Several years ago while working as an intern at Sojourners Magazine in Washington, D.C., I had the pleasure of taking a class from David Hilfiker. The class was titled, “The Radical Inclusivity of the Gospel: Ending the Spiral of Violence,” in which we explored the theories of Rene Girard. After having been enlightened by his class and the conversations that surfaced from our readings, I’ve stayed up with his work, both written and otherwise. Not too long ago he wrote an essay about capitalism called “Straight Thinking About Capitalism.” After having read that essay, I had a few questions for him. These are questions David graciously took the time to answer for me in an email interview.
Jeshua Erickson: Your write about the perils of past and current infatuations with free-market capitalism in your essay titled, “Straight Thinking About Capitalism.” What impact, if any, do you hope an essay like this will have on future discussions about economics and the public good?
David Hilfiker: Our culture faces an interlocking set of potentially disastrous crises: global warming and other environmental threats, global poverty and growing inequality, “peak oil” and other resource depletion, dysfunctional governance, an economic system that no longer improves human well-being, and so on. Perhaps the linchpin of what’s coming and what’s preventing us from stopping it is a free-market-based economic system that is simply incapable (even in theory) of preserving the environment, inevitably leads to growing inequality and poverty, results in recurrent economic collapses, encourages monopoly, and develops the power to effectively control government. In other words, we cannot escape the coming tragedies unless we drastically change our economic system.
One significant problem is the general ignorance of our economic system and the misperception that the common person cannot understand enough of it to have an opinion about what needs to be done. For the past 40 years professional economists have preached that the assumptions of free-market capitalism are simply givens, fundamental realities about which we have no choice. But that’s not true. The free market is based on assumptions, on choices that could be made differently: the primacy of self-interest, the universal goal of profit. The measurement of all value by a dollar yardstick, the distribution of goods according to supply and demand (ie who can pay and who can’t), and the absolute sanctity of private property.
Because of our nation’s general economic illiteracy, there is a fundamental confusion between capitalism (where a relatively small group of people own the capital [“the means of production” as Karl Marx said]) and the market (a decentralized method for setting prices and making other economic decisions that avoids the major pitfalls of centralized planning). Because of this confusion, we have confused conversations and end up reinforcing our assumptions that we can’t understand it.
Part of the confusion is that capitalism uses the assumptions of the market; but so do other economic system. A primary difference between capitalism and other economic systems is that the latter consciously moderate the assumptions of the market to produce the socially desired result. But pure free-market capitalism doesn’t interfere with market mechanism. It’s important to recognize that in practice no economy is based on an absolutely free market. Government services (like defense or police protection), government regulation (against, for instance, monopolies), some degree of assistance for the destitute, and so on, all contradict the free market but are part of any workable capitalism.
Unless enough of us understand (relatively) free-market capitalism, understand the choices it assumes, realize that we could make different choices, and are willing to work for those different choices, our society-as-we-know-it will not survive. I hope my essay(s) will contribute to economic understanding and the movement toward different choices.
Jeshua Erickson: Folks tend to see capitalism as a value system that holds its own intrinsic set of morals when, as you point out, the values associated with capitalism actually run contrary to a number of major spiritualities, including those in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Why do you think, for so many, capitalism has been interpreted as the economic system that is fully sanctioned by God? What Biblical basis may there be for this thinking?
David Hilfiker: I’m not sure I agree with your assumption that most people see capitalism as a value system. While I have not seen any polls to confirm this, I am coming to think (based primarily on the work of Howard Richards and Joanne Swanger )1 that most people do not understand that there are value choices that underpin capitalism. People, it seems to me, have understandably bought the assertion by mainstream economists that the assumptions of (mostly) free-market capitalism describe the nature of reality; those assumptions are “just the way it is.” And if “it’s just the way it is,” then God must sanction it as well. If one wants to have an economic system that works, declare the mainstream economists, one must found it upon reality, ie those assumptions. Few people, I think (and certainly not most economists), realize that these are value choices that could be made differently.
Most people do recognize that the end result of a (mostly) free-market capitalism runs contrary their own values and certain contrary to most spiritualities, they bemoan the results, but they don’t think there are any real options. We been convinced that Western capitalism using the (mostly) free market is the “end of history” and that nothing else is practicable.
It must also be mentioned that, with some very important exceptions, Americans have done very well by the current system. Although they don’t like many of the end results, they’re also afraid that modifying it may change their privilege (which, indeed, it should). So, the way most people deal with the cognitive dissonance between their values and what they want is to avoid learning to much about capitalism’s underlying values.
Jeshua Erickson: Jen once pointed out an interesting contradiction. She mentioned how odd it was that some Christians who are vehemently opposed to Charles Darwin’s ideas are perfectly happy using “survival of the fittest” as a rational for why capitalism and free-markets ought to be the rule of the day. And why government should not act on behalf of those who live in poverty. Do you observe folks using this rationale? If so, how do you call it out in a way that is tactful and diplomatic?
David Hilfiker: Again, I don’t think that most people really are happy using the “survival of the fittest” as their rational. The privilege we’ve gotten to date from the way capitalism works and the teaching that the assumptions are “just the way it is” mean that most of us don’t see that there is a choice.
I would also disagree with your assumption that most people believe that government should not act on behalf of those who live in poverty. Most polls show that people are very concerned about poverty, and, in every poll I’ve seen, people think the government should intervene … they even seem willing to pay higher taxes to make it possible.
Most of the people that have used that argument with me have been college students enamored of Ayn Rand; it doesn’t usually survive into adulthood.
Jeshua Erickson: This next question is slightly off topic, but helpful in understanding a bigger picture, perhaps, of where you’re coming from in your writings and the overall impetus behind your concern for the poor. Can you point to any anecdotes in your childhood or growing up that shaped your current perspectives on justice and care for the poor? Or did your own personal movement toward helping marginalized folks come only later in life in your work as a physician, etc.?
David Hilfiker: I’ve been asked that before and I’m always at a loss to explain it in large part because nothing else makes sense to me. I don’t see how one whose basic needs are met (as mine certainly have) could not be concerned about the marginalized. Compassion is innate, although it can and does certainly get squelched by our experiences.
By the way there is a fascinating experiment with toddlers showing their apparently innate desire to help another. The toddler is in a room with his or her mother. The researcher comes in and makes a “mistake” in which he demonstrates a clear need for help. (For instance, the researcher tries to hang up a garment on a clothesline, drops a clothes pin, and pretends not to be able to reach it.) In almost every instance the toddler comes over immediately (to a stranger, no less) and helps, in this case picking up the clothespin and handing it to the researcher. I was astounded by the videos of some of these, which are online. (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/311/5765/1301 You have to sign up, but it’s free and one can opt out of any consequences.)
Certainly my parents held the same values I do (my mother was a nurse; my father was a pastor who directed an integrated youth center in a poor area of St Louis when I was very young), but I don’t remember any defining stories. (Of course, my memory is such that I don’t remember much of anything from childhood.) I took part in several civil rights education projects in the South during the mid-1960s and lived for a number of years in the inner city, but those seem to be more expressions of my values than causes of them. So I can’t be very much help to you there.
Facts about David Hilfiker
Date of Birth: Feb 12, 1945
Education: (high school, college, graduate school): Kenmore East Senior High School near Buffalo, NY, Yale College, University of Minnesota medical school
Author(s) or thinker(s) who have most influenced your work: some great philosophy courses at college, René Girard, William Julius Wilson, Walter Brueggemann, Walter Wink, and I’m sure many others.
1Richards, Howard, and Swanger, Joanna, The Dilemmas of Social Democracy, Lexington Books, New York, 2006.
