Untitled March 16, 2009
Posted by Zack in Missouri , trackbackHey all! Listen, this is just a rough draft for discussion — just an experiment to try to figure out how to make some of these points. Let me know if you have any reactions.
Middleclass Christians are trying to figure out how to use their wealth to eliminate poverty around the world. It’s a beautiful movement that’s infecting churches everywhere. Last week I listened to this message at a church in London and then came home yesterday to the same message at church in Kansas City.
Ending poverty has been a central mission of the church since the beginning. For most of the 20th century, however, much of the church picked up a “conservative” (I’d say radical) ideology that shifted responsibility to the the “invisible hand” of the market to take care of the poor. But as we dive into this new era, we find ourselves relying on ideas from that old conservative ideology.
In his book Everything Must Change, Brian McLaren, suggests we change the story we live by — away from a story of competition and greed toward a story of sharing and love. Millions of Christians are doing that. But even if the plot is changing, the setting and characters are still taken from the pages of the old story. We have to change the very elements from which we’re constructing this new story of the church.
In the old Capitalist story, the main character is the individual — or family, or small group — who works in jobs or starts enterprises for money. The story follows our main characters from job to job, enterprise to enterprise. It’s a story of freedom and independence because the characters are free to choose any job or start any enterprise — and free to spend the money earned however they want.
Mainstream Middleclass Christians are mainly focusing their rethinking on the conclusion of that story: on what they should do with the money they earn. They’re questioning whether the freedom to float from cubicle to cubicle, even with a high salary, is the right kind of freedom to chase. They’re seeking instead a different kind of freedom: the kind that comes from vulnerability, dependence and community. (The strength of a religious approach to social justice shines here. Listen to Tim Keel’s sermon (March 15) that I witnessed yesterday at Jacob’s Well church in Kansas City and try to imagine a non-religious equivalent. To bolster our confidence in taking the leap of faith toward community, he has available both a big-picture philosophy of the world as well as an incredibly powerful and useful philosophy of the self. A non-religious approach (today at least) simply has to say, “Do this because it’s the right thing to do.” Which isn’t anywhere close to being enough.)
But how to get there? Two answers are popular now. The more mainstream one is: Give your money to the poor. The other one, a little more radical, focuses more on the system itself as a problem. It’s answer is to withdraw — for example by quitting your capitalist jobs and starting a cooperative enterprise. Most churches who have caught the anti-poverty bug include people who are pursuing a mix of both approaches.
The problem with both of those new stories, however, is that the main character held over from the old story — the individual or small group as an economic producer and consumer — doesn’t exist anymore in the real world. When we understand that, then we are led to a different kind of story because the setting and characters are different as well as the plot. I’ll get there, but first let me try to back up and explain what I’ve said so far.
Have you ever met anyone who has a perfectly inverted picture of themselves — for example, parents who believe they are raising independent children, but who are really smothering them? Well, our economic system, capitalism is a little bit like that. The story that capitalist society tells about itself is a story about a society made up of free, independent workers and entrepreneurs. That story has been told by philosopher/economists from John Locke to Tom Friedman, and woven into every breath of popular culture. The reality is the exact opposite: Capitalism’s revolutionary project during it’s 500 year run has been to build one great unified machine of production in which we are all completely dependent on each other. I realize that sounds a little bit like the interdependent community that Christians are looking for, but it’s not as simple as that.
Think of some items that you could not do without: I don’t know, maybe a drug that saved your life, the furnace that keeps you from freezing in the Winter, and your bicycle that gets you to work. Nearly every important thing we rely on is produced through the social effort of thousands — possibly millions — of workers. (Remember to count not only the workers who assembled the thing, but also the ones who made all the parts, the ones who made all the machines and equipment used in the process, the ones who mined, transported and prepared all the materials, and so on.)
When times are good, and jobs outnumber workers, it’s easy to forget about our interdependence because, as we float from job to job, and our paychecks command more than we could possibly consume, we could not feel more independent.
When the system contracts, on the other hand, our utter dependence becomes immediately and painfully clear.
But, in these hard times, in this capitalist system, who do we find that we’re dependent on for our living? Our fellow producers? No. We’re dependent on the owners of capital — the system is set up to serve them, not us. But bear with me for a second: I’m not talking about some cartoon class of fat cats. Maybe 300 years ago that kind of caricature of a small group who ruled the world to their advantage would have been appropriate. But most of us work for companies that are owned technically by millions shareholders. Most of those shareholders have no idea of what companies they might “own” in their 401Ks or other investments. The “owners” of capital have thus become an abstraction. And yet we rely on these owners — I could almost say imaginary owners — for our jobs and our paychecks.
