WEBVTT - Part One: How The Rich Ate Christianity 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:06.480 Oh boy, what a great day. I'm feeling so good. 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:11.080 You know what, I'm just gonna Oh, what's that, Sophie, 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.319 there's a knock at the door. Should should we? Should 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:17.959 we see who it is? I mean, yeah, why it's 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.960 Dan and Jordan's from Knowledge Fight. I had to come 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:22.880 running when I heard that weird noise come out of 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:27.000 your mouth. Check on you. All I want to say 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:32.720 is thank you, thank you. Normally it's my atonal grunting 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:35.920 that opens the show. I don't know how you guys. 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:37.640 You have a you have a great song to lead you, 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:39.600 and I don't know how you so consistently open a 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:44.440 show without just grunting and moaning. We do that under 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:50.440 the theme song turned off. We're just getting stretching before 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.840 you go run a marathon. You guys just go just 0:00:54.520 --> 0:01:02.800 putting out on wet and like heavy, heavy breathing up. Hello, God, 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:09.160 you're Jordan's You're Dan of the podcast Knowledge Fight and 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:13.440 also in Dan's case of the legal effort to see 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:20.440 Alex Jones for repeatedly doing crimes. Yeah, it's weird that 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:25.920 maybe a credit now, I guess I was a yeah, 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:31.160 consulting expert on uh the the latest deposition that Alex 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:36.200 did in the Texas cases. People have pointed out multiple 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:39.120 times that on like episode three or four of our show, 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:43.120 we I made the joke that he would be involved 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.880 somehow in the lawsuit, and we laughed and laughed and laughed. 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:51.840 Seven hundred episodes later. I remember when I first started 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.360 listening to your show, because I was doing the Behind 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.400 the Bastards episodes on Alex Jones. I was like, God, 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:01.640 I fucking hope someone involved in the case against him 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:05.200 knows about these guys, because they are they are uncovering 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.960 damning stuff every week. It should probably be involved in 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:14.040 the case. It's finally finally came about and uh yeah, 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.840 good times. Yeah yeah, well congratulations. Would you like to 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:21.040 talk about something completely different from Alex Jones. I think 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:25.480 that would be a delight. So here's a spoiler. I 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.400 I lied. I lied to you. It's it's not complete. 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.880 It's not it's it's a precursor to Alex Jones. Um. 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:36.160 This is a story about how the wealthy in America 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:41.760 eight and transformed Christianity. Uh that's fun. Yeah, yeah, that 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:44.280 this is this is a story that is adjacent to 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:46.240 the story of the John Birch society. They're not gonna 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.919 come into it much here, but they are. They are involved. Um. 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:54.880 And it is a story that is adjacent to the 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:57.720 rise of Alex Jones, because obviously he's heavily influenced by 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:00.240 the John Birch society. This is this is a pre person. 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:02.160 We've talked on this show a bunch, and I know 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:05.240 y'all are very well aware that like seventy two, ish, 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:07.400 was the first time the religious right was like a 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.200 political block in the country. Right, You've got fallwell and 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.560 these people kind of we welding Billy Graham welding the 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.919 right wing into a Republican coalition for the first time. Um. 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:20.800 But that only was able to happen because of a 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.720 process that got started in the nineteen thirties. And that's 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.680 what we're going to talk about today. I mean, I 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:30.800 would have argued that the first was the Crusades, but 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:37.840 you know, it's very similar politicized the Crusades. Sometimes people look, 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:41.360 people were just vibe vibing, you know, modes on horseback, 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.040 al armies, a children getting sold into slavery, not a 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:47.320 cell phone insight. You know, it was non apartisan. Yeah, 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:50.880 it's the important thing about it. Yeah, and that's exactly right. 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:52.680 Every we were able to put down all of our 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:57.760 petty disagreements to deluge Jerusalem in a river of blood, 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:07.480 trickle down economics andized mass killings. I like that. You 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:09.560 asked if we want to talk about something other than 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:12.000 Alex and I was like, Hey, maybe something light and breezy. 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:15.800 Absolutely not. Maybe maybe it was going to be an 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:20.120 episode about the bagel Boss. This episode is is going 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:23.560 to be me reading you letters that different millionaires sent 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:27.480 each other talking about how to destroy democracy. Sounds about right? 