Jesus was violent one time in the Bible and it was against Capitalists

[Speedwell]

Wow! You think a lot of yourself if you think myself, or anyone at this forum is here to answer your questions. Who knew this website and the people who visit do so to answer your questions.



Woah, you’re fast! I never claimed to know but so what? That’s what separates you and I. I do know, however, capitalism didn’t exist at the time of Christ and you have not shown it to exist then.

Why is important for you to deny it? All of the elements of ToBeLoved's definition were demonstrably present. Why don't you want to call it capitalism?

 

[iluvatar5150]

Wow! You think a lot of yourself if you think myself, or anyone at this forum is here to answer your questions. Who knew this website and the people who visit do so to answer your questions.

I’ve been here for several years and it’s been my experience that the majority of participants are perfectly willing to share whatever information they have. This thing you’re doing is the exception.

Woah, you’re fast! I never claimed to know but so what? That’s what separates you and I. I do know, however, capitalism didn’t exist at the time of Christ and you have not shown it to exist then.

Ok, so in a system where merchants sell animals and exchanging currency:

• Means of production is privately owned - Check
• private property exists (accompanied by some underlying theory of acquisition of property) - Check
• something is produced by the labor of others - Check
• sold - Check
• exchanged - Check
• markets- Check
• and capital accumulation - Check

So, that system appears to hit all the requirements for the definition that you provided. Care to explain to the class why you think it doesn’t? Are you just taking the word of some historian who was, perhaps, working off of a more narrow definition of capitalism than the one you provided?

 

[NotreDame]

To recap for the class:



How does the sort of commerce that existed in the temple (or in the rest of that society) not meet the definition you provided?

Are you referencing the money changers? If so, simple. The means of production weren’t involved. There’s nothing being produced by the labor of others for an owner to be sold in the existence of a competitive market and certainly not in which the laborers make something, are paid a wage, and the owner takes the surplus value (profit/capital) and certainly no capital accumulation.

 

[NotreDame]

Why is important for you to deny it? All of the elements of ToBeLoved's definition were demonstrably present. Why don't you want to call it capitalism?

Because all the elements weren’t present and neither was there any demonstration they were present.

 

[NotreDame]

I’ve been here for several years and it’s been my experience that the majority of participants are perfectly willing to share whatever information they have. This thing you’re doing is the exception.



Ok, so in a system where merchants sell animals and exchanging currency:

• Means of production is privately owned - Check
• private property exists (accompanied by some underlying theory of acquisition of property) - Check
• something is produced by the labor of others - Check
• sold - Check
• exchanged - Check
• markets- Check
• and capital accumulation - Check

So, that system appears to hit all the requirements for the definition that you provided. Care to explain to the class why you think it doesn’t? Are you just taking the word of some historian who was, perhaps, working off of a more narrow definition of capitalism than the one you provided?

No. There’s nothing in your example of laborers, working for someone else, utilizing their labor with the means of product to produce something much less something for sale, in which the laborer is paid a wage, a profit (surplus value) is taken by someone else, and the profit (surplus value). There’s no capital accumulation either.

Walking livestock to a place to be sold isn’t capitalism.

 

[NotreDame]

ALL Roman Catholics are under the Pope! Are you kidding with me? What's your angle?


I created a thread which is explained in my OP. It is about Trump and his spiritual advisers in particular. I think it's pretty clear. I think where you and others are up in arms is that you're focused on the word "capitalist" to the point that you are not reading or understanding the OP in its entirety.

No the problem is you weren’t clear with what you wanted to discuss in the OP.

 

[Speedwell]

Because all the elements weren’t present and neither was there any demonstration they were present.

Which elements do you think were not present? And relax. I'm not trying to prove that capitalism was present, I'm just trying to find out why you think there wasn't any.

Here is ToBeLoved's definition of capitalism again, which is the one we are working from:

Definition of capitalism
: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

Do you think that there was no private ownership of capital goods?
Do you think that there were no private investment decisions made?
Do you think there were no free markets?

 

[hislegacy]

Jesus was violent one time in the Bible and it was against Capitalists who were seeking to profit on sales of religious paraphernalia.

What does this say for Trump's "Spiritual Advisors" who are all money-changers in the church business?

Certainly what they were doing was legal by both the Roman and Jewish (Pharisaical) leadership. Certainly what money-changers today do is legal by US law. But Jesus was very clear about how He felt about it.

This is the trouble our country is in.

Do you believe America is a house of prayer?

Matt 21:Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ”

If you are going to quote scripture, please do so in context.

The only time Scripture addresses capitalists in the market place was about honest scales.

Jesus wasn’t in a market, not in the streets, but in. Jewish Temple. A place of prayer.

For your OP to be relevant you would have to consider the United States et al a temple dedicated to God, house of Prayer.

Do you?

