In an international meeting last week with economists, business executives, non-profit organizational leaders, and theologians, my colleague Stewart Wallis of the New Economics Institute succinctly summed up the problems of the current global economy: it's unfair, unsustainable, unstable, and is making many people unhappy. These issues of the "un-economy" were at the heart of our discussions at the World Economic Forum, and the Occupy Wall Street encampment I just visited in New York City.
Unfair.
Since the Occupy Wall Street movement began, the talk about inequality has been greater than I can remember it being for a very long time. This has been the elephant in the room in our discussions about the economy that nobody wanted to say out loud. In the last hundred years, there have been two peak periods of great inequality in American society--just before the Great Depression, and in 2008, right before our current Great Recession. And in the mysterious and secret global transactions between investment bankers and hedge fund traders, the profits continue to grow.
From 1973 to 1985, the financial sector peaked at 16 percent of domestic corporate profits. In the 1990s it reached postwar period highs by going between 21 and 30 percent. But this decade it hit 41 percent. These profits weren't from products, and weren't always from finding the best use for capital, but from money making more money for a new class of super rich financial traders. And now, when their risk taking, greed, and selfishness created a mess for so many others, we bailed them out and left everyone else to suffer in the economic wilderness of unemployment, home foreclosures, pension losses, deep middle class insecurity, and shamefully, rising poverty rates.
Opportunity is a lost hope for many, as social mobility in America is now less than in Western Europe. And if you search the scriptures, you'll find that God not only cares about poverty, but especially, unfairness and inequality. That's what the young people at Wall Street are angry about.
Unsustainable.
If everybody had a Ferrari, the planet could not survive. And the earth groans as the ethics, or non-ethics, of endless growth are measured only by corporate shareholders in quarterly profit and loss statements. "Short-termism" was a term I heard over and over in the broad conversations about values at the World Economic Forum. A global economy based on dirty energy and creating unjust regimes, angry populations, endless terrorism and war, and dangerously warming the planet (apologies to those presidential candidates who have disavowed science) is clearly unsustainable. Add to that an advertising industry that systematically, psychologically, and even spiritually turns "wants" into "needs," is a formula for human and ecological disaster.
It's time to move from a narrowly defined shareholder economy to a stakeholder economy that includes workers, consumers, the environment , and future generations -- all in our economic calculations and decision-making.
Unstable.
Another conversation that is taking place alongside the values discussion, both at the World Economic Forum and at Occupy Wall Street, is about the dangerous and growing conflicts over the resources of food, water, land, and energy. Conflicts, both present and future, will not be over ideology alone, but over survival in the face of resource scarcity or resource mal-distribution. Contrast that to the two principles of God's economy: There is enough, if we share it.
Much of the most hopeful talk at the Occupy movement sites is about new economic approaches based on local, cooperative, and sustainable models of market activity. My god-daughter, Korla Masters, is engaged in the mushrooming urban gardening movement in my home town of Detroit, and she tells me that if only half the vacant land in the city were cultivated, it could provide up to three quarters of the need for vegetables and fruits in the Motor City--imagine non-petroleum based food economies with little transport involved.
Unhappy.
Being rich doesn't make you happy. Of course, happiness and well-being are connected to a modicum of economic security that we all need. But "enough is enough" is proven to be a better guide to a happy life than the maxim "greed is good." The logic and metrics on a manic consumer economy is that you are never supposed to be satisfied with what you have, but that you always demand more. That endless striving and never ending desire is not making people happy, but rather is highly pressured into a lifestyle of constant stress. In Detroit, we are seeing the burgeoning urban gardens producing several things: jobs, good and clean food, and a sense of community--all of which are ingredients for a happy life.
So here's our mission.
1. Don't expect the Occupy Wall Street movement and sites across the nation and world to produce a set of demands. They are instead raising some fundamental questions about the un-economy, and creating the space for a new cultural and political conversation about it. It's our job now to push that conversation forward -- an especially good role for the faith community as our biblical values and theological assertions are integrally involved in these matters. It's time to put our faith values forward in the midst of what could become a new global conversation about what a fair, sustainable, stable, and happy economy might look like.
2. Don't worry about endorsing the Occupy Wall Street movement (all the diverse elements involved wouldn't even endorse each other!), but rather engage it. I asked a young African American man I met at Occupy Wall Street what churches could do to help. He suggested three things: inspiration, consultation, and presence. I think that's a very good guide. Worship services are already being held at many of the sites led by local clergy of many faiths. Take a potluck meal down to the site as a chance to sit, eat, and talk with the people there. Take your youth group, or members of your congregation down there after church just to see, meet, and listen. Offer the occupiers support--material and spiritual--along with prayer and love.
Jim Wallis is the author of Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street -- A Moral Compass for the New Economy, and CEO of Sojourners. He blogs at www.godspolitics.com. Follow Jim on Twitter @JimWallis.
Follow Jim Wallis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jimwallis
Mary Hunt: Greed Is Never Good
Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson: Biblical Economic Justice: Supply and Demand Isn't Enough
Timothy King: Deconstructing Harry Jackson: Is Jim Wallis' Ideology Really "the Doctrine of Devils"?
