Opinion

Promoting 'Spiritual Capital': What's In It for Harper?

Right-wing guru urges melding religion and money making.

By Donald Gutstein, 20 Mar 2009, TheTyee.ca

Angel and falling money

Belief in afterlife is good for growth: Theodore Malloch.

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Trinity Western University and the Fraser Institute would seem to have little in common aside from their location in British Columbia's Lower Mainland.

Trinity Western is an arm of the evangelical Christian church, with a goal to develop "godly Christian leaders." The Fraser Institute is a business-sponsored advocacy organization whose goal is to promote deregulation, low taxes and minimal government.

They represent the two branches of the right in Canada -- social and economic conservatism. They are often at odds. Economic conservatives want government to wither away; social conservatives want strong government to enforce God's laws, such as prohibiting abortion and gay marriage.

But on succeeding days in March 2009, they hosted the same speaker, Dr. Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, who claims that business and religion share many features.

The idea that unites them is "spiritual capital." It is gaining ground in a well-financed effort to paint a friendlier face on capitalism and win elections for conservatives.

$2 million for institute

The Metanexus Institute of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, defines spiritual capital as "the effects of spiritual and religious practices, beliefs, networks and institutions that have a measurable impact on individuals, communities and societies."

It's a concept with a long history, going back to classical works like Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It goes back even further, to the Calvinist emphasis on the need for hard work, since success in the secular world is a sign of personal salvation. Spiritual capital could be a useful concept in humanizing the marketplace. But the money and interests behind it indicates it is being used to co-opt spirituality for corporate and political purposes.

Metanexus and Malloch together received $2 million from the Templeton Foundation to set up an organization called the Spiritual Enterprise Institute and disseminate the view that spiritual values underpin successful capitalist ventures.

John Templeton, who died in 2008, was a high priest of capitalism who built a billion-dollar fortune selling global mutual funds and moving to the Bahamas to avoid paying taxes. Templeton began his company's annual meetings with prayers, he said, to clear the minds of shareholders. It worked. His foundation has assets of $1.5 billion and gives away $70 million a year, largely to projects that promote the convergence of science and religion.

Malloch, with a PhD in international political economy from the University of Toronto, moves easily among the private, public and non-profit sectors. He's worked for Wharton-Chase Econometrics, Salomon Brothers, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the World Economic Forum, and the United Nations. He's connected to the neo-conservative Hudson Institute, which advocates the abolition of government-backed social security, an end to corporate income taxes and a pre-emptive military strike against Iran.

Malloch has worked on many Republican presidential campaigns. In the 2008 election, he supported the most conservative Republican candidate, Fred Thompson, the former senator from Tennessee and Law and Order actor.

Heaven, hell and GDP

In a paper he wrote for the Hudson Institute, Malloch claims that a "belief in the afterlife, in heaven and hell particularly, is good for economic growth." Fear of hell, he argues, has a bigger impact on economic performance than "too much church attendance," which takes "time away from productive activity." Belief in hell makes you honest, thrifty and work harder, and that's good for business.

His Trinity Western presentation, sponsored by the university's entrepreneurial leadership centre, was based on an article he wrote in the conservative American Spectator. Malloch addresses what he claims are the deeper roots of the current financial crisis. Greed got us into this mess, he admits. But we are not greedy because of the moral failings of the Wall Street wheeler-dealers who threw all caution to the wind in their stampede to cash in at the expense of the rest of society. We are greedy because of the "corrosive and morally corrupting influence of government," which stimulates the "something for nothing" mentality.

Instead of looking to government handouts and Obamanomics for a way out of the crisis, he argues, we need to return to the moral precepts of Plato, Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. They all believed the basis for human conduct is virtue, not government handouts.

In his Fraser Institute talk the next day, Malloch argued that nations with greater religious tolerance have greater economic freedom. This was not news at the institute since Templeton had already given Fraser $500,000 to demonstrate how capitalism can solve poverty and promote economic freedom in the Arab world, a region low in religious freedom, according to a Hudson Institute study. The demon this project seeks to exorcize, the Templeton Foundation website explains, is the "post-colonial legacy of European socialism and big government," which the Fraser describes as a "poisonous Western import."

Wal-Mart's spiritual soul

Big business is not greedy, malicious and unscrupulous, Malloch argues in his recent Templeton-funded book, Spiritual Enterprise: Doing Virtuous Business. Malloch counters these charges by suggesting that capitalist economies thrive because they have a "profound connection to a fundamentally religious frame of mind."

