“the morality that statists prefer (arbitrary value towards human life, preoccupation with homosexuality, weakening of property rights, mainstreaming pornography, and so forth).”

Regret to have to point out the obvious and say that virtually all of these are aggressively being wrought by market forces. Anyone who believes in any case that the dominant cultural tendencies are a product of “statism” has a broken mental model: these forces cannot be so nicely partitioned and its clear that the market side is a stronger overall driver for many of the concerns you have. Pornography couldn’t be a better example of a market driven product.

In any case, regulating markets – let’s say sane environmental regulation to deal with the fact of market failure or simply recognizing that most of wall street activity is destructive – is hardly going to have teleological movement toward degraded morality. In a sane world, we’d recognize these as “conservative” instincts.

John, one reason why it is so difficult for some Orthodox to comprehend your point may be that Orthodoxy in America largely discourages human creativity. Innovation, risk taking, everything associated and necessary for creative flourishing is almost never encouraged in the leadership ranks, and I think that filters down into parish life as well. The only place you see success is at the margins, where the risk takers have removed themselves from the immediate oversight of the hierarchs. The internal culture is one of conformity (‘enforced conformity’ is even more accurate) which is why we have not seen any real innovation for decades.

Of the Big Three, I think Antioch is most open. The OCA and GOA don’t seem to produce much, apart from SVS which functions independently to a large measure.

The assumption behind statements like this is that increasing state control over private life will foster a moral culture. It won’t. All it will do is add penalties to those dare criticize the morality that statists prefer (arbitrary value towards human life, preoccupation with homosexuality, weakening of property rights, mainstreaming pornography, and so forth).

I’m still patiently waiting for an answer to this:

No one I know who advocates for a free market, or free enterprise, or the sort of democratic capitalism that has made this country great, talks about a “perfect” market. The economic system we have now is far from it. There is inequality, corruption, unfulfilled hopes and expectations, clear injustices. But tell me — where is the economic system in place today that produces better results, that lifts more people out of poverty, that minimizes these problems?

Show me where it exists today. The musings of an anonymous priest who declares that the American economy is not in alignment with Orthodox Tradition is utterly irrelevant to the question.

Show me the economic system today — concretely and not in some brain-spun Orthodox Utopia — that is more in conformity with Orthodox Tradition and produces the human flourishing, the tremendous economic growth that we’ve enjoyed for so long in the United States (combined with political liberty). The economic-political cultures they have in Greece? Russia? Syria?

I find it really hard to imagine that anyone could look around themselves and believe the free market is doing so much to help make a healthy and moral society in America – what force is doing more to undermine localism, communities, and families? Is our mass culture and the alienated and atomized individualism generated by market forces really defensible.

Anyway, I will just note that Fr. Sirico is not Orthodox and as such he does not represent our Tradition.

Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1596983256/ref=rdr_ext_sb_ti_hist_1

Amazon blurb:

The Left has seized on our economic troubles as an excuse to “blame the rich guy” and paint a picture of capitalism and the free market as selfish, greedy, and cruel. Democrats in Congress and “Occupy” protesters across the country assert that the free market is not only unforgiving, it’s morally corrupt. According to President Obama and his allies, only by allowing the government to heavily control and regulate business and by redistributing the wealth can we ensure fairness and compassion.

Exactly the opposite is true, says Father Robert A. Sirico in his thought–provoking new book, The Moral Case for a Free Economy. Father Sirico argues that a free economy actually promotes charity, selflessness, and kindness. And in The Moral Case for a Free Economy, he shows why free-market capitalism is not only the best way to ensure individual success and national prosperity but is also the surest route to a moral and socially–just society. In The Moral Case for a Free Economy, Father Sirico shows: Why we can’t have freedom without a free economy and why the best way to help the poor is to a start a business. Why charity works—but welfare doesn’t. How Father Sirico himself converted from being a leftist colleague of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden to recognizing the merits of a free economy. In this heated presidential election year, the Left will argue that capitalism may produce winners, but it is cruel and unfair. But as Sirico proves in The Moral Case for a Free Economy, capitalism does not simply provide opportunity for material success, but it ensures a more ethical and moral society as well.

Fr. Michael, In all fairness, the choice of language was provocative and in that respect unwarranted; however, I was speaking of the genre and not the individual. I do mean this seriously: I ask forgiveness for any mischaracterization or offense.

Fr. Hans: Respectfully, I think we all know what Acton stands for and what it and outfits like Cato mean when they talk about capitalism – rather than split hairs over definitions, I simply refer people to their public literature and very long histories. I’m surprised to see the implication that the sources of funding are morally neutral, though. Very surprised.

