The Market Tells Us So: A Bad Morality Play
Everyman’s Morality Play
Around 1500 in England, a small touring group of actors and musicians introduced a
new genre of theatre to the English public: the morality play. The play was entitled
Everyman and actually originated in Holland as Eleckerlijk around1495. The purpose
of the morality play was to deliver a sermon or a discourse on moral values through
the medium of drama. Everyman, for example, was a pseudonym for every human
being facing the choices life inevitably places before us. In the play, Everyman is
summoned by Death to the grave. In desperation, Everyman tries to persuade his
friends Good Deeds, Fellowship, Kindred Spirit, Worldly Goods, Beauty and others to
join him on his journey. Of all his friends only Good Deeds remains loyal although a
weak companion. However, Knowledge and Confession renew Good Deeds and he
is enabled to accompany his friend, Everyman, to his grave. The subtitle of the play
reads: ‘A Treatise on how the Heavenly Father sent death to summon every creature
to come and give an account of their lives in the world.’ In other words, a morality
play sought to emphasise the importance of moral values to how we live our lives.
Economists would like to believe that the market is amoral, but it isn’t. In fact, it is all
about moral values.
The Moral Deficit
In 1988, I was the Oregon State Co-chair of the Rainbow Coalition Jesse Jackson
primary campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination. To our surprise
Jackson won the Oregon Democratic Primary along with six others. It became clear
that Jackson, a black American civil rights leader, was a leading Presidential
contender for the Democratic Presidential nomination. In August of that year I
travelled to Atlanta, Georgia as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. It
was clear to me and many other Jackson supporters that Jesse Jackson had an
excellent chance to break the colour line and to become the first Black American
candidate for the US Presidency. So I arrived in Atlanta full of hope and expectation.
Because of Jackson’s strong performance in the state primaries, he was invited to
give the opening address to the Convention. The Convention Hall was packed when
Jackson began his address. In his speech he asked the Democratic party to chart a
new direction in politics and identified three political issues he would seek to resolve
if he became president. First he said he would address the issue of nuclear weapons
and he would commit the United States to a position of ‘no first use’. In other words,
he promised to ‘de-nuclearise’ not only the US but also the globe. Second, he said
he would set a firm timetable for establishing a Palestinian state. Finally he said he
would address the enormous problem made worse by Ronald Reagan: the
entrenched economic inequality and poverty in the country. He promised to do this
by:
1. taxing the wealthy thereby putting more money back into the economy;
2. by introducing a national health care programme designed to benefit all
Americans and;
3. by using the tax system and other means to redistribute the enormous wealth
of the US so that every American benefitted and the gap between the rich and
the poor would be significantly reduced.
1
Instead of applause many of the delegates became angry, some booed him and
some even walked out in protest. It was obvious that Jackson had touched a deeply
sensitive issue.
That night and the next day the word moved around among the state delegates that
Jackson was the wrong choice for the nomination and key figures in the Democratic
party such as Ted Sorenson and Lester Brown encouraged delegates to vote for
Michael Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts and ensure that Jackson was not
even the vice-presidential candidate. Their reason: the country wasn’t ready for a
Black American president. Of course, the real underlying reason wasn’t racial rather
it was economic and political. The Convention was not willing to tackle the issue of
unconscionable wealth. By the third day, I packed my bags and returned to Portland,
Oregon, deeply disappointed and convinced that an extraordinary opportunity for
America had been lost. In the presidential election that year, the democratic
candidate Michael Dukakis won just one state and the Republicans led by George
Bush Senior enjoyed an enormous victory. Underlying this political debacle was a
profound moral crisis that no one wanted to address. Jackson had exposed the
moral deficit of the market.
The current global recession offers numerous examples of this moral deficit for
example:
• Did you know that one of the biggest losers because of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi
scheme was Holocaust survivor and Nobel peace recipient Elie Wiesel.
Wiesel is reported to have lost up to US$ 37 million to Madoff – or most of his
personal wealth plus that of his foundation.