His argument falters, however, when he claims that the reason for Wal-Mart's success is because it operates according to a spiritually-based ethic. One might ask, though, how paying employees rock-bottom wages, exploiting off-shore sweatshops and driving long-established locally based businesses into bankruptcy illustrate a moral code.

Malloch's work should be of interest to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who embraces both branches of conservatism. When he first moved to Alberta, Harper chose to worship in churches linked to the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a Presbyterian evangelical spinoff. (When he moved to Ottawa, Harper found a small Alliance church in the city's east end.) It is a partner in the graduate school at Trinity Western University. According to the Alliance website, those who do not accept Jesus as their personal savior will suffer eternal torment, and the "second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is imminent and will be personal and visible."

Harper won't say if he subscribes to these beliefs. Nor will he reveal the depth of his economic conservatism, although in a recent speech to the Canadian right he defined conservatism as being made up of the "three Fs: freedom, family and faith."

As an undergraduate at the University of Calgary, Harper came under the influence of Friedrich Hayek, the patron saint of the Fraser Institute and conservative economists. According to his biographer William Johnson, Harper became a disciple. In his most famous book, The Road to Serfdom, Hayek argued that any government intervention such as social welfare or public education, no matter how well intentioned, will inevitably lead to slavery and serfdom.

Harper's two-sided base

To win elections, Harper needs both social and economic conservatives in his tent. In 2003, Harper discussed his strategy to achieve this at a Civitas Society annual meeting. This secretive organization, which blocks public access to all but minimal information on its website and leaves little paper or electronic trail, is a network of Canadian social and economic conservative academics, politicians, journalists and think-tank propagandists.

The Civitas founding directors include many leading lights in Canadian conservatism: Harper adviser Tom Flanagan, REAL Women's Gwen Landolt, David Frum and Ezra Levant, the Fraser Institute's Michael Walker and John Robson from the CD Howe Institute, Conservative MP Jason Kenney, Alberta Report's Ted Byfield and the National Citizen Coalition's David Somerville.

Civitas is top-heavy with journalists who promote conservative causes. Lorne Gunter of the National Post and Ottawa Citizen editorial writer John Robson are past-presidents. Members include Janet Jackson (Calgary Sun) and Danielle Smith (formerly Calgary Herald). Journalists Colby Cosh and William Watson (National Post) and Andrew Coyne (Maclean's) have made presentations to Civitas. The National Post's Barbara Kay edits the society's newsletter.

Harper's 2003 Civitas speech was the source of the charge made by the Liberals during the 2004 election that he had a scary, secret agenda. Harper claimed that all major parties had largely accepted an economic conservative frame. Now the task was to return to social conservatism and social values, to change gears from neo-con to theo-con, in The Report's Ted Byfield's apt but worrisome phrase, echoing visions of a future not unlike that painted in Margaret Atwood's dystopian work, A Handmaid's Tale.

The state should take a more activist role in policing social norms and values. To achieve this goal, he said, social and economic conservatives must reunite as they have in the U.S., where evangelical Christians and business ruled in an alliance under George W. Bush. Red Tories must be jettisoned from the party, he said, and alliances forged with ethnic and immigrant communities who currently vote Liberal but espouse traditional family values. This was the successful strategy counselled by the neo-cons under Ronald Reagan to pull conservative Democrats into the Republican tent.

It's also Harper's strategy, as evidenced by his appointment of Civitas co-founder Jason Kenney as his minister of citizenship and immigration and social conservative Gary Goodyear as his minister of science after the 2008 election.

Harper's high stakes balancing act

Not only does Harper have to hide his agenda from the Canadian voters, he must balance the demands of the social and economic conservatives in his coalition. Sometimes they want very different policies.

U.S Republican pollster Frank Luntz noticed the barely latent tensions between the two factions when he spoke at the 10th annual Civitas conference in suburban Ottawa three years later. "There seems to be a little pulling apart in this room between social conservatives and economic conservatives," he told 200 conservatives and one enterprising reporter with a tape recorder outside closed doors. "Ladies and gentlemen... we are one family... there is more that unites us than divides us."