 

[ToBeLoved]

No, the issue is your fatuous claim that such a system did not exist in biblical times. I was just reading in Acts 16 about Lydia of Thyatira, who ran a cloth-dying business in Phillipi. Do you really suppose that was not a privately-owned enterprise?

So your claim is that the Hebrew people around 40 AD owned their own private businesses, that had investments, production and were supported by free trade within the greater overall areas of Israel and the Mediterranean, Africa and our now Europe?

Is that really how you think business was done back then?

 

[iluvatar5150]

Are you referencing the money changers? If so, simple. The means of production weren’t involved. There’s nothing being produced by the labor of others for an owner to be sold in the existence of a competitive market and certainly not in which the laborers make something, are paid a wage, and the owner takes the surplus value (profit/capital) and certainly no capital accumulation.

In the currency market, the means of production is publicly owned but I don’t know how you can claim that owners/sellers of the goods aren’t taking the surplus value and accumulating capital. What were they doing with their profits?

Let’s talk about the selling of livestock:

No. There’s nothing in your example of laborers, working for someone else, utilizing their labor with the means of product to produce something much less something for sale, in which the laborer is paid a wage, a profit (surplus value) is taken by someone else, and the profit (surplus value). There’s no capital accumulation either.

Walking livestock to a place to be sold isn’t capitalism.

Where do you think these animals came from? Did the livestock fairy just drop them off outside the temple? Did they walk to the temple on their own, 2x2, guided by divine instruction as they did to the ark?

You just handwaved away the whole process of raising and/or trapping the livestock. There are many examples throughout the Bible of people owning herds, increasing their size, and hiring laborers to tend to them. That system existed for at least a millennium prior to Jesus and strikes me as being not dissimilar from modern ranching, which is, as far as I’m aware, considered to be a “capitalist” endeavor. No, the NT doesn’t go into detail about the means of production of the specific animals in the temple, but to assume as you did that they didn’t fit into this pre-existing system strikes me as more than a little ridiculous and incredibly convenient for your otherwise unsupported assertions.

 

[iluvatar5150]

So your claim is that the Hebrew people around 40 AD owned their own private businesses, that had investments, production and were supported by free trade within the greater overall areas of Israel and the Mediterranean, Africa and our now Europe?

Is that really how you think business was done back then?

Aside from the point about free trade (I imagine tariffs were more significant then), what is incorrect about that assumption?

 

[ToBeLoved]

Which elements do you think were not present? And relax. I'm not trying to prove that capitalism was present, I'm just trying to find out why you think there wasn't any.

Here is ToBeLoved's definition of capitalism again, which is the one we are working from:

Do you think that there was no private ownership of capital goods?
Do you think that there were no private investment decisions made?
Do you think there were no free markets?

Because Capitalism is a relatively new term and definition.

Capitalism as an economic concept did not exist before what we consider to be global markets and global trade.

Was Rome considered Communist in 40 AD?

 

[NotreDame]

No, not "kidding", but you completely miss the point of the OP - you're focused on the word "capitalist". Also, you're asking me to define greed and God's Will for you, which are things you need to learn for yourself and not from a response in an internet forum from me. I gave you a couple sources for wisdom, the Bible and the Pope of your own Church - I don't know what more you want than that. Pope Francis is a wise man of God.

It is clear to me you had no intention of discussing much of anything substantively. Your opening post certainly invited a conversation about Jesus, capitalism, and whether Jesus was denouncing capitalism. You subsequently shifted the conversation to not really be a dialogue about capitalism and transitioned the dialogue into an amorphous blob. Along the way, you’ve invoked religious figures, the Pope, for authority, and referenced religious ideas of God’s will and greed to then tell me you can’t define either for me, despite invoking them. Entertaining.

 

[ToBeLoved]

Not according to the definition of capitalism posted by ToBeLoved.




If you have a different definition of capitalism, let us see it.

That definition is from the Meriam Webster Dictionary

That’s a dictionary used by scholars and colleges.

Can we then define “investment” as would be used in 40 AD?

Neighbors or private investors did not have a piece of a private persons business. No stocks or bonds. No capital gains. No redistribution of wealth.

 

[NotreDame]

In the currency market, the means of production is publicly owned but I don’t know how you can claim that owners/sellers of the goods aren’t taking the surplus value and accumulating capital. What were they doing with their profits?

Let’s talk about the selling of livestock:



Where do you think these animals came from? Did the livestock fairy just drop them off outside the temple? Did they walk to the temple on their own, 2x2, guided by divine instruction as they did to the ark?

You just handwaved away the whole process of raising and/or trapping the livestock. There are many examples throughout the Bible of people owning herds, increasing their size, and hiring laborers to tend to them. That system existed for at least a millennium prior to Jesus and strikes me as being not dissimilar from modern ranching, which is, as far as I’m aware, considered to be a “capitalist” endeavor. No, the NT doesn’t go into detail about the means of production of the specific animals in the temple, but to assume as you did that they didn’t fit into this pre-existing system strikes me as more than a little ridiculous and incredibly convenient for your otherwise unsupported assertions.

