“Investors don’t gush over Exxon Mobil’s $11 billion—17% rise in profit disappoints Wall St.” This was the headline from the Seattle Times Business Section, May 2, 2008. Even though people are suffering, not only from the rise in prices of food and gasoline but the cost of all things, the Oil Company’s and Wall St’s bloated pigs still want more and more, and not only a metaphoric pound of flesh, but the whole body. 

Compassion and capitalism are metaphorically water and oil. Compassion does not mix well with capitalism. In fact, there is no place at all for compassion within the capitalistic paradigm. It’s one of the reasons why emotions are taboo within business. If I feel the emotion of compassion, then the bottom-line no longer rules. I will consider first and foremost the consequences of my actions; not the profit resulting from my actions.

Compassion is primarily concerned with right action and the greater good; while capitalism is strictly about profit at any cost—cost in human lives and/or the environment. The inequality that results from a lack of compassion is staggering. Capitalism opens a gulf of divide between the rich and the poor. If you dispute this just visit any inner-city or travel down to New Orleans. Whereas in “a community organized around compassion, there would not be gross inequity between rich and poor. Indeed, one would imagine that there would no longer be any abject poor.”[i]

Isn’t it interesting to note that Jesus brought ‘good news to the poor?’ This was not the poor in spirit as Matthew relates in the Bible but the economically and marginalized poor. His compassion was at odds with the institutionalized greed of his times. Debt was rampant—an indication of the chasm between rich and poor. Jesus was “shocked at the prominent display of debt acquired wealth.”[ii] The importance of money and the lavish display of wealth outraged Jesus who knew that you can not serve both God and money. The choice of our focus deems life or death (spiritual).

After two thousand years only the names and places have changed. Mammon, the derisive word in Aramaic that Jesus used for money, is still the high priest and emperor of the world. Debt is at an all time high and the elites are still rubbing the noses of the peasants into the ground. The greatest mystery is that the poor and working poor are still letting them do it.

Time and again, the material problems of our world are seen as being only able to be resolved through subsequent material solutions. Money will fix anything as the prevailing thought goes. But can it really? It hasn’t for millennia.

The capitalistic paradigm is even more divisive and destructive than simple money. Present day capitalism thrives on the illusion of money and its illusionary off-spring, the stock market and investment banks.

This illusion only benefits the few over the many who buy into this ‘snake-oil.’ This illusion prays on the minds of the majority of Americans that have bought into the Great American Dream and their fear of the future. A future based on having enough money to retire, as if after sixty-five, people are helpless and worthless. Retirement is a farce but an excellent way to ‘hold the carrot in front of the asses face.’

Capitalism does not believe in the sanctity of Elder-hood. Elders are not productive in the mindset of this paradigm—just get the blood and sweat out of them while they’re under sixty-five and then toss them out. Of course, if they are sixty-four toss them out before they turn sixty-five, then you are not on the hook for retirement benefits. And this scenario has happened time and time again. In addition in this age of stock rewards, layoffs may be timed right before an award is to ‘kick-in.’[iii]

The bottom-line is always ‘king’ in capitalism. If it is not profitable, it will not be done even when producing a certain product will benefit people and help the greater good. The Seattle Times February 13^th, 2008 issue had a front page story entitled: “Does our lack of sun put your health in danger?” The article explored the link between vitamin D deficiency and health risks. The final paragraph of the article highlights very simply the corruptness and destructiveness of capitalism: “Vitamin D is so cheap, nobody makes any money on it…. So there’s nobody to push it.”