Perhaps. But an issue like euthanasia, which was debated at the conference, shows the deep fissures between the camps, one family or not. Economic conservatives believe they own their bodies and can dispose of them as they see fit. Social conservatives believe that killing someone else, even with that person's consent, is a sin against God. There's little room for compromise, but bringing the factions together is Harper's party-building and election-winning agenda.

By co-sponsoring conservative scholars like Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, Trinity Western University and the Fraser Institute keep the fragile coalition alive, while Harper painstakingly constructs his parliamentary majority.

Related Tyee stories:

[Tyee]

Donald Gutstein is author of the forthcoming book Not A Conspiracy Theory: How Business Propaganda Is Jeopardizing Democracy (Key Porter, October 2009).

25 Comments:

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  • snert

    3 years ago

    Not believing is even better.

    "Belief in afterlife is good for growth: Theodore Malloch."

  • alive

    3 years ago

    So help me ***

    All of the above goes hand in hand with the old saying:
    "Keep her barefoot and pregnant"!

    I really thought we were past the stage of total ignorance in this country, but I forgot about the bible belt.

    With my tongue in cheek I can only say: "God help us"

    It is bad enough that some still believe in this religion stuff, but it is intolerable to have it influence politics!

  • deeby

    3 years ago

    He's already missed the boat....

    Regardless of whether his agenda is hidden or public, he's shot himself in the political foot so badly that it will fall to others to carry out the agenda.

    The tide has turned...Civitas needs to accept the fact that they're now firmly in the minority. Same goes for the Fraser Institute...the credibility of their economic philosphy is shot, and they can't keep repeating the same mantras and expect that everyone will swallow it like they once did.

  • seth

    3 years ago

    Harper majority or Theocracy?

    Harper's been getting away with it because the mainstream press has taken the mantra that a persons religious beliefs have nothing to do with the way they govern. A catholic who attends Mass Christmas and Easter is no different than born again Leviticans like Gary Goodyear and Stephen Harper who have sworn oaths to live by the dogma of their Boulder Colorado based Alliance church/political party.

    The mainstream media mantra ignores the difference between the average church attendee who views Church dogma as mythology. metaphors and symbology, with oath taking born agains like Harpers gang.These are not really Christians as they support very few of Christ's new testament beliefs (Jesus was the first socialist), they are Born Agains or Leviticans supporting much more the views of old testament prophets like Leviticus. They have no trouble rationalizing an answer to the question - Who would Jesus bomb.

    Kevin Phillips' in his book American Theocracy outlines the American fundamentalist strategy which can be summarized as govern as a normal just right of the centre party until absolute power is achieved i.e. the presidency house and senate majorities or a Canadian majority government then slam the country with the religious agenda. In other words first you give them your hand then ya give them the fist. It was these same fundamentalists led by James Dobson - one of Harper's mentors - who forced John McCain to accept Sarah Palin.

    Fortunately Canadians particularly Quebecers are much less tolerant of religious agendas than are Americans, so the agenda must be hidden. Since lying is a violation of the 9th commandment Harpers fundamentalist MP's have trouble telling fibs so Harper muzzles them. Fortunately these churches long ago started issuing Fatwa's allowing the political faithful to break the 9th commandment as it is in God's service.

    Former Maclean's editor Marcie MacDonalds layed it all out in her article "Steven Harper and the Theocons" in the Walrus a while back.

    Hence we have Harper implementing an environmental policy on paper but doing nothing because he believes it not. Canada's position in the middle East is all to do with Harper's belief in Tim LeHayes Left Behind philosophy.

    James Moore one of the very few secular members of Harpers cabal, is often trotted out to repeat the lie that his parties MP's hold an average mix of beliefs reflecting the mix we see in Canadian society as a whole. Yet before parliaments 2008 dissolution theocon Ken Epp's private members bill c-484 Unborn Victims of Crime Act a thinly disguised anti abortion measure received second reading with the 93% support from Harpers social conservatives. This was not ever reported in the Mainstream media.

  • Jeffrey J.

    3 years ago

    Church and State Conjoined

    The history behind the separation of Church and State is a democratic achievement rarely seen in past societies. It was resisted by the elites, tooth and nail, and is by no means guaranteed to remain in the future.

    If citizens don't become re-engaged in social activism, there is every likelihood that power will be re-consolidated. Bringing an increase in unilateral power that we can all read about in times past.