•
One of the big investment banks that failed during the global recession was
Goldman Sachs. According to the New York Times it received US$10 billion
from the United States Government to bail it out of debt in 2009 but in 2008
paid out US$23 billion in bonuses to its high flying investment bankers whose
bad advice got it into trouble in the first place. If this isn’t bad enough,
consumer banks, Bank of America and Citigroup, accepted US $90 billion in
bail out funds in 2008 but paid out that same year US $8.66 billion in bonuses.
They still haven’t paid back the taxpayers’ loan. An interesting aside to this
moral debacle is that the average pay of a bank teller at the Bank of America
is US$10.73 an hour or just over US $22,000 a year. At that rate it would take
the average teller over 45 years to accumulate one million dollars assuming
that the teller simply invested his/her income in a non-interest bearing
account.
•
Or take as an example CEO salaries in the USA from 1965 to 2008. In 1965
the ratio of CEO salary to the average worker was 24 to 1. In 2004 the gap
had grown to 431 to 1. But in 2008, it dropped back because of the recession
to 319 to 1. Recently New Zealand papers reported that the highest earning
CEO in the country was Telecom’s Paul Reynolds. Last year he received
$7,200,000 plus bonuses. If the starting salary of a worker at the Telecom call
centre is about $30,000 that means Reynolds earned 240 times what the
worker earns. And of course that doesn’t include bonuses which the average
worker never receives. Or put another way: while liberation theologians talk
about ‘God’s preferential option for the poor’, free market economics talk
2
about the ‘market’s preferential option for the rich’. In other words, wealth
doesn’t trickle down, rather in the current operative economic paradigm,
wealth trickles up. Jim Wallis founder of the Sojourners community in innercity Washington DC observes, ‘This is a broken social contract and a
shattered social covenant – we should have listened to the prophets.’ (
Rediscovering Values, 2009:83)
•
Finally, in his fascinating study of money and how it works (Money Matters,
Bristol, 2009) David Boyle explores the forces that have led to a massive shift
from what Boyle calls sustainable banking to highly leveraged banking and the
current financial crisis – a banking system, writes Boyle, that ‘is complicated,
more than a little insane and functioning in a world above people’s ordinary
lives – both useless and irrelevant to them and corrosive of them at the same
time (p.8). His book includes some startling statistics. For example: the
richest 10% of the world own 85% of the global wealth while 50% the poorest
own less than 1% of global wealth (J K Galbraith, Money: Whence it Came,
where it went). The three biggest oil companies, Exxon, Shell and BP in 2007
had a combined turnover of USD$924 billion. (Exxon: 340: Shell, 307 and BP:
267). From 1904 to 1999 the number of accountants in the UK grew from
6,000 to 109,000 an eightfold increase (cf A Simms, Five Brothers: The Rise
and Nemesis of the Big Bean Counters, 2002); from 1997 till 2007, household
debt in the UK increased from £24,000 to £56,600, while combined household
debt in the USA increased from US $8 trillion in 2001 to US $14 trillion in 2008
(A Pettifor, The Coming First World Debt Crisis, Macmillan).
The Market: From Promise to Profit – A History
The modern global market is, in the words of the German economist, Ulrich
Duchrow, ‘an economic system geared purely to profit maximisation and thereby
having no regard for the life of human beings and nature; a political class that
supports this system, and an ideology justified ‘academically’ by most economists
and disseminated consciously or unconsciously, by most of the media.’ (Property
for People, Not for Profit; Zed Books: 2004) How did, to use Adam Smith’s
metaphor, ‘the invisible hand of the market’ lure us into this situation where the
global gap between the rich and poor is virtually unbridgeable and morally
repugnant? This was never Smith’s intention when he wrote his classic work in
1776, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. While
Smith was a political economist it is often forgotten that he was primarily a moral
philosopher and was the chair of the philosophy faculty at the University of
Glasgow. His other major work Theory of Moral Sentiments published seven
years before his Wealth of Nations in 1759, outlined his ethical views and won
widespread recognition. He genuinely believed that ‘rational self-interest’ could
bring about a healthy economy that would benefit everyone.
