Because conservatism is more important to them than religion, essentially.
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Does not explain why do they support capitalistic policies , and this is not just in the US but other countries too!
It does.
(You can say the same about existing socialist democratic policies, too.)
It's just indoctrination.
People believe what they are taught, and relatively few questions anything seriously.
The majority of people continue to believe the religion they were raised in.
The majority of people believe in the economic system they were raised in.
The majority of the world's countries use mixes of capitalist & socialist policies (ie free-market economies with social safety net programs).
So most people support capitalist free-market systems, and would say they are pro-capitalism.
They also don't want you to cut their retirement government program levels.
And though most won't claim to support socialism, they love firefighters or libraries or roads, and they can't tell there's no difference. Because they aren't taught to question.
And most don't want to replace their existing systems with completely different systems. They just want them to provide better tesults and be less costly.
Religion is most effective at converting those more inclined to believe propaganda & appeals to authority.
So these dichotomies are even worse & more prevalent for the religious.
Those people breed children of mostly similar sentiment. If raised capitalist, those religious children won't question the obvious conflict. Their authorities tell them it's ok.
Their authorities may even modify the religion to fit the mold (ie Prosperity Gospel).
The religious authorities who suggest questioning existing systems receive pushback from followers and the system itself when they encourage critical thinking regarding the conflicts of capitalism and religion.
Examples include Martin Luther King Jr & the current Pope, both of whom were not well received with their criticisms of capitalism.
So again, it is just indoctrination with a sprinkling of ignorance.
They dont want to be inconvenienced by their religion.
Behind the bastards did a 2 part podcast on this
[Behind the Bastards] Part One: How The Rich Ate Christianity 🅴 #behindTheBastards https://podcastaddict.com/behind-the-bastards/episode/137287957 via @PodcastAddict
Because communism bad mkay? These god-hating commies trying to take away our religious freedumz. Don't you know there's only 2 ecomonic systems in the world? It's Capitalism vs Communism and communism bad because authoritarianism. There's totally no possible mixed economy compromises like that those idiots tried in Norway where a democracy still exists.
What is the percentage of the Western world that believes in profit motive and private ownership of property, 90%? I don't think it's BECAUSE they are religious conservatives.
I don't think religions are inherently socialistic. There's a socialist reading of the text, but in terms of like the historical role of the Catholic church it was more like a government than a commune. Governments aren't inherently socialistic (unless you're using a pretty broad view of the word). They help the poor and set rules to follow but they're only directly managing their portion (10%-30%) of the economy, the rest can be anything.
Religious when it is about gay and trans people mostly.
And evolution. And maybe climate change.
I'd start by narrowing the scope of this question to conservative Christians in the US and Europe. India has a larger population that the US and the EU combined, is quite religiously conservative and leans socialist. Even though the Catholic Church issued a "Decree Against Communism" in 1949, that has since been amended and many Catholics around the world embrace socialism. While modern Muslims do participate in market economies, Islam has some fairly strict laws against capitalism; Sukuk is the complex workaround they use in order to get against their prohibition against charging interest.
For Christians in the US and Europe I think there are a few major components.
Christianity has had strong capitalist elements for a long time. In particular, John Calvin argued, among other things, that God rewards good Christians in this life as well as the next. These rewards can take the form of material wealth and therefore material wealth is evidence of God's favor. This philosophy was obviously extremely popular among the wealthy.
After WWII the US government wanted a way to convince people that our erstwhile allies, the USSR and China should now be considered enemies. One obvious element to emphasize was that they were both Communists. An element of Communism was godlessness, "Religion is the opiate of the masses." So the US took the contrary stance and presented itself as a Christian nation. Two of the more obvious results were that "under God" was added to the pledge of allegiance and Congress replaced the unofficial "E Pluribus unum" (out of many, one) with, "In God we trust." Since it was primarily intended to be anti-communist it was, effectively, pro-capitalist.
In the US there was also a deliberate shift when George HW Bush realized that evangelical Christians made up a large part of the Republican base. At the time churches had a fairly strong aversion to politics. They generally considered politics and economics to be part of the profane world and thought it was beneath them. He managed to convince them that the profane wasn't just irrelevant to spiritual health, it was an active threat. By this view, good Christians couldn't ignore politics they had to take an active role to help fight Satan. Since the Republicans were the ones actively recruiting Evangelicals into politics they made sure the message stayed supportive of their policies (including economic policies).