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:32.880 That sounds good? Yeah. Um, you know, I I'm a 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:37.240 big advocate fan of interested in storytelling. I think it's 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:40.000 probably the most powerful thing that people do. Um, you 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:43.279 don't get no empire or social movement or civilization gets 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.080 anywhere without like having a set of stories that the 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:49.679 people who are inside that thing believe, and that really, 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.640 to a significant amount, determines reality. Right. There's a degree 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.680 to which you can kind of ignore even physical reality 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.760 if the stories are strong enough, as uh, some of 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:04.479 our um, some of our anti vax and anti anti 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:08.520 vaccine friends can candid test you know. There's limits to that. 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.480 But it's it's it's it's a pretty powerful thing. If 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:13.040 you can get people to believe a story, even a 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:16.479 ridiculous one, Um, you can. You can get them to 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.200 do almost anything. And capitalism itself thrives because of the 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.040 stories people tell about it. The reality, of course, is 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.400 that capitalism is a system that was cobbled together by 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:27.560 a handful of rich people in the sixteen hundreds and 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.680 seventeen hundreds. They created the first corporations, which allowed them 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:32.800 to pull their money, share risk and profits for risky 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:35.800 ventures overseas. And the first things they did was go 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.160 to the Spice Islands and carry out a brutal genocide 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:40.760 in order to gain a monopoly on nutmeg. That was 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:43.280 the first thing capitalism. Okay, I feel like you're being 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.640 unfair to the East India Company. Okay, this was the 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:50.560 Dutch East India Company. Yeah, I mean they were fine. 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:56.280 It was a non part of absolutely. And hey, capitalism 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.359 is not unique. Every system human beings have developed on 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:01.520 a large scale is a river of blood, like they 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:04.000 all are. You know, that's just the way. That's just 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:08.680 the way people be. Uh. But if you if you 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.599 tell the story of capitalism accurately, which is that it's 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:14.200 you know, another chapter in the history of human beings 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:18.520 finding ways to be shitty to each other in large groups. Um, 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.840 that's not something people like to hear. Right, you're not 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:24.080 gonna get You're not gonna get a whole bunch of people, 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:27.279 rah rah rah over capitalism. If you're just talking about 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.080 how they murdered several ethnic groups for nutmeg, I'm not 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:32.480 going to get a lot of raw ra from the 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.680 people who have a lot of capital. Yeah, yeah, exactly. 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:39.080 And those people like to find better stories to explain 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.960 what capitalism is, um and to get people to identify 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:45.720 it enough that they'll threaten a race war. Uh if 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:47.880 you you try to amend the system at all, which 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:50.280 is why groups like the Acting Institute, a right wing 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:52.719 Christian think tank, right stuff like this. And I'm gonna 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:58.159 quote from an article titled how Christianity Created Capitalism. The 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:00.520 people of the High Middle Ages were a dog with 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.400 wonder at great mechanical clocks, new forms of gears for 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.479 windmills and water mills, improvements in wagons and carts, shoulder 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:09.320 harnesses for beasts of burden, the ocean going ship rudder, 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:13.120 eyeglasses and magnifying glasses. Iron smelting and iron work, stone cutting, 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:16.160 and new architectural principles. So many new types of machines 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:18.320 were invented and put to use by th hundred. The 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:21.240 historian John Gimpel wrote a book in nineteen seventy six 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:24.480 called the Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages. Without the 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:27.520 growth of capitalism, however, such technical discoveries would have been 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:29.720 idle novelties. They would seldom have been put in the 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.360 hands of ordinary human beings through swift and easy exchange. 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:34.600 They would not have been studied and rapidly copied and 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.520 improved by eager competitors. All this was made possible by 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.600 freedom for enterprise, markets and competition, and that, in turn 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:43.880 was provided by the Catholic Church. Okay, I'm gonna throw 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.000 this out there. I'm gonna throw this out there. It's 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:50.040 a little late to respond. No, I think it's about 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:54.920 time somebody has got to refute this. Okay. I think 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:59.560 kind of the underlying words that he was saying was slaves. 