• Ancient Greece
The modern market which dominates our lives originated as far back as the
eighth century BCE in the Near East, in particular Greece, then later Rome and
the Middle East. Aristotle, for example, distinguished between two types of
economy: oikonomikė and khremastikė. Oikonomikė was the broader economy
which existed to satisfy the basic needs of the community. It provided what can
be called ‘a common ground’. The khremastikė economy was a means to
3
increase the monetary value of property. It was based on what Aristotle called
kapilikė (capital), that is the buying and selling of goods and using money, that is
coins, as a means of exchange. The primary motive behind a a khremastikė
economy, Aristotle argued, was the human desire to acquire ‘an infinite means of
sustenance’, that is, said Aristotle, ‘living forever’. However, Aristotle believed,
the more one chased after this illusion, the more the person destroyed the life of
the community, the common good. The only way of preventing this inherent
destructive behaviour, concluded Aristotle, was first by building ethical education
into the economy and second, introducing political controls on the economy to
protect the common good of the polis. Thus initially economics was about the
common good and money was introduced not as an end in itself but rather as a
means to an end: that is: the exchange of goods. (For an insightful exploration of
the origins of the market economy, see Property for People, not for Profit by
Ulrich Duchrown and Franz J Hinkelammert, Zed Books, 2004). Thus the
concept of economy, according to Aristotle inseparably linked economics, politics
and ethics, but ethics was the rationale, the moral glue that held the economy
together and promoted the common good. This basic premise ought to lie at the
heart of all economics.
• Ancient Israel
This basic premise was embedded in the emergence of ancient Israel. Whenever
there was a threat to the common good, prophets appeared who protested
against the injustice of the times. For example, the prophet Amos defended the
rights of small farmers and their families who were losing their possessions
through illegal seizures, and were being sold into slavery for excessive debt,
whose family members were reduced to debt slaves, who were deceived in shady
credit deals and who were forced by ruthless rulers to pay unjust levies and fines.
At the same time Amos challenged and condemned the wealthy who enriched
themselves at the expense of the poor. The prophet Micah condemned the debt
slavery created by the rich, “They covet fields, and seize them, houses and take
them away, they oppress householder and house, people and their inheritance.”
(Micah 2:2). Finally, the prophet Isaiah in the seventh century BCE attacked the
expropriation of farming families and the unconscionable accumulation of land by
the rich describing them as ‘greedy’ ‘thieves’ who were taking the ‘spoil of the
poor’. (Isaiah 3:14). Over time legal reforms were introduced to address these
social and economic life-destroying practices. These reforms included, for
example, what was known as ‘the rules of seven’. These consisted of economic
and theological laws such as the rule of the Sabbath, the year of debt release, the
year of gleaning, the abolition of usury, etc. The basic principle behind the rules
of seven was that no one should take advantage or benefit from the hardship of
others. The Holiness Code in Leviticus 25 is a good example of the rejection of
the absoluteness of property.
• Early Christianity
Again, the emergence of Christianity embraced these themes of economic justice.
For example, the heart of the Jesus prayer is the verse which says: ‘Forgive us
our debts as we forgive the debts of others – or in Greek – the debts of those who
owe us something.’ (Luke 4:1ff) The story of the Rich Young Ruler in Mark 10:1722 clearly emphasises the danger of accumulating riches. It suggests that the
rich young ruler must have acquired his wealth at the expense of others. All the
4
religious devotion in the world won’t save him. There is only one thing he can do:
give back what has been stolen not simply by the exploitation of others but
assisted by the aid of practices embedded in the economic system. The story of
the tax collector, Zaccheus, in Luke 19 emphasises the same principle of giving
back what is wrongly gained. Finally, shortly before Jesus is arrested,
condemned and crucified, he engages in a prophetic confrontation which raises a
fundamental question: which God will you serve? The God who legitimises
poverty created by exploitative economic practices? Or the God who, cares for
the poor and calls for justice and sharing, not sacrifice and the accumulation of
riches. As Jesus says, ‘What will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit
their life?” (Mk 8:35f)
It is clear from texts like Acts 4: 32-35 that early Christianity followed closely the
teachings of Jesus. Property was shared, Christians with land and houses sold
them and shared the proceeds with the larger Christian community according to
Luke. There was not a needy person among them. Thus one of the signs of
Jesus’ presence among Christians after his death and resurrection was the
common good of the community. As the German economist Ulrich Duchrow
asserts: ‘Jesus’ resurrection meant economically speaking – life in community
without need.’ (Duchrow and Hinkelammert, Property for People, Not for Profit:
26). Early Christianity was committed to building an alternative economy based
not on property acquisition and social status but on the common good, social
equality and mutual care. As early as the first century, it is possible to recognise
the inevitable moral consequences of this economy. For example do people
belong to the land or land belong to people? If we affirm the first option then an
effective and healthy economy should ensure access to land for everyone. If we
affirm the second option, then land is a commodity which can be bought and sold
with little or no regard for people. Again, what is the purpose of money? Is
money’s purpose acquisition or distribution of goods. If acquisition then money
becomes a means of power over others. If distribution, then money becomes a
means of industry, that is, it insures that everyone has a place at the table.
