CAPITALIST
KJV References
The word “capitalist” is not found in the KJV. The word “publican” which Smith and Vincent compare to “capitalist” is found 23 times.
Telōnēs, Greek Strong's #5057, is found 22 times in the New Testament. It is translated as “publican,” meaning a tax-farmer, i.e. collector of public revenue, in the following verses:
Matthew 5:46 – 47 - For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
Matthew 9:10 – 11 - And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?
Matthew 10:3 - Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus;
Matthew 11:19 - The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.
Matthew 18:17 - And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
Matthew 21:31 – 32 - Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.
Mark 2:15 – 16 - And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him. And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?
Luke 3:12 - Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do?
Luke 5:27-30 - And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me. And he left all, rose up, and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them. But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?
Luke 7:29-34 - And all the people that heard him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him. And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are they like? They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept. For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!
Luke 15:1 - Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him.
Luke 18:10-14 - Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
Architelōnēs, Greek Strong's #754, is used 1 time in the New Testament, translated as “chief among the publicans” in the following verse:
Luke 19:2 - And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich.
Smith's Bible Dictionary, William Smith, 1863
PUBLICAN
The class designated by this word in the New Testament were employed as collectors of the Roman revenue. The Roman senate farmed the vectigalia (direct taxes) and the portorin (customs) to capitalists who undertook to pay a given sum into the treasury (in publicum), and so received the name of publicani. Contracts of this kind fell naturally into the hands of the equites, as the richest class of Romans. They appointed managers, under whom were the portitores, the actual custom-house officers, who examined each bale of goods, exported or imported, assessed its value more or less arbitrarily, wrote out the ticket, and enforced payment. The latter were commonly natives of the province in which they were stationed as being brought daily into contact with all classes of the population. The name pubicani was used popularly, and in the New Testament exclusively, of the portitores. The system was essentially a vicious one. The portitores were encouraged in the most vexatious or fraudulent exactions and a remedy was all but impossible. They overcharged whenever they had an opportunity, they brought false charges of smuggling in the hope of extorting hush-money they detained and opened letters on mere suspicion. It was the basest of all livelihoods. All this was enough to bring the class into ill favor everywhere. In Judea and Galilee there were special circumstances of aggravation. The employment brought out all the besetting vices of the Jewish character. The strong feeling of many Jews as to the absolute unlawfulness of paying tribute at all made matters worse. The scribes who discussed the question, for the most part answered it in the negative. In addition to their other faults, accordingly, the publicans of the New Testament were regarded as traitors and apostates, defiled by their frequent intercourse with the heathen, willing tools of the oppressor. The class thus practically excommunicated furnished some of the earliest disciples both of the Baptist and of our Lord. The position of Zacchæus as a "chief among the publicans," implies a gradation of some kind among the persons thus employed.
Word Studies in the New Testament, Marvin Vincent, 1886
Publicans (τελῶναι)
From τέλος, a tax, and ὠνέομαι, to buy. The collectors of Roman imposts. The Romans farmed out the direct taxes and customs-duties to capitalists, on their payment of a certain sum in publicum, into the public treasury, whence they were called publicani, publicans. Sometimes this sum, being greater than any one person could pay, was paid by a company. Under these were the submagistri, living in the provinces; and under these again the portitores, or actual custom-house officers, who are referred to by the term τελῶναι in the New Testament. They were often chosen from the dregs of the people, and were so notorious for their extortions that they were habitually included in the same category with harlots and sinners. "If a Jew could scarcely persuade himself that it was right to pay taxes, how much more heinous a crime must it have been in his eyes to become the questionably honest instrument for collecting them. If a publican was hated, how still more intense must have been the disgust entertained against a publican who was also a Jew" (Farrar, "Life of Christ"). The word "publican," as a popular term of reproach, was used even by our Lord (Matthew 18:17). Even the Gentiles despised them. Farrar cites a Greek saying, "All publicans are robbers."
Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language, 1828
CAPITALIST, noun
A man who has a capital or stock in trade, usually denoting a man of large property, which is or may be employed in business.
Century Dictionary, 1895
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A Dictionary of Marxist Thought, Gajo Petrović, 1983
The act (or result of the act) of transforming human properties, relations and actions into properties, relations and actions of man produced things which have become independent (and which are imagined as originally independent) of man and govern his life. Also transformation of human beings into thing like beings which do not behave in a human way but according to the laws of the thing world. Reification is a ‘special’ case of ALIENATION, its most radical and widespread form characteristic of modern capitalist society.