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:05.160 Nothing would have been made without slaves, you know, like, yeah, well, 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:09.560 and it's it's just it's so comprehensively silly because it's like, well, 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:11.680 but during the Middle Ages, a huge amount of the 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:16.280 most significant technological development and philosophical development and like mathematical 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.760 developments were being made by the different caliphates that were 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.440 in charge of the Muslim world. Um, which we're not 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:27.760 living under a capitalist system. They were under the Catholic Church. Yes, yes, 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:34.120 famously the Addison Caliphate, big fans of the pope Um. 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:37.400 I mean, yeah, it's it's it's it's a pretty ludicrous 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:41.040 way to look at at at to argue that, like, um, 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:43.720 it's a pretty ludicrous description of history, I think, And 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.560 we could dunk on this article all day, but it's 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.520 the reality of the situation is just the Christianity did 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.480 not create capitalism. But there is a story which we're 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:56.920 gonna talk about today of how capitalism hijacked Christianity, and 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:00.120 the specific capitalists who masterminded this ship have names and 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:02.360 like sent letters to each other, and we have those letters. 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:04.679 A bunch of people have written about this. So now 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:09.880 it's it's time for a fun story, guys, um hooray. 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:13.199 Our tale starts in the decades before the Great Depression, 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:16.520 when the massive trusts and fortunes accumulated by robber barons 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.959 of the Gilded Age clashed increasingly with organized labor. Right, 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:23.520 you start to get the eighteen eighties eighteen nineties workers 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.520 being like, well, what if what if we all formed 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:30.400 together into a large organization and tried to compete with 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:32.880 the people telling us that our children should mind coal 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.360 until they die. Hey, hey, fellas, you want to stop 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:42.400 getting murdered and worked to death? Yeah? All right? Do 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:44.520 we do? We feel like there's an alternative to getting 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:46.920 machined gunned by our boss when we ask for a race. 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:50.319 And then they got machine gunned by their bass and 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:55.680 then they absolutely did and occasionally the US government. Um, 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:58.040 So this this clash is happening. And while it's you know, 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:00.240 part of why all of these clashes are happening is that, 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.920 like the late eighteen hundreds are just the recession after recession, 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.520 these like economic collapses, um, brought on by the fact 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:10.840 that you know, you know why they're brought on. We've 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:15.400 all lived through a bunch of economic collaxes now, yeah equivalent, Yeah, 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.040 I mean, like it was bitcoin. We've been on bitcoin 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:21.720 for a while. Yeah. So the left is like swelling 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.720 in this period into the early nineteen hundreds because of 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.840 all of these economic collapses, which, as economic collapse does 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:29.679 tend to make tends to make people go like, well, 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:32.439 maybe capitalism is not so great, you know, maybe maybe 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:36.080 the system could be changed somewhat. Um. A lot of 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.000 those rabble rousers in the in this period, these like 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:41.680 labor leaders, a lot of them were not just Christian, 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:44.439 but Christian members of the clergy. Uh. And these folks 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:46.680 saw the socialist ends they were fighting for is not 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:49.520 just in line with but but demanded by their faith. 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.200 This was an era in which one in every twenty 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:54.240 six workers in the United States could expect to be 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.160 maimed on the job. Like that is the early nineteen hundreds, 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.480 one out of every twenty six workers is going to 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:01.520 be serious Lee and jer killed on the job. And 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:06.160 everybody in Amazon is like, holy shit, one, what a 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:10.400 glorious area? Are you kidding? Yeah? This is such a 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:20.439 glass half empty? Yeah yeah, yes. Ministers like George D. 