• The Modern Market
Land, labour and money are the three fundamental factors underlying the
emergence of what we know today as the modern market society. The classic
study of Karl Polanyi entitled The Great Transformation (1945) demonstrates how
the shift from common land or common property to bourgeois property (ie class
ownership) led to a revolution in the relationship between property, labour and
money that became the basis of the modern capitalist system.
• Enclosure: The Possessive Market
For example, through the political policy of enclosure in England the village
common land that the medieval peasants shared together became private land.
Numerous acts of enclosure going as far back as early 1600 in England
transformed the land, that is, property from a common good into a means of
production that led to more money, increased capital value and greater utility.
Political philosopher C B Macpherson in his book The Political Theory of
Possessive Individualism (1962) has called this development ‘the possessive
market society’. In his opinion it best describes the emergence of modern
capitalism. Successive enclosure acts over a period of two hundred or more
5
years in England transformed feudal lords into great landed proprietors and
reduced most people to common wage labourers who were shifted off the land
into the towns to find work. Alongside the landowner emerged a class of
merchants and bankers who assisted the wealthy land owners to buy up even
more common land. Land became pasture land for sheep that produced wool for
the textile industry.
Jeremy Rifkin observes that Enclosure introduced a new concept of human
relationships: ‘Land was no longer something people belonged to but rather a
commodity people possessed. Land was reduced to a quantitative status and
measured by its exchange value. So, too, with people. Relationships were
reorganised. Neighbours became employees or contractors. Reciprocity was
replaced with hourly wages. People sold their time and labour where before they
used to share their toil. Human beings began to view each other and everything
around them in financial terms. Virtually everyone and, everything ‘became
negotiable and could be purchased at an appropriate price, (cf J Rifkin, The
Biotech Century, 1998: 40f)
This slow but almost irreversible process took place first in England then later in
Western countries and changed land into a commodity which could be bought
and sold on the market. This commodification of land reduced human beings to
labourers who measured their self-worth through the market value of their work.
Thomas Hobbes: The Enlightened Sovereignty
It was the philosopher, Thomas Hobbes (1588- 1679), in the seventeenth century
who first began to offer a systematic formulation of this emerging new economic
world and its social and political implications. In his book The Political Theory of
Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (1962) C B MacPherson develops a
methodical, coherent exposition of his basic argument. The basic tenets of
Hobbes’ theory set forth in his major work Leviathan are:
1. Utility:
Hobbes believed the human being was essentially a machine, or more precisely,
a machine who examined everything for its usefulness in satisfying one’s desires.
Consequently human beings have an inbuilt propensity, said Hobbes to evaluate
everything for its usefulness to the individual. Some individuals have greater
desires ‘for power, riches, knowledge and honour’ than others. Life is a struggle
of everyone against everyone else.
2. Power:
Consequently every human being seeks power over others. Power, in Hobbes
view, is first of all ‘a human being’s present means, to obtain some future good.’
