Deuteronomy's Guide to Compassionate Capitalism

Do Not Maximize Profits

Wall Street pushes companies to maximize its profits. Deuteronomy gives a mandate for when and why we should not do that.

When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this. (Deuteronomy 24:19-22)

It is very counter intuitive for a farmer to not gather everything that grows on his farm. Leave some for the poor? How would that apply to us today? Perhaps it means that a percentage of the productive capacity of every company ought to be distributed to the poor.
 
Some Forms of Stealing Is Not Stealing

If a farmer does not gather all that grows on his farm, then how do the poor get to it? Well, the poor have to go and take it. The earlier verses implied it, the following verses make it explicit.

If you go into your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in your bag. If you go into your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor's standing grain. (Deuteronomy 23:24-25)

Yes, that sounds so weird to let the poor come and take what is yours. But there is a provision to ensure that you're not pillaged. If they use a tool, then they've taken too much. If they use their hands, then you let them have what they want. It would be like a grocery store letting the poor take whatever they can carry in their hands, but not if they use bags. I'm not advocating petty theft. This should only apply for the destitute poor. 99.99% of us are not poor that way.

Fairness to Fight Oppression

Those who have money often oppress those who do not have money. The Bible clearly teaches that those who have money ought not to do that. Don't use money to lord over people. Instead, give people what is due them. This command is unique because it is one of the Jewish laws that applied to both Jews and Gentiles. They understood that this type of fairness ought to be universal.

You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns. You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets (for he is poor and counts on it), lest he cry against you to the LORD, and you be guilty of sin. (Deuteronomy 24:14-15)

This verse isn't advocating that we go away from a monthly payroll system so that we all become day laborers. The point is to pay people regularly so that we do not take advantage of the poor. I take it one step further because I think that paying people regularly to ensure they are not oppressed also implies that doing X to oppress people is bad. Now X can mean many things. In our day and age, most companies follow the law and pay people regularly. But they don't always go above and beyond the law. Sometimes the law allows X, but X actually oppresses the poor. So we should go above and beyond the letter of the law and love others out of oppression.
 
Generous Lending
 
Be generous.

You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but you may not charge your brother interest, that the LORD your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. (Deuteronomy 23:19-20)

Some take this to mean that we should never make loans with interest. I don't think so. In another circumstance, Jesus even condemned those who wasted the opportunity to make money by charging interest.

Why then did you not put my money in the bank, and at my coming I might have collected it with interest? (Luke 19:23)

So I think the statement to not charge interest should be taken in the context of loving the poor. It makes sense because sometimes people would lend money by taking collateral. That is a form of profit because you can use the collateral for something. In the cases of collateral taking, God commands that we be willing to give up the very collateral we took.

When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge. You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you. And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep in his pledge. You shall restore to him the pledge as the sun sets, that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you. And it shall be righteousness for you before the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 24:10-13)

Imagine if we applied this today. Then we wouldn't have banks that would charge exhorbitant interest to the poor. We wouldn't charge them crazy loans and then take their houses away from them when they can't pay it.
 
And for what purpose? That we may be righteous before God. So, love the poor.