Because most religious conservatives don't think beyond "what is acceptable to my group" and do that. Or appear to do that. And not rocking the boat is highly valued in those communities, so people who want to abuse others financially find ripe ground for it.
I can't answer for America, but generally in democracies you get two and only two parties. Anyone taking a middle position cripples the side they're closest to.
Before Socialism was a thing, England had 'Liberals/Whigs' (what yanks would call libertarians, because they've somehow managed to repurpose the word liberal to mean the opposite of what it means) and 'Conservatives/Tories' (king and country and church and don't change things because you'll break them and hurt people).
And of course, like all political groups do, they hated each other.
The Church of England was once known as the Tory Party at Prayer. The Liberals were the radicals, the party of industry and progress and free markets and who cares who it hurts as long as it's the future.
With the rise of socialism/fascism/anarchism/progressivism, a truly radical program to rebuild society on utopian lines and use totalitarian terror to enable even more freedom and progress and human happiness, represented in England by the Labour Party, the 'conservatives' and 'liberals' were squeezed, and combined to oppose socialist thought, which hated them both and wanted to destroy everything they thought was worthwhile in the world.
So there came to pass an uneasy alliance in England between classical liberals and religious loonies, who'd naturally detest each other.
That's the modern Conservative party, who want to use radical social transformation and the power of the free market to go back to the glorious past, and are very much in favour of freedom of speech and thought as long as it's the sort of speech and thought that they approve of.
The Liberal Party effectively ceased to exist, because in its radicalism and desire for progress, it was more sympathetic to socialist thought, and so it got crushed.
Socialism has rather collapsed as an idea after an hundred years of practical experience with utopia, leaving Labour as the party of 'every problem can be solved by stealing more money and spending it on subsidies'. A position which is popular with those who benefit from subsidy, and unpopular with those who get their stuff stolen.
And of course, few of the people in either party actually believe in the causes they publicly espouse. They're not stupid. But public communications have to be simple-minded and rally tribal support.
Obviously this is a terrible system, but it's better than regular civil war, which is what you get in all other systems of government.
that was the most readable version of modern politics i have ever come across.
i learned a lot. thank you so much!
So kind! Thank you.
Forgive me, I am editing it in-place as more thoughts occur to me, so do make sure you still agree with it when I stop doing that, and edit your comment appropriately.
*Democracies using first-past-the-post without proportional representation
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I can’t answer for America, but generally in democracies you get two and only two parties.
Your answer is both incredible specific to the UK and subtly incorrect. I don't quite have the time to write a full rebuttal, but the more egregious of errors is this one:
The Liberals were the radicals, the party of industry and progress and free markets and who cares who it hurts as long as it’s the future.
One of the core tenets of liberalism is the harm principle. Sure progress is important but so is not harming anyone. Your post seems to equate only socialism with bringing good to British society, when that quite simply is just not true, and refutable. The Labour Party in the UK quite successfully adopted a lot of the items on the liberal agenda, such as gender equality.
The FPTP system is quite poisonous to the political debate in the UK as the natural tendency that only one of two parties can dominate and thus removes all nuance and creates toxic tribalism.
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@jungekatz all the other answers are far more nuanced, and explain a lot more detail, but the most simple answers to your question are 1. Propaganda and 2. Herd mentality/echo chamber thinking.
Could they be more credulous and hence more susceptible to the lies corporations tell us?
This isn't how it is. But it's how they see it. Again, this is from their point of view. Or at least, it's what I heard from them.
Capitalism is about self reliance, "pulling yourself up by bootstraps", getting out there and making your own way with no higher power (as in humans) standing in your way. They see socialism as a government forcing people to give up their own hard earned gains to give to others. The difference with Christianity is because God is telling them to do it. If God tells you to go feed the poor, then it's OK. If you choose to do it yourself, then it's also fine. If the government wants to do it without promoting their religion, then it's bad. Because you're not doing it for God.