Hobbes argues there are two kinds of power: natural power or one’s physical and
mental abilities; and instrumental power or the ‘tools’ such as riches (i.e.
property), reputation and influence by which one can gain more power. But, he
argues, the capacity of every individual to get what he or she wants is opposed by
the capacity of every other individual. Life is about power over others. Thus in
Hobbes view, the market was an extension of human power. Hobbes reduced
human beings to commodities who struggle to exercise power over rather than be
subjected to power under. ‘The value or worth of a man,’ wrote Hobbes, ‘is as of
6
all other things, his price, that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of
his power: and therefore not absolute but a thing dependent on the need and
judgement of another.’ Thus, competition with others became the modus
operandi of society.
3. Sovereignty:
Since all human beings strive to have power over others, there is a need for a
sovereign power to prevent the struggle for power turning violent. Therefore, he
concluded, rational human beings must inevitably recognise the need for a superordinate power. Therefore, those who possess substantial property need a
sovereign state to sanction their rights of possession. They must authorise a
sovereign body to do whatever is necessary to maintain their right of possessions.
‘Without sovereignty,’ observed Hobbes, ‘There is no property.; A sovereign was
necessary to a free market to appoint in what manner, all kinds of contracts between
subjects, (as buying, selling, exchanging, borrowing, lending, letting and taking to
hire) are to be made’ and by what words and signs they shall understand for valid.’
Thus the primary function of the state is to enforce the institution of property and the
binding nature of contracts,
Hobbes philosophy prepared the ground for the emergence of the discipline of
economics or what economist Robert Heilbroner, has called ‘the worldly philosophy’.
As Samuel Johnson once observed, ‘There is nothing which requires more to be
illustrated by philosophy than trade does.’ (cf Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly
Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Idea of the Great Economic Thinkers, New York,
1986). Hobbes mechanistic approach to economics led social commentator Bernard
de Mandeville in the early eighteen century to observe in his fable of the bees that
‘when all do nothing but industriously pursue their own interests, the common end
result is precisely a gain in prosperity for all.’ In other words, according to Mandeville
‘private vices, public benefits’.
Adam Smith: The Invisible Hand
Whereas Hobbes established the principles of the possessive market society of his
day, it was the moral philosopher Adam Smith, who formulated the moral principle
which he believed formed the core operative principle of the market. He called it ‘the
invisible hand’ of the market. Smith observed that the natural tendency of human
beings is to pursue their own egotistic individual interests. They do this in a
calculating or rational way exercising both prudence and self-control. To follow these
principles as long as they are intelligent, that is, rational, in Smith’s view, is to be just
and fair. Thus underlying Smith’s understanding of the market is what might be
called a ‘functional ethic’ – an ethic of utility. This invisible hand sets the rules of the
market, the legal system protects the rules of the market and the state enforces
them. When the market is protected, the ruler respected and maintained, then the
market transforms egoistic, rational self-interest into public interest, that is, the wealth
of a nation – ‘even as by an invisible hand’, wrote Smith. The market, Smith
believed, is comparable to the harmony of the cosmos, which is guided by an
universal, invisible law of gravity. While Hobbes needed a sovereign to insure that
the struggle of all against all takes place within the rules and laws of the market;
Smith trusted in the laws of capitalism embedded in a legal and political order to
ensure prosperity for all.
7
However the history of capitalism seems to demonstrate that whenever a democratic
state is questioned because the indirect consequences of the market are resulting in
an intolerable distribution of property and goods creating hunger, suffering and
poverty, a nation tends to switch from a democratic order to a dictatorial order.
According to the Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung, ‘Nazism is western civilisation
in extremis’. Over the last century we have witnessed this kind of situation –
especially in regard to the process of globalisation and the rise of transnational
corporations (i.e. Brazil – 1964, Chile – 1973, Indonesia – 1965-6, Iraq and
Afghanistan). One of the enduring problems of capitalism in that whenever it faces a
major crisis, it seems to turn to violence and, eventually, war and conflict. This, it
seems to me, is one of the enduring problems of possessive market capitalism.
Keeping the Poor Poor
There is a deeper reason for this: capitalism has a destructive embedded social flaw:
the need to keep the poor poor. As de Mandeville observed, ‘To make a society
happy… it is requisite that great numbers should be Ignorant as well as Poor.’