They claim Catholics aren't Christians, but a cult. Since that church was founded by Peter, is that true? They claim Mormons aren't Christians, but a cult. Since that church was founded by John Smith in modern times, is that true? Are Jews a cult? Muslims? Must all the heathen be converted, even at the point of a sword?
Yet OWS comes from a different tradition. Based on Quaker religious practice, most people would find it shocking that they are being called to a group meditation and prayer ritual at every General Assembly. Certainly those from the right side of the political spectrum. If there is truth written on your heart, come and share it. If there is no truth written on your heart, come and listen, you may find some.
Thanks again, Jim, for being a good Christian leader when that title is so often a lie these days.
Impossible? No. Unlikely? Yes.
If you look at the growth of "Mega" churches you'll find them preaching the "prosperity gospel". Why? No more need for guilt! Just make a donation and you'll be entertained for an hour.
This shift has crippled traditional churches. Sadly, these traditional churches pumped more money back into their local communities effectively subsidizing tax paying services. In a world of ADD, how is a man on a pulpit supposed to compete with 3D and surround sound?
Travel the rural areas and you'll see the community aspect of traditional churches. I take issue with their stance against women's rights, gays, and their resentment toward "urban freeloaders" whom they believe live the high life off their hard earned tax dollars, but they do provide charity to their communities.
The well-off seem to be much humbler and charitable in these areas, as well. IMHO
They will also create affordable local and diverse solutions to address any negatives resulting from global warming.
So the added people expected in the next century are part of the solution not part of the problem. We need to quit trying to regulate their path to prosperity.
We have millions and millions of fellow humans with no access to clean water, basic food and shelter. If those folks were to have access to those elements of life... I bet most would believe they had become prosperous. It's all relative.
Problem is... A select few are controlling / limiting the ability of the majority to seek prosperity - and their control has nothing to do with regulating such.
They are the (extreme) Haves (vs the Have nots) - and their control of the wealth (and power) of this world NEEDS to be regulated if the majority are to have an opportunity / access to resources so as to achieve their human creativity potential.
I love the neighborhood gardens in Detroit. I would love to see these areas come back with a Community Health, Wealth and Resource Center where a struggling family can gain access to all needs in one place including a childcare center, youth swimming, gym sports. And a Food Center/Bank.
What do economics call for in that situation?
Do you really believe that 25% of the population lack creativity and ability to gain skills to add value to each others lives?
The world, despite the current recession, is at a point where we can see a path to bring the other 50% into the modern world. To make the tools and knowledge available to them that the modern economy employees. We can not even comprehend the creativity that will be unleashed by adding two billion people to the modern economy. Combine people's ability with an education system that could evolve from the communications revolution and I have zero doubt the world will be a more prosperous place to live in 100 years.
The only thing that could derail the process would be top down imposed government solutions.
Without "top down" government solutions of some sort, it will just be musical chairs. We lost our seat in America, but at least our kids aren't being exploited, we're not working 14-hour days in dangerous conditions, and we can breathe our air, drink our water, and have proper sanitation to keep the spread of disease to a minimum.
As idealistic as it sounds, that other 50% will likely experience The Jungle before it ever is allowed to unleash any creativity. And if another country is willing to do it cheaper, they'll crash and burn like us.
Obama can't get his story straight and has been a dud and the left is bored so we thought we would raise a little hell to get our groove back but it hasn't worked out so don't be upset when OWS fizzles out because I will still be preaching the word of Marx.
is rapidly assuming the proportions of a pachyderm packed into a pantry.
In a recent televised news item. A banker was enumerating to protesters camped on the street, those ways in which they were entirely dependant upon banking.
Regrettably, there was no one present to pose the following queries:
1.Did humans exist before there were banks?
2.Did banks exist before there were humans?
3.If the answers are 1. Yes and 2. No. Then does it not follow that the existence of banks (and any other institution for that matter) is unequivocally dependant on them acting to ensure the continued existence of humans?
The answer’s in the questions.
That's why OWS is so important. We need to shift the tax burden off the middle class and on to the class that no longer has loyalty to the US. If they have the freedom to invest their money where there is the greatest return, we (the people) should have the freedom to raise their taxes and reinvest that money here in the US.
In economics they talk about elasticity. The breaking point, if you will. If we can't give powerful enough incentives to achieve voluntary investment in our economy, we can tax corporations right up to the point where they're willing to pack it up and go. Right now, we're giving them everything they demand and they're still packing up and leaving. We should at least attempt to influence their behavior or be compensated when they refuse.
Their rise is coming at the expense of our lower and middle classes. At best, it would be a lateral transfer of wealth. In reality, our wealth is taken and the workers there get a portion of it while the wealthy take the rest.
That's not good at all...
I'm a secularist, an atheist, who did his best to figure what a non-mythologized savior would do to put an end to injustice and suffering around the world.
Read the GLOBAL REFERENDUM here: http://define.com
Ask yourself, how would Jesus Christ vote in this REFERENDUM, if he were real, and were to return to live among us today as a constructive problem-solver with access to the World Wide Web.