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.600 Herron were outraged by the reduction of sacred human life 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.560 to an economic unit, and they actually saw what capitalists 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.160 were doing in this period as like offensive to their 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:35.600 religion the day yeah. Um. He wrote in eighteen nineties 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:38.079 sermon called the Message of Jesus Two Men of Wealth, 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:40.880 in which he compared the struggle between labor and capital 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.640 to the story of Cain and Abel. Heron argued that 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:46.920 Kine's choice to murder his brother was quote the first bald, 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.960 brutal assertion of self interest as the law of human life, 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:54.439 an assertion always potential with murder. So he was like, literally, 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:58.079 the owners of capital are the descendants of Caine. Like 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:02.800 that is a right, right, all right? Although then in 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:09.840 that form Christianity did create capitalism. Yeah, right, I mean 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:12.080 there's an argument if that's what he's gonna argue. I mean, 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:14.640 but you're taking it out of Jdayism's blocked in right, 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.920 Kine enables they got more claim to that. But then, 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.600 of course we get to a really uncomfortable conversation when 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:23.800 we start saying that I'm a small minded fellow who 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:25.760 didn't read the tour close enough, and that's on me 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:30.160 the Abrahamic religions. I guess you can say that the 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:35.200 devil created capitalism um by convincing Kine to murder his brother. 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:39.400 That's the argument Heron's kind of making here. Yeah, he 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.360 quote the trial in progress and he's talking about like 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:46.000 the trial of the labor movement is Christ versus Kane, 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:48.480 the decision to which the times are hastening us is 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:52.920 shall Christ reign in our American civilization? Like shall Christ 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.880 or Caine rain in our American civilization? Sorry? Um, so 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:59.960 that that's how Heron frames it. Is like the struggle 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.600 between labor and capital is the same as the biblical 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:05.480 struggle between like Cain and Abel and are we going 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:08.480 to let the murder us? And unfortunately the answer was yeah, 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:12.160 all right. The first thing that's unfamiliar to me about 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:15.200 this guy it seems as though he has read the Bible, 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.400 which does seem like he might have read the Bible. 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:19.959 That's that's an issue for me. I don't think Christianity 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:23.280 is allowed to do that, as to see the Middle 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:27.040 Ages minister who read the Bible? Now, that doesn't seem right. 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:31.480 So Heron stumped for Eugene V. Debs, the hero of 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:33.520 our episode on the Pullman Strike, when he ran for 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.319 president heading the Socialist Party of America. And I want 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:37.920 to quote now from a write up on this in 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:42.160 the website Sojourners. He was not the only minister to 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:44.559 become a socialist either. One his story and estimated that 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:48.600 between five and of all mainline Protestant clergy were Socialist 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:50.760 Party members or voted for the party. In the first 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.880 three decades of the twentieth century, Congregationalist minister Franklin Monroe 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:59.679 Sprague wrote Socialism from Genesis to Revelation. In EIGHTEWO John Spargo, 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:04.160 Methodist minister became a socialist educator. Norman Thomas, a Presbyterian minister, 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:06.679 ran for President of the United States as a socialist 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:11.480 candidate from nine to ninety eight. Charles Vale Universalist minister, 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:15.240 was an important socialist writer. African Americans, both outside and 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.640 inside of the Socialist Party, also demanded fairer economic systems 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:21.440 that affected other facets of life, pushing white Christians and 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:26.920 socialists too towards quote a new abolitionism. So there's some 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:30.680 cool stuff happening in Christian thought in the first thirty 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.400 years of the twentieth century. Um, that doesn't is it? 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.160 For them? Yeah, I'm really I'm really proud of them. 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.560 They had a good stretch. They did have a good stretched. 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:42.960 This is the story that all got sucked up horribly. 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:48.120 But is that the prevailing attitude of it's it's not. 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.400 That is a really good question. It is not as 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:54.479 they said. This is somewhere between five and of ministers 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.520 in this period are members of the Socialist Party. Um. 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:05.760 Could it could well, it could be something like that. Um. 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:08.240 But there's also this like you have to assume if 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:11.040 you know fifteen or twenty of them are members, you've 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:13.960 got another probably twenty or who or at least sympathetic, 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.720 but like not quite as far left. Um. I think 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:21.400 mainstream Christianity, because of how popular the labor movement is, 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:24.080 is probably broadly sympathetic to a lot of these aims, 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:27.000 if not as radical as the guys we just cited. Um, 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.800 it is certainly not uh pro capitalist, and it is 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.160 not seen by the capitalists as being pro capitalists. UM. 