Poverty is an unavoidable, structural consequence of capitalism when there are no
moral principles beyond self interest and utility to guide it. Before there can be any
genuine economic recovery there needs to be a moral recovery. The invisible hand
of the market cannot guarantee just and equitable outcomes for all and society often
ignores the importance of maintaining the common good. Embedded in the common
good are our most important social ideals. Mahatma Gandhi once observed that
modern capitalism has created what he called ‘the Seven Deadly Social Sins’:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Politics without principle
Wealth without work
Commerce without morality
Pleasure without conscience
Education without character
Science without humanity
Worship without sacrifice.
Poverty will not go away if we continue ‘business as usual’ because, according to
possessive market practice, poverty is necessary to the system. Implicit in this
market assumption is its other side: it is the primary function of the market to create
wealth; that is, maximise profits. But if possessive market practice is premised on
poverty and profit, then it is obvious who wins and who loses.
It we are going to achieve a genuine economic recovery where everyone benefits,
first we have to undergo profound moral recovery. In 1975, John Taylor, at the time
Anglican bishop of Winchester, England, anticipated our current economic crisis. In
a small but important book Enough is Enough (SCM, 1975), he argued for a radical
moral revision of market economics ‘I am not against the good things of life, and I
covet, for all humankind a level of comfort and security,’ he observed, ‘that will make
possible the fullest realisation of our power and our mutual enrichment. But those
ideals are at the very opposite end of the moral spectrum from the excess which
marks our western way of life, however similar the two may seem to be on the
surface. Excess means disproportion; and disproportion can never be a recipe for
survival.’ He adds that ‘if we continue to tolerate business as usual we shall not only
destroy ourselves but the planet as well.’ ‘Excess,’ he writes, ‘is the word that comes
8
continually to mid: ruthless, unbridled, unthinking excess. We are being made to
expect too much. We are taking too much. We are scrapping too much. We are
paying, and compelling others to pay, far too high a price.’ (p 21) Such a moral
transformation of the market won’t happen overnight but it can happen over time if
we are prepared to first change our minds, than change our values and finally
change over lives. If we want to walk then we have to take the first steps. The moral
choices we make can shape the economy we need.
Moral Market Corrections
Let me propose some basic moral market choices that can begin to transform not
only our personal lives but lead to a market recovery that benefits everyone.
• From Acquisition to Distribution
The first moral market change I propose is the change from Acquisition to
Distribution. If the primary purpose of the market is to create wealth then from a
moral point of view the primary task of the market is to distribute that wealth so that
everyone benefits. Otherwise we have created what might be called a moral deficit
which will have long standing consequences for everyone – the market, using its own
language – becomes a ‘subprime’ market in which a few accumulate great wealth for
themselves at the expense of those who can least afford to pay. Such an outcome,
argues Daniel Gross in his book Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds
Bankrupted the Nation, that such a market economy is a ‘crap sandwich’. It leads
inevitably to ‘record housing foreclosures, empty houses and apartments,
plummeting education and retirement funds, lost financial futures, and most painful,
the loss of jobs.’ (cf Daniel Gross, Dumb Money, Simon and Schuster, New York,
2009:116) Even Adam Smith would have acknowledged that the invisible hand of
the market ought to lead to moral as well as economic outcomes. ‘It is not from the
benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner,’ he
wrote, ‘but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their
humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of
their advantages.’ (The Wealth of Nations)
A market geared to acquisition can only lead to bad outcomes. It tends to create a
sense of entitlement among those who benefit, a kind of economic ‘yacht culture’ (a
term coined by Robert Frank in his book Richistan: A Journey through the American
Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich Random House, New York, 2007). One
of the large yachts owned by American entrepreneur, Larry Ellison is a ‘floating
palace that tops 450 feet and has more than 80 rooms on five stories. Along with the
usual gyms and swimming pools, Rising Sun has a twin-hulled landing craft to carry a
four wheel Jeep ashore.’ When questioned about the extravagance of his yachts,
Ellison replied: ‘Well, I do think it is excessive. It is absolutely excessive. No
question about it. But it’s amazing what you can get used to.’ Most of us could never
imagine this sort of greed that could lead to such excess. Ellison may be an anomaly
but a market that leads to such excess in a world where half of the global population
lives in poverty is morally unsustainable and unconscionable.