Are You… Liberal? Conservative? Or Confused?, Richard Maybury, 2004
Capitalism. Great emphasis on free trade and limited government. Widespread respect and, in some cases, reverence for the individual’s right to life, liberty, and property. Capitalism is the stage [of Marxist social evolution] in which massive amounts of savings are accumulated because taxes are low. The savings are available for what economists call “capital formation” – the creation of large machines, farms, factories, offices, and other sources of jobs and production. Under capitalism life spans lengthen as the tools finally become available to conquer disease, cold, hunger, and filth. Marxists believe capitalism is hard on workers because employers earn more money than workers do. It may not be an exaggeration to say the American Revolution was a war to legalize capitalism.
Anti-Thought Control Dictionary, Ben Williams
http://benwilliamslibrary.com/dictionar ... capitalism
CAPITALISM
CONTROLLED MEANING: Freedom to invest in, and own, property. Free Enterprise. The opposite of Communism. The thing that keeps us free in the Western World. Capitalism exists only in democracies like America, Britain, and Western Europe.
CORRECT MEANING: A term, first used in the English language in 1854, for a system which profits from manipulation of "capital" rather than from work, genius and production. It provides for, and protects, plutocrats (those who rule by wealth — Capitalist prototypes) who profiteer from "capital" swindled from the industry, skills and labor of others. Capitalists neither labor nor create. They worship capital, which they hold sacred above all else — above law, truth, liberty and even life. Bankers (Plutocrats) hold mortgage on, and collect usury from, nearly all capital in existence. They are the epitome of Capitalism.
"Capitalism," then, is merely a euphemism for the Debt/Usury Banking System. It is NOT "free enterprise," but tightly controlled and restricted. It completely demolishes freedom by imposing controls, restrictions and taxes upon all labor and property. In contrast, free commerce and property cannot be regulated. Capitalism eliminates competition by transferring wealth into the hands of the banking plutocrats who use it to enslave the people.
Capitalism and Communism are not opposites. Capitalism is simply a system which favors Capitalists. A Capitalist is one who profits from Capital. Capital is the trading stock of a company, corporation or individual. Capitalists neither labor nor create. They profiteer off others' industry, skills and labor.
The main difference between Western economics ("Capitalism") and Eastern economics ("Communism") is that Capitalists enslave people subtly by controlling Capital, while Communists enslave people openly — showing that the slaves, themselves, are the "Capital" or "trading stock" (see DAS KAPITAL, by Karl Marx). Either way, the public is enslaved and forced to support the financial and political rulers.
Points of logic:
1. Capitalists worship Capital. Capital is held sacred above all else — above law, truth, liberty and even life (see Rev. 18:9-13 "souls of men" is last in priority).
2. Bankers own, or hold mortgage on, nearly all Capital. Therefore, bankers are the stockholders and the real Capitalists.
3. "Capitalism" is merely a euphemism for the "Debt/Usury Banking System.
See “The Rise and Fall of Capitalism” by Ben Williams
http://benwilliamslibrary.com/pdfs/st10-11&12.pdf
Alexander Solzhenitsyn:
There also exists another alliance -- at first glance a strange one, a surprising one -- but if you think about it, in fact, one which is well grounded and easy to understand. This is the alliance between our Communist leaders and your capitalists. This alliance is not new. ... We observe continuous and steady support by the businessmen of the West of the Soviet Communist leaders.
John Maynard Keynes:
Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
… Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
Michael Rothschild:
Fortunately, political freedom and economic progress are natural partners. Despite capitalism's lingering reputation as the source of all the world's evils, the fact remains that every single democracy is a capitalist country. Half a century of economic experimentation proved beyond doubt that tyranny cannot yield prosperity. ... Socialism collapsed because it is a policy of unrestrained intervention. It tries to fix what is 'wrong' with the spontaneous, self-organizaing phenomenon called capitalism. But, of course, a natural process cannot be 'fixed.' ... Socialism is an ideology. Capitalism is a natural phenomenon.
Dr. Ron Paul:
Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven’t had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It’s not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism!
Ayn Rand:
Make no mistake about it -- and tell it to your Republican friends: capitalism and altruism cannot coexist in the same man or in the same society. Tell it to anyone who attempts to justify capitalism on the ground of the "public good" or the "general welfare" or "service to society" or the benefit it brings to the poor. All these things are true, but they are the by-products, the secondary consequences of capitalism -- not its goal, purpose or moral justification. The moral justification of capitalism is man's right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; it is the recognition that man -- every man -- is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others, not a sacrificial animal serving anyone's need.
Sir Winston Churchill:
The inherent vice of capitalism is the uneven division of blessings, while the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of misery.
Nikita Khrushchev:
We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism.