain. And so there is this innate and still free choice which inflects the human as a species, where the original choice is for a violation of the moral law if that is necessary for reasons of prudence. This understanding is expected of all people and even people who are well intended reasonably have to assume this in all others.
So, bad news: the human natural chooses evil; and he good news: since he has chosen (regardless if natural or not) this means it is a choice and that means that it can be changed.
The change take places when a man is converted from the evil principle (I alone am important) to the good principle (all people, including therefore myself, are important). This is a conscious decision, which is often ritualized by a church, where the individual resolves to put the moral law first about self interest. The church is important because it provides a means for like intended persons to join together and to strength each other in their respective conversions (from the evil to the good).
And so then somehow trying to tie this in with the Chinese Christianity that I envisage, at the age of puberty each member of the commune has a chance to dedicate himself to the commune church. American freedom would have to be given up to do this. It would be expected that every young person make known his dedication to the commune, that he or she can now from henceforth not be subject to supervision, though certainly for direction and guidance in experience and application of the law of love. This is what in the West is called joining a church. Morally the person is now a grownup and responsible for his or her actions.
This cannot be forced upon some one and must be free and study must be undertaken before making the decision, in order that the full implications be understood with regard to one’s conduct from henceforth. Those who do not make the conversion have to be watched in order to discourage corruption and deadbeatism.
So the Christian church in China (understood in light of my take on Paul’s conception) provides a means for implementing communism in a non-materialistic way, and deals with Kant’s conception of the natural and voluntary human evil, i.e., finding a mean between capitalism’s unruly beast and communism’s good and materialistic beast (I guess still), and accepting the common beast element but then choosing for the Christian (non-materialistic) conception of the commune and encouraging a dedication of Jesus’ law of neighborly love.
Sudden thought. Chinese Christians should come to America and ask the Christians here to encourage less energy so that the Chinese and the rest of the world can catch up, reach some sort of par concerning the per capital use of energy. This might make the American Christians finally ready to promote homosexuality as a desirable choice for young people to make.
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