"But a socialist world is an impossibility, It is a consumption-economy, not a production-economy. Without outside help, it quickly perishes. That death is in the offing, and it will be an ugly, hard death, but die it will. The economic tailspin, devaluation followed by devaluation, inflation and more inflation, all this and more, followed by and accompanied by plague and epidemic, will mark the end of an age. The era of the Enlightenment, the age of humanism, will perish. In its place will come a Christian reconstruction, a free economy, and true law and order. “It shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light” (Zechariah 14:7). At the moment when total darkness seems about to overwhelm, the light of God’s liberty shall blaze forth afresh." - CHALCEDON REPORT NO. 32 April 10, 1968
Capitalization is the product of work and thrift, the accumulation of wealth and the wise use of accumulated wealth. This accumulated wealth is invested, in effect, in progress, because it is made available for the development of natural resources and the marketing of goods and produce. The thrift which leads to the savings or accumulation of wealth, to capitalization, is a product of character. Capitalization is a product in every era of the Puritan disposition, of the willingness to forego present pleasures to accumulate some wealth for future purposes. Without character, there is no capitalization but rather decapitalization, the steady depletion of wealth. As a result, capitalism is supremely a product of Christianity, and, in particular, of Puritanism, which, more than any other faith, has furthered capitalization.
The power of a popular existentialism on the 20th century mind is apparent in its present-oriented economics. For existentialism, the moment, stripped of all morality and religion, and all considerations from the past or about the future, is everything. This too is the essence of all the varieties of Keynsian economics. Keynes despised the future; his premise was, “In the long run, we are all dead.” This death orientation marks modern economics, and it marks the reprobate. As Proverbs 8:36 declares, “But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.” The Bible requires a future orientation of us, but, not in terms of ourselves, but in terms of Christ, the gospel, and the Kingdom of God. Our Lord says, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it” (Mark 8:35; cf. Matt. 10:39,16:25; Luke 9:24; Matt. 6:33). Our Lord here, in speaking of “losing” out lives, is not talking about martyrdom, but about “sowing,” casting our lives by faith on the waters of the future, to yield a harvest to Him, and ourselves in Him.