We should not be surprised when we are bombarded through advertising to acquire
more and more things we don’t need. In his classic 1899 treatise on wealth, The
Theory of the Leisure Class, Norwegian born American economist Thorstein Veblan
coined the phrase ‘conspicuous consumption’ to explain such excess. Veblan
9
explored the socio-psychological forces behind the reasons for market forces such as
acquisition and consumption. He called this a social psycho-pathology – it was built
on the predatory seizure of goods without work. ‘In order to stand well in the eyes of
the community,’ explained Veblen, ‘it is necessary to come up to a certain somewhat
indefinite conventional standard of wealth, just as in the earlier predatory stage it is
necessary for the barbarian man to come up to his tribe’s standards of physical
endurance, cunning, and skill at arms.’ Veblen suggests that when examined
closely, ‘conspicuous consumption’ as the driving market force is best understood as
a deep-buried irrationality of past generations. If we accept the basic premises of the
modern market such as acquisition, then in Veblen’s view, human beings are
essentially still ‘thinly civilised barbarians’. The best alternative to a culture of greed
is a culture of sharing where the goods of society became a common good, a new
kind of what might be called ‘social capitalism’ that distributes wealth so that
everyone benefits. The shift from acquisition to distribution is first a moral challenge
but second it can lead to profound economic consequences.
• From Personal Gain to Common Good
There is a hidden logic of death embedded in global capitalism. Through slogans
such as unlimited growth, privatisation of assets, profit-maximising competition,
people are led to believe that the market is working for the welfare of all. But that
clearly is not the case. In the fourth century BCE the Greek philosopher Aristotle
anticipated the dangers of this logic when he argued that through the limitless
accumulation of property and goods through money, people are led to believe in the
illusion of a boundless life. Such an illusion, he pointed out, inevitably destroyed the
community. He believed that the real purpose of the market was primarily to
preserve the common good and care for the poor. These two principles Aristotle
argued, constituted ‘the true wealth of the polis’. But, he added, ‘such wealth is not
unlimited’. As long as it contributed ‘to the elementary needs of people in the service
of sustenance and a dignified, virtuous life,’ he wrote, it benefits what he called ‘the
social whole’.
The crucial economic principle advocated by Aristotle was benefit. In other words if
we are beneficiaries of existing goods, he believed, there really is no private property,
only shared property. If private property is to exist at all, then it must be in common.
This moral point of view suggests that the preservation of life for all arises from its
comprehensive, participatory character. It calls for economics to be rooted in the
material needs of life: access to food, adequate housing, care for the environment,
the sustainability of all life.
In a recent article in the Guardian entitled “How poor are you on a dollar a day?’.
The author reports on efforts by policymakers over what is ‘a reasonable poverty
line?’ For example the World Bank favours a poverty live of USD $1.25 a day,
adjusted for purchasing power. India and China consider people are poor if they
cannot afford a minimal ‘basket of goods’. European countries use a relative poverty
line, whereby households that earn below 60% of the median income are considered
poor. Many observers call such cut-offs ‘ridiculous’ and ‘created to fool the
international community’. But underlying this debate is a more fundamental issue: in
a world where there is enough for everyone and then some, why does poverty exist
at all? As the author of the article points our: ‘Regardless of where a poverty line is
drawn there will always be individuals living immediately above it who need
10
government handouts as much as those immediately below it.’ This dilemma
demonstrates that the problem is the market which is designed to benefit a few at the
expense of the poor. Poverty is not an accident, it is the inevitable consequence of
pursuing personal gain, at the expense of the common good. (cf Guardian Weekly,
18-24 June, 2010)
One more insight: the policymakers didn’t consult the poor when they established
poverty lines. They simply drew their conclusions from the statistical information
available to them. In other words, they didn’t consider the common good. When I
was appointed to my first church, the church was located in the heart of Appalachia
in central Kentucky. Every weekend I would drive to Clay City, Kentucky. A good
number of the members of the church were miners and they shared their concerns
with me over surviving their works and caring for their families. One miner shared
with me an interesting story that has become a powerful metaphor. When the miners
went down into the mines they would take canaries with them. I asked why they did
this and he told me that canaries had very sensitive respiratory systems and could
easily detect a toxic situation. When the canaries started to cough or choke, the
miner said, it was time to get out of the mine as quickly as possible. Thus the canary
taught me a fundamental truth: the canary was a powerful symbol of the poor and
vulnerable and an indicator of the social health of a nation. When poverty exists and
dramatically increases, the common good of society is seriously eroded. In the end,
the common good is our own good, we are all in this world together and if one part of
society suffers, we all suffer and our common humanity is profoundly diminished.
