This is not about
solidarity with the campers off Wall Street, Bay Street or any other street.
It’s not about their manifestos, their motives, their methods, whether it’s the
cool thing to do or the Woodstock of this generation. It’s about one thing
only: Is there a problem with capitalism today?
And I think there is.
But before I explain why,
first let me say this:
From where I’m looking right
now, capitalism is good. Very good.
Look at the historical facts:
Before commerce, industry and finance began to blossom, children were lucky to
live past six years, the average life span was between 25–30 years, all but a
small minority lived at bare subsistence levels or less, education was for the
elite, and violent death, torture and barbarity was not something you watched
on television, but witnessed firsthand on a frequent basis—whether in the name
of warfare, crime, justice or entertainment.
Capitalism has been a—if not the—major
force in diminishing war between nations and creating tolerance between peoples.
It has allowed literally billions more people to share the planet
and—percentage-wise—at a much greater standard of living. Today, thanks to
capitalism, each year 70 million people leave hand-to-mouth living to become
consumers-by-choice—and poverty rates are expected to continue their sharp
decline.1 Without capitalism, democracy would never
have proven successful, medicine could never have advanced, worldwide
humanitarian efforts would be absurd and I would never have been able to
compose this editorial and get it out to you so fast.
I’ll go further: Capitalism
is not just “the best we got.” Capitalism is inherently good. Because
capitalism, at its essence, is saying, “just as the earth can produce value and
share that value with others, so too the human being.” Capitalism empowers each
one of us.
And therein lies the problem
with capitalism today. Because we’re grabbing the husk and leaving the fruit
behind.
What went wrong?
Quite simply, we never let go
of the crippling idea that equates making business with demonic greed.
And people act according to
the role you give them.
There are those professions
that society considers noble callings, such as doctors, judges and professors.
Society respects them for what they do. Then there are business people. Society
respects them, too—but are they respected for what they do, or for what they
get? Do we respect their occupation, or do we see them as doing a worthless
job—making money out of money?
Where is business respected? Take
a look in the Talmud.
In the Talmud you’ll find
spiritual and earthly duties lumped together in ways that sends the modern mind
spinning:
Rava said, “When a soul
stands before the heavenly court, it is asked, ‘Did you buy and sell fairly?
Did you fix times for Torah study? Did you attempt to be fruitful and multiply?
Did you look forward to the messianic redemption? Did you debate matters of
wisdom? Did you understand one thing from another?’”2
Do you see that? Marrying,
procreating and making an honest living are good and wonderful occupations—in
the same breath as Torah study, gaining wisdom and keeping the faith.
Why?
Because they benefit the world. As in the common talmudic term for making a
living, that dignified and ennobled phrase, “settling of the world”3 —for, as the prophet states, “G‑d did not
create emptiness; He formed a world to be settled upon.”4
Maimonides sums up the Jewish
position with strong words:
Anyone who comes to the conclusion that he
should involve himself in Torah study without doing work and derive his livelihood
from charity, desecrates G‑d's name, dishonors the Torah, extinguishes the
light of faith, brings evil upon himself, and forfeits the life of the world to
come, for it is forbidden to derive benefit from the words of Torah in this
world.
Our Sages declared: "Whoever benefits
from the words of Torah forfeits his life in the world." Also, they
commanded and declared: "Do not make them a crown to magnify oneself, nor
an axe to chop with." Also, they commanded and declared: "Love work
and despise Rabbinic positions." All Torah that is not accompanied by work
will eventually be negated and lead to sin. Ultimately, such a person will
steal from others.5
And
so, the laws concerning earning an honest living and thereby making the world a
more settled and civil place also belong in the holy books.
The medieval Augustinian view, on the other
hand, saw all these as curses of the snake, the product of original sin—since
they were directed by man’s evil impulse.6 Such, as well, was the view of the ancient
Romans and Greeks, who looked askance at craftsmen, merchants and others who
lived by toil.
And so, whereas the Jew saw
work as good for the soul and moneymaking as of benefit to everyone involved,
the society which enveloped them saw it as a tolerable sin. Not lending money
alone, but almost every form of business was labelled “usury”—using someone
else for one’s own benefit.7
Life began to change
radically when European society adopted the Jewish attitude—that which Weber
prudently coined “the Protestant ethic.” The Jews, wrote Montesquieu, “set the
stage for the rebirth of European commerce, and with it the beginning of the
decline of prejudice and the rise of a more gentle, less ferocious way of
life.”8
How It Should Be
And yet, the ancient notion
that making business is dirty business lives on.
If I would ask a class of
medical students why they chose medicine, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear, “I
think I would be fulfilled by a life of healing people.” Not just in 1967, but
even today.
If I would ask a class in law
school why they chose law, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear “I’m outraged at
injustice in the world.” Yes, they are there, bless their souls.
What do I want to hear from
the students in business school? I want to hear, “I’m going into commerce and
finance because I want to fix the world.”
Because they can—in ways that
no one else can. Capitalism brought us to this glorious world where (yes, there
are problems, but the fact is) seven billion human lives can share the planet
together, and capitalism is the solution to all the problems that come along
with that 7b. Yes, we need doctors, we need social activists, we need political
leaders dedicated to the welfare of their people. But more than any of those,
it’s the manufacturers, the traders, the sellers and the financiers in whose
hands the future of our planet rests.
Why? Because capitalism
demands consumers, and the impoverished can’t afford to consume. Because
capitalism demands an educated workforce, and that education has to start at an
early age. Because capitalism demands renewable resources, which unsustainable
practices cannot provide. Because capitalism, when done at its very best,
benefits not only its shareholders, but all its stakeholders—which is every
last one of us sharing this planet.
The highest form of charity,
writes Maimonides, is when you give a person a partnership or find him work
“…so that his hand will be fortified and he will not have to ask others.”9
Who does that? The
entrepreneurs, the financiers, the people out there making business. They are blessed with the capacity to stand a human being on his own two
feet, fishing rod and all—billions of human beings—and say, “Your life is in
your hands.”
I can’t think of anything the
world needs today more than a generation of idealist, foresighted, noble
capitalists.10
Getting back to the garden
So
have the tent-dwellers in Zuccotti Park got it right or wrong? As in most
cases, probably both. You see, the change that’s needed is not the change that
most imagine. It’s not the demise of capitalism we need, but its redemption. We
need to stop equating finance with greed and start seeing it as a noble
calling. And, as consumers, we need to
demand it from our industries.
We need to teach that in our schools—and
not just business school: Children in pre-school have to learn that firemen put
out fires, doctors heal boo-boos, and people do business so they can share good
things with others.
We need to give them that role, and learn
to expect it from them.
One of the sitters, a 53-year-old carpenter
by the name of Thomas Fox, seems to have gotten it right. As he explained to a
journalist:
It's a Jeffersonian based political party
uniting the youth of the world together. The key phrase is this, which Thomas
Jefferson wrote to Madison, ‘the earth belongs in usufruct to the living.’ What
usufruct means is stewardship. It means the older generation has a duty to turn
over the earth and the financial system in a better situation than they got it.
Somewhat reminiscent of that line in
Genesis, where the CEO of this universe places us in His garden “to serve it
and to protect it.” In other words, to make His world even better.
At Woodstock we sang that we “have to get
ourselves back to the garden.” Whether or not the occupiers of Wall Street have
the same thing in mind, the garden is here now and waiting.
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