The Ethics of Capitalism - Social Europe Journal

Capitalism and
Christian Ethics
Erhard Eppler
Former German Minister for
International Development and
founding chairman of the Social
Democratic Party’s Commission
on Fundamental Values
I. As recently as 2003, in a – purportedly
critical – introduction
to neoliberalism, we read the following:
‘The left/socialist and
church-based critiques of neoliberalism
are in agreement that the
market encourages a “destructive
egoism”. Resistant to learning,
the churches cultivate the idea
of the fundamentally good,
socially responsible individual,
and look with biblical aversion
(“You cannot serve God and
Mammon”, Matthew 6, vv. 24-
34) upon an economic order that
is founded on – indeed, is presumably
designed to produce –
the selfish individual.’ 1
Quite apart from the fact that
the churches have been accused
for centuries – and with more
reason – of preaching that man
is not ‘fundamentally good’ at
all, but intrinsically sinful, this
quotation shows how market
radicals felt themselves to be in
possession of a truth to which
every system of ethics, including
that of the churches, had to
‘Paul summarises the ethics of
Christian charity thus: “Bear ye one
another’s burdens, and so fulfil the
law of Christ.” To the capitalist this
must appear nonsensical’
submit. If the churches insisted
on sticking to what they had
been preaching for 2000 years,
they were ‘resistant to learning’.
They had closed their minds to
the one and only truth.
So market-radical ideology
fell foul of the churches with
growing regularity, even though
the latter’s usual attempts to
reconcile conflicting ideas were
never entirely abandoned. From
the very beginning there was a
conflict between Christian
ethics and capitalism in any
form. A visible sign of this was
the medieval ban on usury.
All forms of capitalism are
‘founded on the selfish individual’.
Capitalism consciously
appeals to the individual’s inclination
to acquire goods, to
accumulate wealth, whether in
order to be better protected, to
have the wherewithal to lead a
comfortable life in the future, or
to count for something in society.
The inclination can become
an addiction, the accumulation
of wealth an end in itself. This
is what Christian ethics defined
as covetousness, cupidity, or
avarice (from the Latin avaritia).
The other driving force
behind capitalist economics,
apart from the individual’s striving
for personal gain, is competition.
Our fellow human beings
are either our helpers or our
competitors. As family mem-
8 Social Europe Journal Summer 2009