What about the CEOs and boards of directors? Recently they’ve been looking a lot like that old caricature, right? Yes, but before you give them too much credit, remember that they are only the stewards of capital for the owners (a group that includes about half of the American people as shareholders). Their job is to increase the capital owned by the owners. They are actually legally required to work toward this end: shareholders can sue them if they intentionally do something else. Practicalities are a much better inducement though: if they don’t increase the chunk of capital that has been put in their care, then the owners will treat it with scorn and starve it of investment (”Sell!”).
By the way: understanding this “abstract owner” of the economy is the key to understanding the financial crisis. The owner is only interested in things that grow, and it doesn’t care how or why they grow. The owner is manic: it is a pulsing network of computers programmed with growth-maximizing algorithms, people programmed with career-maximizing algorithms and media programmed with ratings-maximizing algorithms. The owner is us — even if we’re only looking for 3% on our savings account.
This blind, hungry beast always eventually gets sucked back into the kinds of scams — legal and illegal, intended and unintended — that are coming to light newly each week. These scams offer increasing share prices, house prices, etc… But when the scams finally unravel, then the abstract owner is inconsolable (for a time) and refuses to invest anywhere. That’s why prices keep going down, down, down.
During a “bubble” like the one that soared for most of the past 25 years, there are plenty of jobs for everyone — even totally useless jobs. Remember some of those Dot Coms in the 90’s? It was an odd kind of socialism: Guaranteed work for everyone, no matter how dumb your idea! In those times, when all the numbers are going up, we feel free and independent.
During a “crash” like the one we’re beginning to feel now, there are few jobs. When the factories, stores and offices in our communities start shutting their doors, then there is a terrible sinking feeling. Suddenly it’s perfectly clear that we don’t control our own means of making a living. Suddenly we realize that even though we worked as a part of an interdependent society of producers, we are unable to stop the destruction of our means of producing. Suddenly it’s clear that the one calling the shots is that “abstract owner” of the economy — or, as it’s called in polite society, “the market.”
OK. Back to the new stories that Christians are trying to live by in their mission to end poverty. The first: We middleclass Christians in the rich countries should give away our money to the poor. The second: that we should withdraw and make our own living outside of the system.
How does the first story play out when capitalism is destroying the means of making a living of billions of people? (And when the income of rich country people is shrinking too?)
We can still give away as much as we can. But what’s happening in the world right now — 250,000 factories have closed in China in the past year! — shows us that we are called to do something much deeper and much more difficult than simply giving away some money. We do need to give away our wealth. We have to do it, and do it wisely. But what else?
The second story, is heading there: building up a means of making a living that is in the hands of people who care about people, not some “abstract owner” that only cares about numbers that go up. However, the scale of what’s happening in the world right now is also showing us that small cooperative enterprises are equally dependent on the “abstract owner” as everything else. That won’t be true in every case. But on the whole, coops are going to be subject to the ups and downs of the broader economy. Traditionally, crises are times when a lot of them go bust or get bought out by bigger companies. The food co-op down the street from me was just bought up by Whole Foods, for example. And something tells me they’re not going to keep it open for very long.
What’s the solution? The solution is to depose that abstract owner. This doesn’t mean some kind of violent revolution — or even an angry revolution — against the rich. Rich people own a lot of stuff and make up a big chunk of that “abstract owner.” But guess what: we middle class people dwarf the rich in our share of ownership of the economy. We are the owner! What it means is that we have the power to depose this system non-violently and with a relatively smooth political transition because this is a revolution to depose ourselves from a mindless, knee jerk role that most of us don’t even know we’re playing.
We shouldn’t be naive. This system we live under is a high-voltage, super-heated, radioactive tangle of wires, pipes and waste. Taking this thing apart is going to be incredibly dangerous. There will be unforeseen consequences that will hurt a lot of people. But that is already happening, for example, thanks to the latest financial bubble burst. The question is are we going to keep subjecting ourselves to these kinds of disasters?
There will also be people who feel it’s their duty to protect the status quo. Some of these will be in the pay of people who benefit from things staying as they are, but many will be acting on ideological grounds — in other words, they really believe that the current system makes us free and that all alternatives are chains.
And then there will be opportunists who try to seize the day in the toughest moments of the transition. When things are getting harder and we’re saying, “Let’s share more,” these will be saying things like, “Throw out the immigrants, so that we can keep more for ourselves.” This is the most dangerous thing. But that kind hatred is going to become very powerful as the economy continues to decline whether we act or not.
It’s going to be hard. But this is our generations’ charge.