    This is a very disturbing trend initiated by people who all drink the same cool-aide. Not to be dismissed lightly. For more analysis I recommend Thomas Frank's recent "Wrecking Crew". http://tcfrank.com/

    Thanks Tyee and Prof. Gutstein for pivotal coverage of a signifiant anti-democratic issue.

  • Van Isle

    3 years ago

    What ever happened to the

    What ever happened to the simple concept of 'seperation between church and state'?

  • Fiat lux

    3 years ago

    Faith conquers all!

    Faith conquers all!

    Especially logical thought.

    I wonder how they explain why Jesus drove the capitalists of the day, the money lenders, from the Temple? No wonder they crucified Him for this sin alone.

    Because wealth can not be made, only taken from others, the world has always been ruled by the conspiracy of 3 sectors, who always have done with "wealth creation" into their own pockets:

    The Merchants who develop the demands for the "takings".

    The Priesthoods who develop the theories for the legalization of grand theft, or even the mass murder of millions, as the "Will of God".

    The Military who do the dirty work, believing that they're following "divine orders".

    The funny thing is how all these pathetic wretches of humanity always preach against and demand "less government", in short for the destruction of democracy, so they can set up faith based dictatorships.

    I've asked a few how they would like to drive on roads without any laws, no cops, no licences, encouraging and rewarding those who can force and destroy more other road users? They were horrified of the thought.

    Yet, the same faithful think nothing of sentencing 30,000 little children, to die today and every day, of hunger and thirst, because, in their warped minds, helping them would be some kind of interference with divine plans and a form of "socialism", definitely not favoured by God.

    Ed Deak.

  • IranianDude

    3 years ago

    Faith <> logic

    I look down on people who have convinced themselves there's an invisible man in the sky. I don't beat around the bush ... you come to me with your stupid pamphlet, I'll call you on you nonesense and say, right in your face, that you are a moron.

    Speaking of morons, it shows the character of our nations when we elect a man of faith as our prime minister.

    Faith and religion are dimatarically opposed concepts. You can only pick one.

    I pick free will and rationality over stupidity, superstitions and fairy tale.

  • IranianDude

    3 years ago

    It should read: Faith and

    It should read:

    Faith and logic are dimatrically opposed

  • Booker

    3 years ago

    Moral Code

    "One might ask, though, how paying employees rock-bottom wages, exploiting off-shore sweatshops and driving long-established locally based businesses into bankruptcy illustrate a moral code."

    It does illustrate a moral code: might makes right. That is their creed, and that's why they hate government.

  • Rod Smelser

    3 years ago

    Whatever happened to the social gospel

    People tend to be alarmed by a mixing of religion and politics, at least when it runs contrary to their own brands of either religion or politics. The notion that Liberals have stopped campaigning on the church doorsteps, that this is now a purely Tory trick, is simply too laughable for words.

    The CCF was founded by J S Woodsworth, a minister, and early and not-so-early leaders of the CCF/NDP included Stanley Knowles and T C Douglas, both ministers. They believed that Christian principles required them to be concerned about society generally, and about the poor, and to be involved politically in alleviating problems like unemployment and poverty.

    If the NDP today, at either the national or provincial level, were led by a minister of a Christian church, any church, and that leader invoked religious arguments in support of universal day care or minimum wages or drug coverage or international aid or peacekeeping missions, what would the reaction be? That this religious loudmouth was mixing religion and politics and is a dangerous kook?

  • pender paul

    3 years ago

    Christians/Lions

    Two lions are lounging in the sun near the arena. One asks the other "what's on the schedule for this afternoon?" "Oh" says the second lion, "the Romans are tossing us some more Christians." "But Christians give me indigestion," says the first lion. The second lion responds "Buddy, Christians give everyone indigestion."

  • North of Hope

    3 years ago

    they are just opportunists

    The thing that irks me is that these right-wing Christians do not follow Christ's teachings. If they did,they would help the poor and down-trodden. They would love sinners. I actually believe they are not Christians, they are just opportunists.

  • cerea

    3 years ago

    spiritual capitalism

    If prayer dosen't work legislate it. If god doesn't answer your prayer ask the goverment.
    Cerea

  • Fiat lux

    3 years ago

    Another 4 Canadian soldiers

    Another 4 Canadian soldiers died in Afghanistan, as they will continue to die one by one until the people at home come to their senses and force the government to pull them out.