There’s no production in your example by a laborer! Yes, you have labor. Labor to raise the animal. Labor to trap the animal, but that is not the same as laboring with the means of production to produce something. The existence of labor doesn’t make anything capitalist. A fundamental important feature of capitalism is the labor of others with the means of production to produce something, i.e. owner provides the tools and raw materials and laborer, using both, makes a toy out of it, for a wage, in which the toy is then sold in a competitive market for a profit (surplus value) and the owner keeps the surplus value, and there exists capital accumulation. That isn’t the same as walking livestock to the market for sale.

A person picking an apple off a tree and selling it to Joe on the street for money isn’t capitalism. The person labored to produce nothing and certainly didn’t labor with the means of production to produce anything.

Laborers tending to a herd isn’t capitalism anymore than hiring someone to water a tomato plant is capitalism. Neither is capitalism.

Your reasoning above is based on this foolish idea that if labor is involved, then it’s capitalism. Based on that facile perspective, Adam and Eve were capitalist in a capitalist regime because they had to labor.

Even Marx wasn’t unwise enough to make the point you did because capitalism involves much more than someone labored.

You haven’t provided any evidence capitalism existed at the time of Jesus. None.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Because Capitalism is a relatively new term and definition.

Capitalism as an economic concept did not exist before what we consider to be global markets and global trade.

Was Rome considered Communist in 40 AD?

That the concept didn’t exist doesn’t mean the phenomenon described by the concept didn’t exist.

 

[NotreDame]

Which elements do you think were not present? And relax. I'm not trying to prove that capitalism was present, I'm just trying to find out why you think there wasn't any.

Here is ToBeLoved's definition of capitalism again, which is the one we are working from:

Do you think that there was no private ownership of capital goods?
Do you think that there were no private investment decisions made?
Do you think there were no free markets?

I have no evidence capitalism existed at the time of Christ. None. I never seen or read of any evidence capitalism existed that far back in time. None.

 

[Goonie]

I have no evidence capitalism existed at the time of Christ. None. I never seen or read of any evidence capitalism existed that far back in time. None.

Yet if Jesus is God, then logically being omnipresent/ omniscient he knows all about capitalism and was fully able to comment on it.

 

[Halbhh]

Didn't Jesus say something about it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?

Do you (Christians) interpret this as a criticism of capitalism?

OB

Not of freedom, private property, enterprise (capitalism), but of greed.

Of being more concerned with one's wealth than with sharing with those in need. That is, making money one's primary goal instead of following Christ. We cannot serve two masters.

 

[iluvatar5150]

There’s no production in your example by a laborer! Yes, you have labor. Labor to raise the animal. Labor to trap the animal, but that is not the same as laboring with the means of production to produce something.

Why not?

The existence of labor doesn’t make anything capitalist.

No, but as you stated earlier, the existence of labor is one component of capitalism.

A fundamental important feature of capitalism is the labor of others with the means of production to produce something, i.e. owner provides the tools and raw materials and laborer, using both, makes a toy out of it, for a wage, in which the toy is then sold in a competitive market for a profit (surplus value) and the owner keeps the surplus value, and there exists capital accumulation. That isn’t the same as walking livestock to the market for sale.

And walking livestock to the market isn’t the entirety of ranching. It’s only the last part. Your argument is akin to saying that stocking shelves in a store isn’t capitalism.

A rancher owns cattle and, via husbandry and/or purchase, acquires more cattle. Rancher hires hands to tend to the herd. Rancher acquires feed for the herd (via purchase, barter, or exploitation of public goods) to grow the herd and ready it for sale. Rancher sells cattle in market, or hires brokers to sell them in market, or sells them to third party traders who sell them in market.

I don’t see how this is substantively different than somebody owning a factory and producing widgets.

A person picking an apple off a tree and selling it to Joe on the street for money isn’t capitalism. The person labored to produce nothing and certainly didn’t labor with the means of production to produce anything.

Laborers tending to a herd isn’t capitalism anymore than hiring someone to water a tomato plant is capitalism. Neither is capitalism.

Your reasoning above is based on this foolish idea that if labor is involved, then it’s capitalism. Based on that facile perspective, Adam and Eve were capitalist in a capitalist regime because they had to labor.

Even Marx wasn’t unwise enough to make the point you did because capitalism involves much more than someone labored.

Your entire argument is a strawman. I’ve never claimed that laborers alone were sufficient to qualify a system as “capitalist”. My exposition on a single facet of capitalism (e.g. labor) does not in any way imply that I think that’s all there is to capitalism.

You haven’t provided any evidence capitalism existed at the time of Jesus. None.

Yes, I have provided evidence. I even went through a checklist that ticked off all of your requirements.