Less is More

Mary Hirschfeld, theologian and economist, tells the following parable about two families she calls the Aardvarks and the Warthogs. Both families enjoy music and both make their living as potters. The Aardvarks decide that a grand piano would best enable them to pursue their musical interests. They work hard and each month set aside money toward purchasing the piano. After they buy the piano, they cut back their hours at their pottery shop so they can enjoy the piano. They work enough to cover their needs but no more than that. They become good musicians and invite others into their home to join in the music.

The Warthogs follow the same plan. They too are pleased when they have saved enough to buy a grand piano. “But it occurs to them that it would be even better to supplement the piano with a cello and a violin. That way they could play those lovely trios by Schubert. So they go back to their pottery shop and keep working” (126). They are glad to bring those two instruments into their home, but immediately think how wonderful it would be to branch out musically and play jazz too. “So they earn enough money to get a saxophone, a trumpet, and a bass. Now their house is a bit crowded, and so they decide they need to get a larger house. And so they redouble their efforts at the pottery shop. And on it goes. At the end of the day, the Warthogs never do have much time for music; their hours are mostly spent making more pots” (126).

 Hirschfeld observes that although the Warthogs saw themselves as pursuing music, seeking more income ends up being the real good they pursue. She states that economists categorize things like what the Aardvarks and Warthogs bought as instrumental goods because their purpose is to help us achieve desired ends. Thus economists consider wealth instrumental, a tool. Yet Hirschfeld argues that “instrumental goods can only remain instrumental if they are in service of clearly specified ends” (126). For too many today wealth itself is pursued as if it is the end, not a means to an end.

 I will let the parable function as a parable and let it speak to you rather than listing the meanings and connections that I or Hirschfeld see. I will share just one response her parable led me to think about.

 We could say this is a parable about resisting the lie of consumerism that more wealth and the things it can buy produce a better life. That is an aspect of the parable. But why were the Aardvarks able to resist? It was not just a commitment to resist the lie. Rather they had clarity on what they valued. So too with us, there is value in saying to each other: resist the lies of Mammon and consumerism. Even more important is to develop alternative values to what Mammon tells us we should value.

 What are values you can foster that with growth will make it much easier to ignore the empty call by Mammon to pursue wealth itself as a value?

 How might the Spirit be calling you to begin a conversation about this with others in your family and faith community?

From: Mary Hirschfeld, Aquinas and the Market: Toward a Humane Economy, 2018

Enough for All

Guest blog post by Diane Clarke

 "22 We know that the whole creation is groaning together and suffering labor pains up until now. 23 And it’s not only the creation. We ourselves who have the Spirit as the first crop of the harvest also groan inside as we wait to be adopted and for our bodies to be set free."

(Romans 8:22-23, Common English Bible)

 For the last two years I've been part of a group of fellow Christians working together on our relationship with money, and specifically our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors around our wealth. This group, which we named, "Enough for All," grew out of an experience I had ten years ago, when I heard theologian, activist, and author Ched Myers speak on "Sabbath Economics," a biblically-rooted vision of stewarding our resources so people and creation can thrive. Challenged, I tried to look more critically and biblically at self-serving ways I thought about and used my wealth. But I was doing this largely alone, and even after eight years, practical behavioral change was slow, small, and spotty. I really needed companions to witness and support the radical changes I was trying to make. As previous contributors of this blog have affirmed, profoundly countercultural work such as this is "against the current." We need to hold hands and do it together. I shared about Sabbath Economics with others in my faith community, and six of us decided to meet quarterly to work together on these issues. When we meet, we each share about our particular work, our stuck places, our longings, and our laments and concerns. I think this helps us renew our courage and commitment to this radical, transformative work.  

 In wealthy western countries like ours, we've deeply absorbed malformed, individualistic beliefs and behaviors around money that, collectively, have led to gigantic wealth gaps and scandalous, abject need in vast swaths of our country and world. In fact, we're so deeply immersed and implicated in this way of thinking that we think of our wealth as our own, as something we've earned. This is in stark contrast to the consistent biblical witness that everything we have is unearned, a part of God's generous provision for everyone, owned by none of us.

