Democracy and capitalism

I have elsewhere quoted John Piper on the doctrine of original sin as the Christian reason for democracy:

G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis said that the doctrine of original sin is the basis of a democratic form of government – where power is spread out over the people – because it is the only reason we can give for not absolutely trusting a ruling elite. In other words, the best argument of democracy is not that men are good enough to govern themselves, but that men are so bad none can be trusted with absolute power. (John Piper, emphasis mine)

It occurred to me recently that the Christian argument for capitalism is very similar. The best argument for capitalism is not that people are good enough to make the right choices in a free market, but that humans are so bad that none can be trusted with arbitrary power to distribute wealth equitably.

Both democracy and capitalism are weak, inasmuch as they are representative of the character of the people who participate in them. [Witness the United States.] Yet in them there is, at least in theory, a natural system of correction that does not exist in autocracy or socialism. [Witness the former Soviet nations.]

Consequently, Christians who participate in capitalism, like those who participate in democracy, should start on different foundations, and move in different currents, and speak in different ways than those who reject the doctrine of original sin.

Lesslie Newbigin captures well how the doctrine of original sin is anathema to the modern scientific worldview (which has championed democracy and capitalism) as he describes the massive shift that occurred in the Enlightenment:

The replacement of 'God' by 'Nature' involved a new understanding of 'Law'. There is no longer a divine law give whose commands are to be obeyed because they are God's. Laws are the necessary relationships which spring from the nature of things (Montesquieu). As such they are available for discovery by human reason. Reason is the faculty common to all human beings and is in principle the same everywhere. Provided it is not perverted by the imposition of dogmas from without, reason is capable of discovering what the nature of things is and what therefore are 'Nature's laws'. The most dangerous and destructive of all the dogmas which have perverted human reason is the dogma of original sin. To destroy this wicked slander against humanity is the first essential for the liberating of human reason and conscience to do their proper work. But this dogma is only the centrepiece of the whole structure of dogma which has to be destroyed. Any authority - of dogma, of scripture or of 'God' - which purports to replace human reason is to be rejected as false and as a treason against the dignity of the human being. (Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian p194, emphasis mine)

If the Gospel is our starting place, our engagement in democracy and capitalism will be entirely different from those who reject the Gospel with its doctrine of original sin. This is precisely what makes our engagement in politics and commerce evangelistic: that we cannot escape announcing the news that has turned the world on its head and that subverts the presumptuous power of Reason.