It is hard to discuss economics today, both inside and
outside the church. You wouldn’t know that from the frequency with which it is
debated, because by this measure it seems to be an almost constant topic for
discussion. The difficulty becomes clear, though, if you actually pause to
listen carefully to what is being said. There seems to me to be three barriers standing
in our way.
First, not surprisingly, is the lack of civility. Start
talking about economic policy or theory and depending on what we say, there is
a chance we’ll be tagged by some label: “socialist” and “uncompassionate” are
two favorites. If we face a lack of civility outside the church, well, we
should try our best to learn to communicate as clearly and winsomely as
possible, but we really shouldn’t whine about it. Facing incivility within the
Christian community, on the other hand, is reason for concern. I could list
lots of biblical texts dealing with economic issues that will take a lot of
hard work to interpret correctly. The biblical texts that describe how we
should treat one another—for example 1 Corinthians 13—are unambiguous and clear
enough for a child to understand.
The second barrier to a thoughtful discussion of economics,
both within and without the church, is that the topic has been politicized. By
that I mean that almost as soon as the topic is mentioned, partisan positions,
parties, policies or personalities are invoked. This should not be. For one
thing, economics and politics are not coterminous. For another, as Christians
faithfulness requires we figure out how to think about economics from a
biblical perspective and only after that will we be able to figure out what
that means in the political sphere of life.
The third barrier is that very few of us have seriously
tackled the topic of economics from a biblical perspective. We have some texts
we use to justify some of our beliefs on the topic, but truth be told we’ve
picked those up somewhat after the fact, and they are pretty selective. If you
are feeling guilty about this, that is not my intention. (Feeling guilty about
incivility and politicization is a different story—for those repentance is in
order.) We live busy lives and economics is a huge topic, richly nuanced and like
all of life, constantly in flux. For topics like this, we can be thankful for
thoughtful Christian thinkers who do the hard lifting for us. Which brings me
to an article I am eager to recommend.
The article is free, online (www.cardus.ca) and is a
wonderful introduction to thinking Christianly about economics. Even if you
don’t discuss the topic much, you’ll have a better foundation for understanding
the topic by reading this piece. “Capitalism, Religion, and the Economics of
the Biblical Jubilee” is by Paul Williams, the Executive Director of the
Marketplace Institute, and Academic Dean, at Regent College, Vancouver.
Capitalism
as Ideology
Much of mainstream economics
presents capitalism as a morally neutral economic system. It does so with two
arguments.
The first focuses on the individual
consumer (or firm or worker). Capitalism is morally neutral, it is argued,
because it is designed to enable individuals to make their own choices based on
whatever values they happen to have.
The second focuses on overall
systemic outcomes: capitalism generates the largest possible economic pie and
we can then choose what to do with the proceeds.
But are these arguments compatible?
Capitalism is not, in fact, morally
neutral. The apparent neutrality of individual choice masks the underlying
moral assumption that the individual is the final measure of good, and should
always trump community choice, and that present choices should always trump
those of our forebears. It also fails to account for the unequal nature of many
actual transactions, so that frequently the choice of some undermines the
freedom of others. My choice to shop seven days a week (or the choice of a
superstore to open seven days a week) removes, or at least reduces, the freedom
of the families of shop-workers to spend one day a week together, since the
chances of both working parents getting the same day off recede and the
influence of shop-workers on such economic outcomes is relatively small. The
“good” of a family day of rest each week cannot be expressed in a system that
only recognizes autonomous individualism….
Read the entire piece here.