 I've been deeply shaped by this milieu. For me, a fundamentally important element of our meetings has been the permeating atmosphere of communal confession. It's a safe place to talk honestly about my struggles with idolatry around wealth (i.e., habitually turning to wealth to boost my sense of security and well-being -- a tragic quest, since this is something that wealth can never do). While each of us in the group has their own specific challenges under the status quo, I think we all share a common hunger to "figure out what God's will is -- what is good and pleasing and mature" (Romans 12:2). I've found that our work together helps unmask the empty promises of wealth our culture purveys, diminishing their deceptive power. I believe this communal, truthful setting is progressively liberating each of us to better hear and follow the gospel in our relationship to our wealth.

 It's a long haul. Ched compares the challenges of this work to 12-Step recovery work -- needed because we are in the grip of an addiction to "affluenza." I like the AA analogy, because AA identifies alcohol as "cunning, baffling, and powerful." The cunning part of affluenza for me is its ability to "fly under the radar" in my life. On the path of recovery, our group finds it necessary to saturate ourselves in scriptural views about jubilee justice and redistribution. This immersion in God's vision prophetically confronts our blind spots around our wealth so we can respond and change our attitudes and behaviors. Ched quotes Jesuit theologian John Haughey, who sums up our basic challenge, lamenting, "we read the Gospel as if we had no money, and we spend our money as if we know nothing of the Gospel." Our group came together for encouragement and support in this dilemma, so we could start working in practical, impactful ways toward God's vision of enough for all.

 Key Elements of Sabbath Economics

Ched's basic framework is laid out in his book, The Biblical Vision of Sabbath Economics. Specifically, he summarizes Sabbath Economics in three axioms:

 1) the world as created by God is abundant, with enough for everyone -- provided that human communities restrain their appetites and live within limits;

2) disparities in wealth and power are not 'natural' but the result of human sin, and must be mitigated within the community of faith through the regular practice of redistribution; and

3) the prophetic message calls people to the practice of such redistribution, and is thus characterized as 'good news' to the poor.

 Our Work Toward Recovery: Practicing the Household Sabbath Economics Covenant

In the spirit of addressing our "actual (as opposed to our professed or idealized) economic and spiritual values," Ched developed a practical guide, "Experimenting with a Household Sabbath Economics Covenant". Our group decided to use this guide to help us work "where the rubber meets the road." We're actually one of many groups throughout the country that have formed to "work" this Covenant, which focuses on our own specific household behaviors around surplus capital, negative capital (debt), giving, environmental and green living, consumption, solidarity, and work/sabbath. Different members of our group have worked on each aspect of the covenant at different times, as the Spirt has led.

Examples of Our Work So Far

I want to share a few examples of work our members have done, and some comments they've shared about the work so far. A number of us have felt strongly led to work on surplus capital. One couple has moved a percentage of their surplus capital into "community investment notes," managed by Calvert Impact Capital. Calvert puts this money to work with partners around the world who focus on affordable housing, microfinancing, environmental sustainability, community development, sustainable agriculture, and gender equity, among other needs. This couple said, "It is so good finally to be taking responsibility around our privilege, and to know that some of our surplus is being used to meet the needs of others, instead of just accruing interest in a CD. We plan to increase our community investments as we work toward simpler living."

 Another member finds himself focusing deeply on attitudes, saying, "I long for a life characterized by gratitude, generosity, and simplicity . . . . Simplicity can be complex, in Richard Foster's phrase, and I think gratitude and generosity toward God and others have to be my first priorities." He added, " It’s been good to be with others who are similarly committed and to hear their ideas and struggles, journeying together on this path. We are very different in our approaches and understandings, for which I am grateful, since the perspectives of others challenge me."

 What Time is It?

Because I've been meditating on Paul's letter to the Romans during most of the time our group has been together, I've often thought about what we're doing in light of Paul. Specifically, Paul rightly challenges us to be aware of "what time it is" -- i.e., to realize that we are gospel people living between the cross and the eschaton, the "now and not yet" of the Kingdom of God. What is our role as disciples in this "in-between" time? In Paul's framing (quoted above), in the current age we are to be willing to suffer "labor pains." But this is actually wonderful news, because these sufferings are literally the birth pangs of the Kingdom. As the Spirit of the resurrected Christ helps each of us do this transformative work around economic justice, we are participating in the blessed work of bringing in the "not yet" of God's heavenly kingdom. All of us in our group groan in some way under the status quo of gross injustices and the vast suffering of those who don't have enough. As each of us in the group faces their own complicity and specific challenges in the work, we're aware that this is a critical, costly part of our lifelong path of maturing together in Christ, of helping to bring in what we groan for -- the heavenly jubilee.