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:38.600 So Christian socialists often you know, combined the Gospel of 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:41.920 Jesus and what they had read in Marks. The interpretation 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:44.680 that these guys had was that Jesus was a radical 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:49.160 who opposed capitalism. Um. Less common was the idea that 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:52.720 socialism could be a foundation for a universal humanistic religion. 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:55.160 But there were some guys um who said that who 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:59.880 were like who kind of went from being Christian minister 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:01.320 to being like, well, now I'm more of like just 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:04.600 a socialist minister, and I feel like my Christianity is 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:06.880 wrapped up in that. But this is like socialism is 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:09.880 the religion should be the religion of mankind. You get 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:13.000 that on, Like that's the fringe. Yeah, like legislating from 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:15.520 the pulpit, I'll tell you that right now. That's that's 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:17.600 not what I'm in for here. So it sounds like 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:22.280 exactly what alex is terrified. Yeah, the nightmare of nightmares. 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:24.680 And a lot of the capitalists in this period are 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:28.480 fucking terrified of this because it's spreading really widely. Um, 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:30.960 the cause of Christian socialists got a big shot in 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:33.040 the arm in August of nineteen twenty nine when the 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:35.720 global economy collapsed in the Roaring twenties yielded to the 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:39.280 Great Depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in nineteen thirty 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.880 two on the promise of providing Americans with a new Deal. 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:45.600 This involved a bunch of banking reforms, a raftive new 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:48.160 social programs, and jobs program a whole bunch of stuff. Now, 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:52.360 actual socialists like Nicole Ashoff, who wrote The New Profits 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:54.680 of Capital, saw the New Deal, or see the New 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.920 Deal as it was essentially a way for capitalists who 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:02.560 were more reasonable and less monstrous than some of the 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:05.800 other capitalists to keep the system limping along. Without a 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:10.600 socialist revolution. The Elizabeth Warren plan. Yeah, socialists saw the 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:12.880 New Deal is like, well, this is like a shameless 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:15.680 compromise to keep capitalism going, and it's it's actually not 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:19.480 a good thing. Um. And then FDR was a little 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:21.399 bit like, hey, you know, they could buy a lot 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:23.560 of people to murder all of us, So maybe let's 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.680 just chill out this one. I'm not going to take 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:30.480 a stance on this, but I can't even walk many, 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:34.240 I can't run away. I'm not gonna run away. Um, yeah, 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:37.200 I do wanna. I'm not gonna necessarily endorse that. Like, 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:39.240 you know, we should never have done the New Deal. 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.520 We should have just like let the revolution come, because 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:44.359 I don't know that that would have worked out. But 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:46.879 that is an argument of people will make um and 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.200 Nicole Ashoff writes in her book quote Capital's ability to 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.639 periodically present a new set of legitimating principles that facilitate 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:57.400 the willing participation of society accounts for its remarkable longevity 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.800 despite periodic bouts of deep crisis, for allowing Max Webber, 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:03.240 one of the foremost social thinkers of the twentieth century, 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.560 uh this belief system is called this belief system which 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:10.080 justifies and legitimates capitalism and the primacy of profitmaking is 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:13.280 the spirit of capitalism. Um. So that's like this the 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.000 term that these some of these thinkers use the spirit 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:20.080 of capitalism for the ways in which our justifications for 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.080 it change over time. And the argument here is that 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:26.040 kind of f DR was putting a new set of 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.960 principles to legitimate capitalism. So capitalism is legitimate because we 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:32.080 also have the social safety net and we'll take care 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:34.520 of people, and it's not this solar system that we 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:36.800 had in the decades prior. We've changed it and so 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:39.080 it can keep going right. And the fact that capitalism 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:42.920 is the syncretic um is seen by critics of capitalism 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:44.520 is part of why it's so hard to fucking kill. 