A little late, but with all the conversation over my last post, I don’t think I needed to say much. Yesterday (I took today off from lectures) I heard two lectures – Benjamin Friedman and William Niskanen. I’ll be focusing on Niskanen (former director of the CATO institute).
Niskanen offered a number of ideas about capitalism, relationship, the role of government, greed and self-interest. Of the three types of human interaction (caring, exchange, and threat), caring can only happen with close relations. In other words, only those who are close and known can be cared for by others. This is because according to John Stuart Mill (via Niskanen) the principle soul end of the human is self-interest, making the individual sovereign. So all caring is local.
Capitalism occurs on the exchange level of interaction and is bi-lateral, consensual exchange. That tidbit is just for fun.
Here is the issue with caring. It can only occur on the local level. Niskanen even criticized Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical Caritas in veritate, claiming that a global level of charity (caring) would put the wealth of others at risk and thus be irresponsible. It is to demanding on the human spirit, Niskanen claims. I think he was quoting someone else when he said, “reality cannot compete with dreams, at least not fairly.”
The market, on the global level, should be kept clean of any human emotion so that the bi-lateral, consensual exchange can occur.
Where is the room for hope?
Wordsworth’s great poem, “The Ruined Cottage” paints a picture of a lovely young woman wasting away because she is grasping onto a dream that never becomes a reality. Hope is tragic and dangerous.
Yet Christianity is based on hope. Christianity is based on the idea that we can make some kind of a difference. I would like to think that grace brings us beyond the self-interest that Mill describes to a “other-interest.” The church needs to continue to push and advocate a hope that does go against the reality of the world. We need our
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