 Ched Myers and Elain Enns live and teach "radical discipleship" in their nonprofit ministry, Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries. Besides Sabbath Economics, they have done extensive work around environmental and indigenous justice and solidarity, all rooted in the gospel vision of shalom. To learn more about their work, visit https://www.bcm-net.org. Additional helpful resources can be found at the Faith and Money Network, https://faithandmoneynetwork.org.

 If you're interested in discussing Sabbath Economics work further, or want to explore organizing a support and accountability group of your own, feel free to contact me at dmclarke@omsoft.com, or Ched and Elaine at inquiries@bcm-net.org.

Thriving Rather than Growth: Digging Deep, Changing Defaults

What comes to mind if someone says, “it is a very successful business” or, “one of the nation’s most successful businesspeople”?

The bus climbed up the rutted dirt road starting the journey from Minas de Oro to Tegucigalpa. I sat staring out the window imagining possibilities for Julian and his family. I had spent the weekend with Bob and Gracie Ekblad. Their work excited me. In contrast to my teaching at a bilingual high school I sensed their efforts could make a significant difference for the poor. The Ekblads modeled regenerative farming methods on their hillside plot and taught the methods to others. We spent Saturday with Julian. He, his wife and young children lived in single room shack. Julian rented both his home and a plot of land where he grew corn and beans. Bob, always the visionary, had persuaded Julian that the hardpacked patch of dirt in front of his shack held great possibilities as a vegetable garden. We took the first step that day, cutting up banana leaves, weeds, and grass to start a large compost pile. Sitting on the bus I imagined the compost transforming the dirt into rich soil. I imagined the family eating vegetables from the garden, the bananas trees producing more in the enriched soil. They would not just eat better, they would spend less on food, and could sell the surplus. I imagined him putting the methods into practice on his rented plot and production increasing. Then I imagined them, through increased income, buying their own land—a small plot first, then a bigger one. A realization crashed into my imagining. In spite of my intense commitment to live simply and give to the poor; and in spite of my strong critique of wealthy Hondurans, and foreigners, who had unrelentingly pursued wealth, bought up acres upon acres of prime valley land leaving the vast majority of Honduran farmers with tiny hillside plots—in spite of that what was I doing? I was turning Julian into a capitalist success story.

Perhaps, right now, you are doing just what I did then, thinking “wait a minute Mark, don’t be so hard on yourself. Julian was desperately poor, it is fine to imagine him having land of his own. And sure your images were all about increased production and income, but what you really wanted for Julian was a better life.” True, yet I could not escape the fact that my default success story was one of economic growth. On the surface many of my perspectives and lifestyle choices had changed, but down deep I still had the same framework of most in my society.

To be clear, I do not think the things I imagined for Julian were wrong. He was desperately poor. Having land of his own would be a great thing. What sobered me in that moment, and saddens me today, is how quickly my mind went to money and economic growth. Take a moment. Think, what else could I have imagined?

I could have been looking out the window excitedly thinking about the richness that would come to Julian’s life through meeting regularly with the group the Ekblads had brought together for training and Bible study. I could have rejoiced in less erosion and less burning that would happen through Julian using these methods. I could have imagined changes that would occur in his life and in his family through interacting with the Ekblads and coming to know the God revealed by Jesus. I did not. I thought of economic growth. What stopped me that day was a voice within me asking, “and does he just keep going, growing bigger? Is that the point? When does he stop? What is enough? Is there another model?”

If economist Kate Raworth had been sitting beside me on the bus that day she would have said, “Time to reimagine progress Mark.” In her book, Doughnut Economics, she critiques 20th century economics for flawed theories that have led most of the world to pursue economic growth not only as desirable, but as necessity. Think for instance of hearing on the news, “the economy is not growing.” We expect the next statements will say why, and what can be done so it will start growing again. There is little questioning of that. Raworth challenges us to change our focus from working to make economies grow, whether or not they make us thrive, to instead creating economies that make us thrive whether or not they grow (209). She asks why have we settled on growth and efficiency as the default goals and not others? “What if we started economics not with its long-established theories but with humanity’s long term goals, and then sought out the economic thinking that would enable us to achieve them” (8). (Her “doughnut” is pictured above.)