I think that Greg’s initial question, stripped of its bias, is a good one: are free markets compatible with Orthodoxy? Greg thinks they are not. Dr Morriss, who is both an Orthodox Christian and an economist of international repute, thinks that they are. It would make for a fine discussion if each of them would explain himself.

I also agree with Greg that it would be good to read the Fathers (and Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn) and see what kind of wisdom they offer us on how best to live in an economy such as ours, and then, in turn, offer that wisdom to others. In this way, Orthodox Christians could remain faithful to our Tradition, and the Church could fulfill its role in contemporary society by helping to form the consciences of others and speak to the issues of the day. But that would require Orthodox Christians to speak in such as way as to be heard, and it would require us to respect and understand the positions of those who think differently than we do. Moreover, if we are sincerely interested in finding the truth, then we should be willing to learn from others as well, and to gather truth wherever it may be found (as St Basil the Great says in his “Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature”). It might also require us to learn something about economics, but we should be at peace even about that, for, as St Justin the Philosopher and Martyr says, “All truth, wherever it is found, belongs to us as Christians.”

Forgive me if I offend.

Fr.M.+

This doesn’t mean that economic prosperity is sufficient for a God pleasing life; it isn’t. But who here has suggested otherwise?

While material wealth is not enough, it is better than what St John Chrysostom calls the “insufferable evil” of involuntary poverty. Do Americans misuse use our wealth? Absolutely and I’ll be speaking about this at Acton this June. I will also offer a solution and argue that the Church’s ascetical tradition offers an important corrective to consumerism.

At the same time, we must avoid the temptation to reduce the free market to a catalog of its failures. There is also much good in the free market and it is as much a sin against charity and prudence do to deny this as it is to deny its failures.

The free market is not above criticism. To dismiss it out if hand however while also enjoying its benefits is to fall prey to Manicheanism and as morally wrong as consumerism.

Finally if the free market is not compatiable with the tradition of the Church then must we not ALL of us who are in Christ embrace a life of material poverty?

In Christ,

+FrG

Where do you see “unregulated” markets? In fact, the economy we actually live in — not the one that the Church Fathers might have approved of in a thought experiment — is a mixed economy. The entire political and economic debate today is not about having perfectly “free” markets, because they don’t exist. The argument is about maximizing freedom, or maximizing regulation. Those who advocate for economic freedom reasonably, like the Acton Institute, do so understanding that markets should operate under the rule of law and with those actually engaged in commercial life exercising moral judgment. You can no more “regulate” corruption and sin out of the economy than you can “regulate” corruption and sin out of political life — or the Church for that matter.

You say “free market economics” is incompatible with Orthodox Tradition? Really? So the millions of Orthodox immigrants who were desperate to leave the wretched poverty of their homelands, and were willing to leave family and friends and villages behind for a shot at the American Dream (yes, that hokey old notion), were committing all they had to an ideal that is in direct opposition to what you call Orthodox Tradition? And their success here, the vast prosperity they created and enjoyed, is somehow … what? A corruption of the Christian faith as understood by the Orthodox? All those Orthodox billionaires, millionaires and everyday working folk who prospered, built churches, sent money back to the villages, and supported various non-Orthodox charities — they weren’t with your program?

So my grandmother, who didn’t want to spend the rest of her life walking barefoot behind a plow horse, left Greece and the Orthodox Tradition behind? Really? You obviously never met her.

No one I know who advocates for a free market, or free enterprise, or the sort of democratic capitalism that has made this country great, talks about a “perfect” market. The economic system we have now is far from it. There is inequality, corruption, unfulfilled hopes and expectations, clear injustices. But tell me — where is the economic system in place today that produces better results, that lifts more people out of poverty, that minimizes these problems?

Show me where it exists today. The musings of an anonymous priest who declares that the American economy is not in alignment with Orthodox Tradition is utterly irrelevant to the question.

But in any case, my point is not one of utility or efficiency. To quote one wise priest-commentator: “Let’s face it. You cannot call these Fathers — any of them — capitalists and be fair to either the term or the saints.”

But the statement is so sweeping it is functionally useless, except of course to invoke a generalized moral approbation that fits so well with appeals to concepts like the “Kingdom” and other tems so vague that anyone can fill them with any meaning that he wants.

So what defines “capitalism” in this context? Free markets? The caricature of the Progressive? And what defines “Kingdom”? The conflation of Progressive statism with the moral imperatives of the Gospel? Is the priest confused by the Progressive usurpation of the Christian moral vocabulary with policies inimical to human freedom? My hunch is that he is since he appears to think that the approbation alone is enough to settle the question (I am assuming you quoted him correctly).

The concepts need to be clarified using more precise language before we accept at face value the implicit moral approbation contained in the quotation.