From Competition to Cooperation
The Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, once observed: ‘In the end, it is the reality of
personal relationships that saves everything.’ (The Hidden Ground of Love, Farrar,
Straus, 1985) The market prefers the language of occupation rather than the
language of vocation. Because the work place is so competitive, people often find
the work place frustrating and destructive! People may need good jobs, but they also
need good work.’ (cf Jim Wallis, Rediscovering Values, Howard Books, 2010: 173).
The market cannot give us meaning in life – but good work can. In his other seminal
work published in 1759, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith shared the
view that the human tendency ‘to admire, and almost worship’ the rich and powerful
while ‘despising and neglecting the poor’ was the most universal corruption of moral
sentiments. Underlying this condition is the fact that market competition encourages
a kind of social Darwinism: its all about me over against you. Advertisers constantly
tell us that we need their next product, that new car, the best home, a new outfit.
These products will make us happy and fulfilled. But the reality is just the opposite.
A competitive market only sets the stage for more and more isolated individuals
locked forever in the endless struggle to have the biggest and best house, the most
expensive computer, the finest car. Competition breeds self-interest and self-interest
perpetuates a kind of economic narcissism, a kind of class hubris. In the ancient
world hubris was considered the greatest sin and according to the Biblical story of the
Garden of Eden, this hubris or pride was the original sin. The serpent told them that
if they listened to him they would ‘be like God’. Add to this hubris the advent of
modern technology and we have created an endless number of ways to say ‘Look at
me’. Competition breeds an all-about-me mentality.
11
But reality tells a different story. We are not isolated individuals, rather, we are
interdependent, interconnected, social creatures who need each other. We are born
into families, we participate in rich cultural traditions and we can’t avoid each other.
In a recent book, Connected, scientists Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler argue
that human consciousness is more than our individual brains. They show from a
social-neurological analysis how interconnected we are as human beings and that
our real-life social networks shape every aspect of our lives. How we feel, whom we
marry, whether we fall ill, how successful we are – everything hinges on what others
around us are doing, thinking and feeling. Our world is governed, they say, by the
Three Degrees of Influence Rule: we are influenced by people up to three degrees
removed from us, many of whom we do not know. These social networks define who
we are. If they are competitive they tend to treat everyone else as a competitor.
However, they also argue that human beings have a choice. They can choose to
compete or to cooperate with others. They refer to what they call the Inverse Golden
Rule: if someone cooperates with you then reciprocate that cooperation. In this
strategy, cooperation will always rise above competition. They argue that we are
connected for a reason. ‘The purpose of social networks’, they contend, ‘is to
transmit positive and desirable outcomes.’ In other words, cooperative networks lead
to good outcomes not just for a particular individual but for all those connected.
But they also discovered the more cooperative social networks became, the more
their altruism spread from their networks to other social networks. Altruism became
contagious increasing the public good. All we need to do is connect and cooperate.
They conclude: ‘When we practice random acts of kindness, they can spread to
dozens or even hundreds of other people. And with each good deed, we help
sustain the very network that sustains us.’
There is a Better Way
If we as a human family are going to have a future, if the planet on which we live is
going to be able to sustain us, then we have to begin the work of reconstruction by
rediscovering the moral principles that can give us a new economy where all benefit
and no one is left out. In other words we need a new moral compass which can
guide us to an economy with a human face, an economy that sustains life and heals
the planet. But before we change the economy, we have to change ourselves and
the values that connect us to each other. It is time to write a new morality play in
which no one is left out and all benefit.
Jim Stuart
22 June 2010
12