MCLC: Foxconn lifts wages (3)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Bill Goldman (billgldman at mac.com)
Subject: Foxconn lifts wages (3)
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If capitalism is just "normal human behaviour" as Judy Amory writes, it
seems odd that as an economic system it only appeared in the last few
centuries at most. The "hunter-gatherers" she refers to, whoever they
were, may just as well have represented a co-operative, rather than
competitive economy. Not that I am even aware of any recorded history of
hunter-gatherer societies - the earliest written records we have do not
describe any such society - though it is a notion that suits evolutionists
and colour supplement writers, perhaps.

Communism seems to have worked perfectly well in the early Christian
church: Acts 2:42-44 - "And all who believed were together and
<http://www.esvbible.org/Ac4.32%3BAc4.34-35%3BMt19.21/> had all things in
common. And <http://www.esvbible.org/Ac2.44/> they were selling their
possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any
had need." 

But that was a voluntary communism, often called "love-communsm", and
based not on what Judy Amory calls "ideology" but on shared worship of the
Christian God of love (Greek "agape" - selfless, undeserved love). Any
kind of "Communism" not based on selfless giving seems to be, as we have
seen for a century, doomed to actually produce the opposite of brotherhood
or of a sharing, caring society.

Who says "capitalism" is "normal human behaviour"? It may be one form of
*natural* human behaviour, but then, whereas "normal" carries the
implication of "normative", i.e. that which ought to be, natural merely
describes what is, and nature, including human nature, is, according to
the Bible, fallen from what its Creator graciously intended it to be.
Indeed it is one with, or even the origin of, "nature red in tooth and
claw", kill-or-be-killed, the Darwinian universe some people mistake for
that which is "normal". Perhaps such a world is in reality ABnormal?
Moreover, of course, trade unionism is based on co-operation rather than
competition, most people would say.

 As for capitalism, maybe it is part of this abnormality, or then again,
maybe it can be practised in a way compatible with our original, noble,
intended human nature or with the selfish greed ethic as referred to above
- just as "communism" can. Either way, it is the opinion of this writer
that to leave God out of the equation means man has only his own resources
to fall back on, which seem to me to lead inevitably to failure, and
failure at a very high human cost.

Bill