Comments»
Zack,
I have a few questions about your post:
1) Practically speaking, what does deposing the abstract owner of the economy mean? How would my life be different? Would I be part of a Christian sub-culture that has separated itself from mainstream society like the Amish?
2) How does this eliminate poverty?
3) And would this new way of life better exemplify Christ to the world and draw people to Him? Would others feel more loved by God because of our efforts?
By the way, I appreciate the link to Tim Keel’s sermon. His message helped me to better understand why Jesus said we cannot serve both God and money. And I think if I ever left my church I would seek out a church similar to his.
Thanks for sharing!
Yes comrade the individual is dead. Let the collectivism begin.
Oh and by the way the goal of Christianity is not to end poverty but to preach the Gospel (if anyone stills knows what the gospel is anymore) and make disciples of men. Remember what the chief end of man is “to serve God and enjoy him forever”.
I enjoyed your essay. I saw a post earlier today on 538 about a nationwide Rasmussen poll that found that only 53% think Capitalism is the best economic system, with 20% of the respondents favoring Socialism and 25% undecided. So I think a lot of people are questioning the way our economy works and whether the downsides of the US approach–massive income inequality, a turbo-charged boom-bust cycle, lack of human connection, the blandness of fast-food/mall culture, the massive depletion of global fish stocks, the failure of our system to price in the cost of pollution and other externalities etc.–are necessary evils, or whether there is a better way. I think there is a better way, and sincere, thoughtful people working together will help us get there, but the vested interests that even now defend the status quo fund the MSM/thinktanks/other opinion shapers, so unless more people that feel like you share your ideas with friends, these sorts of views will always be dismissed as communist or otherwise unworthy of even consideration. I really worry that unless we move beyond our current model of uninformed consumerism/raider capitalism to a sustainable approach, we will have gone beyond the point where we can save our species and planet.
Hmmmm. How about this?
“The question is are we going to keep subjecting ourselves to these kinds of disasters?”
So this sounds precisely like the standard issue collectivist position that we should save ourselves from the possible danger of ever falling a little ways by building a society that in its very nature render’s the attainment of vast heights impossible. What’s new here? I don’t see anything new in this garden variety “less-is-more-ism”. I personally would risk five thousand 1 foot falls in order to view a single five thousand foot sunset for a far deeper reason than the view itself.
I do and will continue to opt out of a “less” based society and the ideology which engenders it all root and branch. I do this because I am unapologetically selfish and I want more. I want more kilowatts; so many that everyone can run a custom-gene-therapy-on-demand-replicator machine in their hut. I want to learn more poems that would have been uttered by all of those late-term-aborted-on-demand developing world babies. I want more cancer treatments that would be invented by DDT preventable malaria lost lives. I want billions of children to drink clean water inexpensively desalinated via a process invented by a mad scientist whose life would have been prevented by population control measures laboring away in a low taxed carbon spewing laboratory in order to build her own personal fortune.
I reject the reduced-everything agrarian people-stock that collectivism and a constraint based environmental vision dehumanizes us all towards. The agricultural methods of 1000 years ago could not sustain today’s population any more than today’s energy use patterns will sustain tomorrow’s. We will not solve this by limiting population which reduces the available IQ on the planet. We will not solve this by limiting the power of industries to grow which prevents them from empowering the rarer intellects to create and innovate. We will solve it with more intellect, more life, more growth, more innovation, more consumption, more efficiency, in short, more capitalism.
But most of all, as one can surely tell, I really want more hyphens.
$.02
I like the direction you’re going with this. I think I would add that there is another nonreligious reason for doing this, other than “it’s the right thing to do”, and that would be enlightened self interest. I also think that’s not enough either. I think history shows that when “enlightened self interest” is the mechanism upon which people depend, it turns out there’s a lot more of the “self interest” part than the “enlightened” part.
I’m picking up echoes of Jacques Ellul and Wendell Berry all over the place in this reflection. Have you been reading either lately? I also just read Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy and if you haven’t read that I think it would resonate deeply with you.
I think co-ops have a better shot at weathering the end of the era of unfettered economic growth (I think it’s inevitable that this will happen) precisely because at their best cooperative business ventures are exactly an attempt to take a conscious role in management and operation within the context of human networks, instead of relying on the “invisible owner”. Co-ops are subject to the influence of external forces just like any other enterprise, but I think because of their nature there is the potential there to create more authentic, relational economic structures on more of a local (or maybe glocal) scale by developing more cooperative ventures, especially in places that are economically downtrodden.
Also, on an unrelated note, Jesus for President might make a good addition to the recommended reading on your sidebar.
Peace!
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