this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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I wonder why religious conservatives are mostly synonymous with capitalism supporters ? I mean arent most religions inherently socialistic ? What makes conservatives support capitalism , despite not being among the rich?

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[–] bigschnitz@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I would say that most "MAGA" or whatever equivalent regressive movement exists anywhere is not at all conservative (MAGA supporters attempted a coupe, which is radical, the opposite of conservative), that's just branding. In much the same way as the people's democratic republic of Korea is not democratic, "liberals" in the USA political landscape are usually leftists (typically with a lot of illiberal positions) etc.

It isn't that these people support capitalism (they are often ignorant of what capitalism even entails, the same way they think communism means anything they disagree with) it's that they vaguely support existing power and class structures, though again, from what I've seen they can rarely coherently describe what they support and what they oppose, outside of a few tailor designed talking points like abortion or transgenderism.

[–] flipht@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Because most religious conservatives don't think beyond "what is acceptable to my group" and do that. Or appear to do that. And not rocking the boat is highly valued in those communities, so people who want to abuse others financially find ripe ground for it.

[–] blazera@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

They dont want to be inconvenienced by their religion.

[–] OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

What is the percentage of the Western world that believes in profit motive and private ownership of property, 90%? I don't think it's BECAUSE they are religious conservatives.

I don't think religions are inherently socialistic. There's a socialist reading of the text, but in terms of like the historical role of the Catholic church it was more like a government than a commune. Governments aren't inherently socialistic (unless you're using a pretty broad view of the word). They help the poor and set rules to follow but they're only directly managing their portion (10%-30%) of the economy, the rest can be anything.

[–] cogman@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago
[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I'd start by narrowing the scope of this question to conservative Christians in the US and Europe. India has a larger population that the US and the EU combined, is quite religiously conservative and leans socialist. Even though the Catholic Church issued a "Decree Against Communism" in 1949, that has since been amended and many Catholics around the world embrace socialism. While modern Muslims do participate in market economies, Islam has some fairly strict laws against capitalism; Sukuk is the complex workaround they use in order to get against their prohibition against charging interest.

For Christians in the US and Europe I think there are a few major components.

Christianity has had strong capitalist elements for a long time. In particular, John Calvin argued, among other things, that God rewards good Christians in this life as well as the next. These rewards can take the form of material wealth and therefore material wealth is evidence of God's favor. This philosophy was obviously extremely popular among the wealthy.

After WWII the US government wanted a way to convince people that our erstwhile allies, the USSR and China should now be considered enemies. One obvious element to emphasize was that they were both Communists. An element of Communism was godlessness, "Religion is the opiate of the masses." So the US took the contrary stance and presented itself as a Christian nation. Two of the more obvious results were that "under God" was added to the pledge of allegiance and Congress replaced the unofficial "E Pluribus unum" (out of many, one) with, "In God we trust." Since it was primarily intended to be anti-communist it was, effectively, pro-capitalist.

In the US there was also a deliberate shift when George HW Bush realized that evangelical Christians made up a large part of the Republican base. At the time churches had a fairly strong aversion to politics. They generally considered politics and economics to be part of the profane world and thought it was beneath them. He managed to convince them that the profane wasn't just irrelevant to spiritual health, it was an active threat. By this view, good Christians couldn't ignore politics they had to take an active role to help fight Satan. Since the Republicans were the ones actively recruiting Evangelicals into politics they made sure the message stayed supportive of their policies (including economic policies).

[–] PerCarita@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago

This is about the Americas, yes? I believe its original roots was in Calvinism, that is, the brand of Christianity in the reformation era that was brought over to the Americas by early European settlers/colonisers as proposed by the theologian John Calvin. It's something about how God chose its people and gave them the grace of worldly wealth. Wealth is good because it comes from God, so it follows, that poverty is due to a lack of God's grace = immorality (laziness, lack of personal qualities, wickedness).

I think I read about this in a book about US American economy a couple of years ago, but I can't remember which book it was.

[–] Thorny_Thicket@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

When people say they don't support capitalism then what is the system you see as a more viable alternative?

Edit: Imagine being downvoted for asking a question

[–] bigschnitz@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Socialism is defined by the elimination of the purely capitalist class, wherin workers own the means of production.

That doesn't necessarily mean that capital isn't assigned for investment based upon market demand or that "EvEryoNe gEts pAId tHE SAmE" like others claim. Socialism in a modern economy can (and likely would be) market based, it just means that shareholders would be entirely made up of employees of a company (obviously this would lead to better conditions for workers, lower wages for executives and no dividend payments to people who aren't working). Taking a more academic definition of capitalism, it's entirely possible to be both socialist and capitalist. Few people are arguing against capitalism in entirety.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Socialism.

Check out how the Anarchists structured their society in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. George Orwell fought alongside them and wrote a book about it called Homage To Catalonia, where he describes how utopian it was while it existed. It also deeply soured him on communism, because he saw how the communists betrayed the anarchists during the war and how authoritarian they were compared to the left libertarian anarchists, which likely influenced him when writing Animal Farm.

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[–] AttackBunny@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

@jungekatz all the other answers are far more nuanced, and explain a lot more detail, but the most simple answers to your question are 1. Propaganda and 2. Herd mentality/echo chamber thinking.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 0 points 1 year ago

Basically… because of slavery.

If you take a look at an indigenous population and decide that both:

  1. They are lazy, because their labor only produces subsistence and isn’t captured as surplus value stored in currency
  2. Their laziness is a moral failing which will doom them to eternal suffering

…then you have now put yourself in a mental model where you have a moral duty to force that person to work for (your) profit instead of subsistence, in order to save their soul.

If you have a whole country that thinks this way, they will try to enslave the whole world and feel good about doing so.

So in a Darwinian way, that mentality is the most “fit”. It’s very uhhh “successful”. And so it propagates.

[–] flipht@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago

Because most religious conservatives don't think beyond "what is acceptable to my group" and do that. Or appear to do that. And not rocking the boat is highly valued in those communities, so people who want to abuse others financially find ripe ground for it.

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