Part 18 (2/2)

We need a Christian ethics of property, more perhaps than anything else.

The wrongs connected with wealth are the most vulnerable point of our civilization. Unless we can make that crooked place straight, all our charities and religion are involved in hypocrisy.

We have to harmonize the two facts, that wealth is good and necessary, and that wealth is a danger to its possessor and to society. On the one hand property is indispensable to personal freedom, to all higher individuality, and to self-realization; the right to property is a corollary of the right to life; without property men are at the mercy of nature and in bondage to those who have property. On the other hand property is used as a means of collecting tribute and private taxes, as a club with which to extort unearned gain from laborers and consumers, and as the fundamental tool of oppression.

Where do we draw the line? Is it true that property created by productive labor is a great moralizer, and that property acquired without productive labor is the great demoralizer? Is it correct that property for use is on the whole good, and property for power is a menace?

What is the relation between property and self-development? At what point does property become excessive? At what point does food become excessive and poisonous? At what point does fertilizer begin to kill a plant? Would any real social values be lost if incomes averaged $2,000 and none exceeded $10,000?

To what extent does a moral purpose take the dangers out of acquisition?

Is any life moral in which the natural capacities are not sincerely taxed to do productive work? If a man's wealth is destined to cut his descendants off from productive labor, is it a blessing? What is the moral difference between strenuous occupation and labor? How large a proportion of our time and energy can be devoted to play and leisure without softening our moral fiber?

At what points does private property come to be anti-social? If we could eliminate the monopoly elements and the capacity to levy tribute, would there be much danger in the remainder?

Does private property, in the enormous aggregations of today and in control of the essential outfit of society, still correspond to the essential theoretical conception of private property, or have public properties and public functions fallen under private control? ”Much that we are accustomed to hear called legitimate insistence upon the rights of property, the Old Testament would seem to call the robbery of G.o.d, and grinding the faces of the poor” (The Bishop of Oxford).

III

The religious spirit will always have to call the individual farther than the law can compel him to go. After all unjust and tainted portions have been eliminated from our property, religion lays its hands on the rest and says, ”You are only a steward over this.” In the parables of the talents, the pounds, and the unjust steward, Jesus argues on the a.s.sumption that our resources are a trust, and not absolute property. We manage and control them, but always under responsibility. We hold them from G.o.d, and his will has eminent domain. But the will of G.o.d is identical with the good of mankind. When we hold property in trust for G.o.d, we hold it for humanity, of which we are part. We misuse the trust if by it we deprive others of health, freedom, joy, hope, or efficiency, for instance, by overworking others and underworking our own children.

Suggestions for Thought and Discussion

I. _The Love of Money_

1. Define graft. What is wrong in it? Where do we see it? Where are we myopic about it?

2. Why did Jesus have so much to say about money and so little about drink? Why does Paul call the love of money ”the root of all evil”?

II. _Jesus' Fear of Riches_

1. On what ground does Jesus fear the influence of riches and of their acc.u.mulation?

2. Summarize Jesus' teachings regarding wealth.

3. In what respects is his att.i.tude different from the ordinary viewpoint of the modern world?

4. Was Jesus opposed to the owning of farming tools or fis.h.i.+ng smacks?

Where would he draw the line between honest earnings and dangerous wealth?

5. Was his teaching on wealth ascetic? Was it socialistic?

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