    Ed Deak.

  • morechatter

    3 years ago

    Government has no soul

    So Lord give me break, the only reason I can see Harper's group getting Holier than thou is his desire to be the Ruler. And funny thing about these guys on top they often thing the puck stops here.
    It brings Bush to mind with his beliefs or superstition what ever you want to call them as he used it to become the president as talks of his sitting with God and How God told Burning Bush you gotta go blow up the place and kill millions and then rest before going on speaking engagements. Amen

  • Booker

    3 years ago

    Spiritual Capital

    Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
    My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
    Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
    So Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?

    Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a color TV ?
    Dialing For Dollars is trying to find me.
    I wait for delivery each day until three,
    So oh Lord, won’t you buy me a color TV?

    Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a night on the town?
    I’m counting on you, Lord, please don’t let me down.
    Prove that you love me and buy the next round,
    Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a night on the town?

    JJ

  • morechatter

    3 years ago

    Booker Good One

    Because it is the exact song that I was singing after reading this article.

    Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?

    And the homeless guy what do you thinks in his prayers? Or maybe thats the problem many are lost sheep says our Lord the Shephard.

    Oh Lord, won't you help me find them a home?
    I'm counting on you,Lord, please don't let them down.
    cc

  • dorothy

    3 years ago

    Here is another spade

    Spiritualism co-opted by business and political interest, huh? Him and Paul both.

    Something for nothing, huh? How come the people who say this are always in the kind of business where they themselves get something for nothing – other than bafflegab?

    Organized religion has been the scourge of this globe. All the fixes we are in is due to it and its unholy alliances with big business and political power-mongers. Have we forgotten that the lack of fear of Hell and the Devil were considered sure signs one was in league with the Prince of Darkness? You couldn’t win, you were either guilty unto death or innocent, but dead. No doubt it’s good for business.

    There is no diff between these people and the Taliban. They want back to the dark ages, where poor illiterate sods crawled on their bellies and spent their lives working themselves into an early grave, hoping to achieve deliverance out of the Hell, which they all knew was on this Earth, created by their fellow man. They want to get more growth, more babies, more workers/consumers, more mullah, more glory, so they themselves can live in the grand illusion that they’re never really gonna die and be confronted with the truth to their lies on the other side. They want to get all this on the backs of other people if need be, and it always does.

    I say, go on procreation strike. Don’t deliver them the numbers. That’ll pull the rug right out from under them. They’ll try to ‘control’ the women just like the Taliban do. That’s where the war is now. Just look at the mad scramble by Bono and other minions to pull money out of our pockets to maintain the source of cheap labor everywhere! It hasn’t got anything to do with human compassion, more with populating the factories that will produce 49 cent sneakers for Walmart.

    Amen

  • reality_check

    3 years ago

    Religion is for the very wealthy ...

    Religion was created to give protection to the very wealthy and to give hope to the very poor!

    The rich and wealthy wage wars from their palaces from which they watch the poor die away from their homes.

  • RickW

    3 years ago

    Ed! You're back!

    and feeling better, I hope!

    Quote:
    Because wealth can not be made, only taken from others, the world has always been ruled by the conspiracy of 3 sectors, who always have done with "wealth creation" into their own pockets

    Capitalism is nothing more than a very elaborate chain letter, or Ponzi scheme.

  • RickW

    3 years ago

    Nothing new here

    Quote:
    Right-wing guru urges melding religion and money making.

    It's always been thus.

  • MichaelT

    3 years ago

    well if anyone has half a

    well if anyone has half a brain and researched Harper he or she would soon discover that Harper's impetus in the so-called conservative movement consisted of merging social conservatives - ie fundamentalists - with economic interests.

    he has said so again and again.

    it is his M.O. and it has not worked and never will, not will it succeed in generating a majority for the left either btw Tyee,

  • James Burns

    3 years ago

    You say Tomato...

    Malloch hmmm... since we're on the topic of religion, Malloch is very similar to the name of the demon Moloch reputed to demand costly sacrifice... kinda ironic that.

  • lyrical

    3 years ago

    Spiritual Attack Ads

    I wonder where, in Conservative family values, do attack ads come from? I guess if you can get donations for your political party using someone else's awkward image, THAT would be considered good business.

    The BBC posted an article today on quantum physics and dividing science by God:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7955846.stm
    A research project the Conservatives might like to fund?

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