Religion & Law

Groups within the World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Lutheran World Federation are working on a position regarding global capitalism. A very strong statement appears in Tikkun Magazine in the winter 2011 issue. The statement among other things rejects "the current world economic order imposed by global neoliberal capitalism -- using both structural and direct violence. We reject every claim to an economic, political, and military empire that attempts to subvert God's order of life and whose actions stand in contrast to God's love and justice. We reject an economic system and way of life that exploits nature and propagates unlimited growth so that the conditions of life for future generations are forcibly destroyed and the survival chances of the entire earth are threatened." The statement also rejects a "a policy that through the privatization of collective and common goods produces wealth for the capital owners but scarcity and poverty for the vast majority of the world's population -- the worst kind of violence (Gandhi) -- and which exploits and even destroys nature. With particular emphasis we reject the patenting of seeds and of medicines that are necessary to meet people's basic needs. We say no to the privatization of genes as well as acts of biopiracy; no to the privatization of water and other gifts of nature; no to the privatization of services of general interest such as energy, transportation, health, education; also no to the destruction of solidarity-based social insurance systems through privatization; no to their submission to profit-oriented insurance companies and at the same time to speculative finance markets. All of this is structural violence at the service of the rich. But especially we reject the direct violence of a policy that wages wars to realize these private interests and wastes immeasurable resources on armaments."

These are just samples. The statement as a whole is well worth reading. I could be wrong, but it strikes me that the statement goes beyond Catholic Social Theory, but is not inconsistent with it. I would be interested in what those more familiar with the canon of Catholic reflection on capitalism have to say about that.