She is thinking at a macro level, societal, not just an individual’s goals, but using a micro example might help grasp her point. Let’s return to where we started, how we define a successful business? The Fortune 500 are ranked by total revenues, that reflects how most would evaluate a successful business. What if the Fortune 500 were not ranked just on how much money they made, but on employee satisfaction, on their contribution to lessening inequality and increasing the health of their workers and customers, on their levels of pollution and resource depletion, etc.

The unrelenting commitment to economic growth and the unquestioning use of profit as the definition of a successful business has a host of negative consequences—on society, on employees, on the environment, on individual consumers. God recognized this. In the Old Testament, through the Law and prophets, God sought to instill other values in addition to what we might call financial success. The Sabbatical and Jubilee years prioritized the value of redistribution and leveling the economic playing field on a regular basis. Through years of gathering daily manna God trained Israel to not practice hoarding. They could not use any more than enough.

To be clear, neither Raworth nor the Bible is against a business or a farmer making a profit. They need to make money to stay in business. Rather, similarly to how I argue that efficiency is just one characteristic to consider when we evaluate what is the best, so Raworth wants to broaden what characteristics we use to evaluate if a business or a nation’s economy is successful. Sometimes a nation does need economic growth. The problem is making it the one value and assuming it is always good and necessary. It is unsustainable for all economies to continue growing forever.

Many of us might want to agree with Raworth, but think it will not work. It goes against the “laws” of economics. In 20th century economic theory growth is not a problem it is the solution. Raworth points to fundamental flaws in those laws. (See her book for her thoughtful and clearly articulated arguments on limitations of widely accepted economic laws.) Yet, even if we find her arguments compelling, change will be difficult because most of us have so absorbed the values of an economic-growth-as-measure-of-success perspective. (Think of me on the bus.). It may be a default, but we are not hardwired this way as humans. In Europe when techniques were first adopted that enabled people to accomplish more in less time, what did people do? They worked less hours. Their priority was not economic growth. They did not assume that more income would make life better. Many traditional societies have lived by the principle of sufficiency. In the 19th century in Manitoba European traders offered the Cree higher prices for furs. They assumed it would motivate the native people to bring in more pelts. The opposite happened, “The Cree brought fewer furs to the trading post, since a smaller number were now needed to obtain the goods that they wanted in exchange” (240). We are trained and shaped into embracing economic growth as the definition of progress—for societies and individuals. That means we could be trained and shaped to embrace other values and goals.

Part of achieving continual economic growth is influencing people to consume more and more. In my class session dedicated to consumerism I have sought to expose the lies of consumerism and point to ways through Jesus and Christian community we can be free from it. That is important. I will continue to do it. Reading, Raworth, however, led me to see that although that is getting below the surface it is not deep enough. I have not worked at the deeper societal level. Economic growth demands increased consumption. We must address the societal commitment to the former, not just individual resistance to the latter.

Invitation: Watch Raworth’s TED talk; watch a news clip about a city putting her approach into practice. Read her book. (It is accessible, engaging; not an economics text book.) Then share with me and others ideas you have on how we can work at this paradigm change. I will start by sharing this action-step idea for the Church.

Action step: I put Julian into the mold of the definition of success given to me by society. Many Christian business owners today do the same. They work to be successful based on the definitions of success given to them. Imagine what would happen if churches began to promote a different definition of success and actively honored Christian business owners for their success based on that alternative model. It would impact not just the lives of the owners, but all those working for them, and it could contribute to our society changing its model of economic success. A deep change we need.

Postscript:

A day after finishing this blog I heard Mary Hirschfeld interviewed (Mars Hill Audio Journal, 147). She is an economist and theologian and also calls for going deeper. She states that mainstream economics teaches that acquiring more increases our happiness. It teaches us that it is rational to seek to pursue more and that we should seek greater income and wealth to meet our desires. She challenges this in her book Aquinas and the Market: Toward a Humane Economy. And if, after reading this blog, you are assuming all of this is “leftist” or “socialist” I encourage you to listen to the first 15 minutes of her debate with a democratic socialist.