Washington Post God doesn’t run markets, people do
_Stephen Colbert, the brilliant comedian, has given a name to the idea that our market economy is “God’s plan.” He calls it “moneytheism.”_ (http://www.wikiality.com/Moneytheism) This is a play on the term “monotheism,” which means a belief in one God. “Moneytheism” is “the American faith in the free market.” Sometimes it takes a comic to expose the unrealistic and yet powerful religious and cultural trends that underlie the American conservative religious faith in the “self-regulating” market where government isn’t necessary, and God’s in charge. But our current economic problems aren’t a God-problem, they are a “ people-problem.” People run the market, and people in general aren’t saints (though they are not devils, either!). Economic policies of tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy are the result of political processes that favor those economic interests over the majority of the people. In 1932, _Reinhold Niebuhr, the great Christian theologian_ (http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Man-Immoral-Society-Theological/dp/0664224741) of the 20th century, wrote from the depths of another economic downturn that_ “economic power has become irresponsible in society.”_ (http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Man-Immoral-Society-Theological/dp/0664224741) Niebuhr believed that economic interests had simply overwhelmed the political process through an excess of power. Sound familiar? But while the economic power of a few irresponsible corporations is currently pulling the strings of political power in Washington, D.C., there is another source of power in a democracy. This is the power of people to choose to act together to better their own lives and the lives of their children. This idea that ordinary Americans are the basis of power in a free economy is also a profoundly religious vision. There are two competing theologies of our economy: there is the “let God [and the market] take care of it” view, and there is the moral vision of human dignity and worth where our economy is the place where we exercise our creativity, and where we recognize that we also need to take care of each other because no one economic system is perfect. This second moral vision, in a Christian perspective, is best understood through retrieving important theological work that has been done in this area and bringing it to our current situation. The vision we need today has its roots in the “Social Gospel” of the beginning of the twentieth century, in the work of people like_ Walter Rauschenbusch and his Christian interpretation of what a good economy _ (http://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Social-Crisis-21st-Century/dp/B002KE47JO/ref=pd_sim_b4) should look like and the principles on which it should be based. People need both a means to practical economic advancement and respect for their human dignity and equal worth. This moral vision is not idealistic, but realistic, and it is not incompatible with market economies. Market economies allow for human creativity and initiative in a way that centralized economies often do not. Another source for thinking about a moral vision for a decent economy is found in the work of Pope John Paul II. The late pontiff brought a unique experience to his work in the papacy because he had grown up in Poland under Communist rule and he supported the labor movement in its protests against the exploitation of workers in that system. He brought that experience to his reflections on human nature and the economy. He concluded that decent working conditions are central to human dignity. In his well-known encyclical “ _On Human Work_ (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091981_laborem-exercens_en.html) ,” he states that work is fundamental to the truth of the human condition. Through work, people become who they are intended to be. Through work, human beings share “ in the activity of the Creator”_ (Laborem Exercens, V.25)._ (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091981_l aborem-exercens_en.html) Human dignity is not passive, but active. It is something that we practice. Human potential is more fulfilled when people have the means to express their creativity and an important way they do that is through work (though it is not the only way). By the same token, when people are denied the ability to fulfill their human potential through work because there are no jobs, this is a denial of the dignity of what it means to be human. Society thus has both a practical and a moral obligation to promote economic systems that allow for the widest possible expression of human potential through work. Few religious people today, whether conservative, progressive or anywhere in between, really seem to recognize the fundamental link between sound economic practices and respect for human dignity. We must reclaim the moral vision of economic progress through a deep-seated commitment to helping create and sustain economic systems that draw upon and stimulate human creativity. In the last decade, however, our economic system has produced fewer and fewer jobs, and the jobs it has produced are more in the lower-paying, service sector. Tax cuts for the wealthy, wage suppression tactics, undercutting unions, and other deliberate practices created almost a decade of declining or stagnant wages and slow or no real job growth. These tactics increase profits at the expense of workers. Often Americans have had to work two or even three jobs to make ends meet, sacrificing family time and even adequate rest to make even a modest living. These kinds of jobs do not honor human dignity; they erode a sense of self-worth and contribute to a sense of helplessness and despair. They are a direct attack on the fundamental dignity and worth of human beings as expressed through their work. Human dignity and worth is the theological basis for a moral economy, as I write at much greater length in my book,_ Dreaming of Eden: American Religion and Politics in a Wired World. _ () God doesn’t run the markets, it’s true, and the “invisible hand” of the market can be made quite visible by looking at the corporate interests behind it. But that does not mean that our economy is not an occasion for acting on our moral principles. The moral vision we need today is one that puts human dignity and worth at the center; a market economy, left to its own devices, is actually value neutral. The values need to be actively debated and inserted into our economic life both through regulation, and through social policies that help those whom the economy has left behind, who through age, or disability or a host of limiting factors, need a hand up from their neighbors. Religion does play a role in our political debates over the economy. And it is well past time to challenge the “God’s plan” view of the economy, and put out a strong moral vision of a decent economy for all, one that values human dignity and worth, and the God who created us in God’s image. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite | Sep 28, 2011 -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