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:52.640 It's like i'll change, yeah, it'll yeah, take me back, 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:57.880 take me. That is what actual socialists are saying at 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:01.359 the time. But that's not what capitalists see. So like 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.000 the the capitalists who are opposed to FDR see him 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:07.679 as the literal embodiment of Linen coming to burn their 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.439 mansions and molest their expensive pets, right like that. They 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:12.520 don't they don't see this as like, oh, he's keeping 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.120 the system that makes us all rich alive. They see 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:17.520 this as he's coming to tear it all down. People 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:20.480 are dying in the streets as much. Actually, I brought 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:22.800 a letter from this time period because I wanted to 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:26.080 join in. Uh and this was written by a millionaire 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:39.959 at I think it was. It just went oh yeah, sorry, oh, 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:42.520 you gotta stop this. Yeah that was the last Yeah 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:45.880 that that that is an adequate summary of what these 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:48.280 people are saying at the time. And a number of 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:50.840 these dudes, titans of industry, guys who owned companies like 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:55.480 General Motors UM form an organization called the National Association 0:19:55.520 --> 0:20:00.440 of Manufacturers in eight. Yeah, you know that, you know, 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:05.119 Nam the can the candyman. He shared He shared it. 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:07.600 He shared it. Welch, one of the founders of the 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:11.600 John Birch Society. Yeah. Now, the the n a M 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:14.000 had been right in the thick of those Gilded Age 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:16.359 recessions we talked about early, Like that's why this comes 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:19.280 out in eight there's all these collapses and the left 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:22.840 is rising. You know, you have these these huge armed 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:26.600 strikes and like militant workers organizing and these people are like, 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:31.280 well if they're if they're organizing with guns to stop 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.400 people from bringing scabs and couldn't they organized with guns 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.520 to take our our stuff? You know? You know that 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.400 is that is one of the things about the organized left, 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:44.760 so somewhat is like that, that obsession with policing each other, 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:47.000 of being like, no, this is how we protest. We 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:49.240 only do it this way. And then if you go 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.960 back in history and it's like they broke windows and 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.359 threw grenades into places, they lit everything on five, there 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:57.479 was not a lot of discussion about like, well, now 0:20:57.560 --> 0:20:59.560 you're making it violent. There was this discussion of like 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:03.359 build the best grenades to throw at our boxes, the 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:09.120 nitpicking arguments about how many males should go through the back. Yeah, yeah, 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:11.720 it was. It was a different time. And so these 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.040 these these businessmen get very scared of this different time 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:17.120 and they create the n a M. As a way 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:20.320 to kind of like organize um and develop a strategy 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:25.640 to protect themselves. Um. So, you know, Roosevelt comes to power, 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:27.680 and initially they're kind of they have a bunch of 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:30.040 different things that they're that they're scared about. They're also 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:33.639 really worried about like domestic industry getting flooded by foreign 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.440 imports and stuff. But when Roosevelt comes to power and 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:39.760 they actually see this big socialist legislation get past UM, 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:43.879 they start flipping out and thinking like, uh, you know. Also, 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:45.520 the thing that's happening this period is the U s 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:48.480 s R has just formed, So they're they're both seeing, Okay, 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:50.920 we had these armed workers in the streets. They're getting 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:54.320 more organized, they're in the halls of power in Washington, 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:56.720 and they're gonna make They're gonna do what the USSR did, 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.439 and soon we'll all be you know, executed, and our 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:01.960 stuff will be taken from us UM. So in a 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:05.840 M pivots to opposing the New Deal. UM. Their primary 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:08.440 contention was that FDR sought to provide people with a 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:10.720 sense of security and a safety net, and this was 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:12.919 a bad idea. This is literally what they're writing at 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:15.120 the time. Giving people a safety that is a bad 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:17.359 idea because if people aren't scared of dying in the street, 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:19.639 they won't work as hard and the free market system 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:22.800 will fail. I mean, this is absolutely true. I've seen 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:25.800 a lot of trapeze acts and they work harder when 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:29.120 there is not a net. Yeah, a lot of lazy 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:33.520 trapeze artists. Walmart will have fewer employees. If no one 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:35.760 is going to starve to death if they don't work there, 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:38.520 you might not be able to run Walmart the current 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:41.800 way that it's run. People don't dance quite as fast 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:44.000