The need for reviving the discussion of theology, ethics, and economics in church circles has become urgent in light of contemporary events. Most dramatic and obvious has been the political collapse of communist governments in what was formerly called Eastern Europe. The revolutionary changes under way in those societies are raising fresh and fundamental questions about the ability of economies inspired by Marxist ideology--and guided by the centralized power of a single party--to build economic and social liberation and to enable human fulfillment.
The failures of these social experiments are increasingly obvious as one listens to the testimonies of their victims: the denial of people's active political participation in decisions affecting their lives, the rigid oppression and control of populations through an elaborate apparatus of security forces, economic stagnation preventing responses even to simple needs felt by people, corruption of the powerful creating an elite with tightly protected privileges, pressures to suppress or subvert spiritual perspectives and practices, and the increasing destruction of the environment with serious damage to human health.
The collapse of these political and social structures has been felt not only within those societies, but also has contributed to a growing global ideological crisis. Marxism, after all, has functioned globally as the great restrainer of capitalism. It has set forth an analysis revealing the depths of economic power and the roots of much oppression. It has held forth the idea that societies can be organized according to principles other than those that maximize economic gain for a privileged few. And it has been a philosophical alternative that has challenged people to place their hopes and efforts with the aspirations of the poor.
The demise of Marxist-inspired systems in Eastern Europe creates the danger of a massive ideological vacuum quickly filled by the appeal of capitalism. The new temptation is to believe that capitalism--and an unfettered market--can solve human aspirations for economic and social liberation.
The failures of Western economic systems are often quickly overlooked in the face of the revolutionary changes in the East. Listening to the victims of capitalist systems, however, one finds that many of their cries echo those of the people who have been oppressed by Marxist approaches. These include the lack of participation in economic decision making, the destruction of the environment, the privileges of powerful and corrupt elites, the oppression of dissidents--which is especially ruthless in many Third World countries following capitalist models--the spiritual poverty of consumerism, and the suffering of a huge, global underclass of those who are economically impoverished.
OTHER GLOBAL TRENDS AS WELL underscore the need for fresh perspectives on economic systems. The growth of transnational corporations and the increasing pressures to eliminate national boundaries and restrictions on trade have created a major trend toward a world market.
The most worrisome consequence of this trend is that it can "lock in" a system that consigns a major portion of the world's peoples--who lack the resources necessary to participate in this global market--to suffer as the losers. And, by increasing the power of global market forces, the possibilities for promoting self-reliant and sustainable patterns of economic life at local and regional levels are undermined.
The basic patterns of the world's economy, and its changes in the past decade, underscore the need for churches to think critically and creatively about economic issues. Today the African continent is poorer in per capita terms than it was 30 years ago. In Latin America from 1980 to 1986, income actually declined by 10 percent. Due to the patterns of international debt, the North today actually receives more economic resources from the South than it transfers to the South. These facts translate into growing rates of malnutrition, infant mortality, and early death.
And finally, the reality of global ecological deterioration forces a fundamental shift in economic theory and practice. For not only has human suffering increased over the last decade under our present economic disorder, but now the global basis of life--its environmental foundation--is threatened with disaster.
We know, of course, that the affluent one-quarter of the world's population is responsible for the most damaging amounts of consumption and environmental destruction. That quarter consumes 15 times more paper, 10 times more steel, and 12 times more energy than the remaining three-quarters of the world's people. And, of course, today's global population of more than five billion will continue to rise. To propose models of economic growth which would project that the levels of high consumption now practiced by one-quarter of humanity are adopted by all humanity would result in worsening by 20 times the present damage to the world's ecological life.
FOLLOWING THE REFORMATION and the Enlightenment, Christianity--especially its Western expressions--and capitalism became entangled in a web. Many others have described in perceptive ways this interlocking relationship, which included a common belief in individualism, a subtle association between personal wealth and spiritual righteousness, and a moral rationalization of economic privilege.
As capitalism developed theoretically from thinkers such as Adam Smith, and was then integrated into the churches' life and outlook in modern Western societies, it displayed an uncanny ability to transform vice into virtue. Adam Smith, of course, argued that it was precisely the exercise of an individual's selfish pursuits which, when channeled by the "invisible hand" of the market, led to the well-being of the whole society.
But the problem, of course, is complicated. When the alternative to capitalism is seen as an economy constructed according to the guidelines of communism, the available models display failures of moral discernment on other grounds. While Marxism presupposes that the greed of the privileged must be destroyed, it seems to assume the absence of greed or self-interest on the part of those who are in the vanguard of freeing people from such oppression. One might say that while capitalism places its trust in human selfishness as the motive of social welfare, communism has faith that human selflessness will result from the destruction of economic oppression.
Economic debate in the modern era has been determined by the polarity between capitalism and socialism. Today it is becoming more important to recognize the similarities between these two systems, rather than their differences.
Both ideological systems have shared in their allegiance to the goals and the promises of industrialism. Put simply, their argument has been over who owned the means of production -- not over the process itself.
THE CHURCHES' MAJOR CHALLENGE in viewing economic questions is to break out of these narrow confines and recognize a fundamental shift in perceiving economic theories and practices. The search for fresh alternatives selects a different set of criteria for comparing and understanding economic practices.
One approach, by economist Herman E. Daly and theologian John B. Cobb Jr., proposes that economic practices can best be understood and evaluated today on their ability to build community -- or to destroy it. By community they mean the options for people to participate in economic decisions and institutions, the capacity for communities and regions to become economically self-reliant and thus locally sustainable, and the ability to protect and safeguard the environment.
Such an approach criticizes the extreme individualism and egoism that capitalist economic practices regard as normative, but it also rejects the extreme power and control of the state that characterize dominant socialist models, both of which destroy the possibility of true community. Examples that decentralize power, but stress its basis in community, are seen as alternatives. This might include workers' participation in the management and ownership of factories, the development of self-sufficient food supplies for local areas, and the encouragement of cooperatives in the local marketing of various goods.
An emphasis is placed on encouraging the building of self-sufficiency in regions throughout the world, which means providing necessary protection against the intrusive powers of the global market. Creating justice for the poor requires, in this view, the opportunity for the direct participation of people in building their economic future, and enabling forms of self-sufficiency that will stop the pattern of dependency, debt, and exploitation that now characterizes the relationship between the affluent and the poor.
Basing economic practice in ecological realities becomes crucial. This requires a new vision of the earth, precisely because the industrial era has so distorted the understanding of nature. Here the churches have a critical role to play. Our challenge is to redevelop the theology of creation in ways that recognize the primary importance of God's gift of ecological life, opening the way to alternatives that protect the earth from being valued and treated as a commodity whose worth is determined only by the market.
Rethinking economics also opens the way for societies to explore a fresh encounter with the realities of religious faith and vision. The hope for a sustainable world, the cries against the economic oppression of the world's poor, and the attempts to build new forms of human community find their roots in a religious understanding of life in the world.
Therefore the current crisis of the global economy, coupled with the threat of ecological catastrophe and the revolutionary questioning of old ideologies, compels the ecumenical movement to take up again its search for new models of societies. This task calls for uncovering new theological and economic explorations that can allow the churches to enter with creativity and prophetic power into the world's search for a future in which the gift of life can be sustained for all.
Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, a Sojourners contributing editor, was director of the Sub-unit on Church and Society of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland when this article appeared.
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