The trainmasters’ inhumanity to man is not the greatest evil in the world. Other issues need addressing more than my snivelings and rantings in this blog.
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I believe that our Heavenly Father is unhappy with us because of the economic differences among His children. He is not surprised, as he knows the beginning from the end, but he is incensed by our indifference and blindness. He looks upon the poor, and weeps. He looks down upon the inattentive rich in front of their plasma screens, and he is exasperated. We pray for the poor. We ask why God does not free them from poverty. Then we turn on an NFL game, which is the opiate to assuage our consciences. He will not force us to do good, so we continue to pass the chips around while watching American Idol.
Since the days when Dickens began to bring the issue to light, many strategies have been attempted. From Marx to LBJ, most of them have focused on using the power of the sheriff to steal from the rich (and the slightly-less-poor people) and giving it the poor in exchange for votes and support from the poor. These “do-gooders” have fomented class envy, but have not solved the problem. Today’s poor suffer less than the poor in times past, only because capitalism (in the few instances it has been allowed cultivation) has created a rising tide that lifted all ships. But capitalism has not solved the problem either: inequities still exist.
Pursuit of profit is not the cause. Pursuit of hedonism is the problem. Selfishness is the root. Socialists love to harangue capitalists because it is a system which encourages selfishness. Capitalism can indeed facilitate the spiraling of a society into depravity. But statism has not encouraged selflessness, and furthermore has not added any value in the pursuit of happiness for anyone, except for those few insiders who have jobs in the bureaucracy and can use their positions to gratify their own pride. Statists often do create organizations that benefit society, but are completely unable to dismantle those organizations when they are no longer needed, even when they become harmful. The degenerating effects to society of LBJ’s programs are well documented.
Now, I am certainly not an apologist for capitalism, but I see few of its critics removing their posteriors from the sofa to do anything to solve economic inequities. I think that criticizing capitalism—the only rational system in theory or in practice—takes our focus away from actually doing something.
Enter the social entrepreneur.
Whereas the real value of capitalism to society lies in the entrepreneurial aspects (creating value, creating jobs, producing in sectors that are currently needed for society, building etc.), many people believe that applying entrepreneurial principles and practices to the non-profit sector to solve social problems is the way forward.
Is solvency possible?
Jesus said “the poor always ye have with you.” Was this His recognition of our unwillingness to share, or was He expressing a prophetic resignation to reality? I don’t know; I only know His heart to the extent that I can say he wasn’t encouraging or even giving up on the problem. He was just proposing an umbrella solution to all problems faced by the world in any and all ages as a higher priority.
Decreasing the economic gaps may or may not be possible, but we must to the right thing anyway. That is the aim of Pavant Capital. More to come in the months ahead.
