OrganicJesus.org

I used to really believe in the Market, in the ability of what Adam Smith called "the invisible hand" to be able to collect, direct, and allocate goods and capital in a society. It's the laws of supply and demand, trade, finances, banking, and globalization. The market is indeed very good at naturally (and chaotically) distributing goods. When farmers have food to sell, the market does an okay job at making sure that it's sold for a reasonable price to everyone that can get to it. It generally rewards innovation and uses competition to provoke even more innovation. That's about as far as my "honors" to it will go, I'm afraid.

The problem is, while Adam Smith said in "The Wealth of the Nations" that the Market is great at producing capital, it isn't good at fairly distributing it. It's only good at accumulating it ("the rich get richer, the poor get poorer"). Thus, Smith was quick to say that government regulations need to be enacted to protect the public interest from the unrestrained forces of greed in the Market.

Indeed, today's worldwide economy is very, very, very flawed. Rather than my usual "honors and critiques" thing, I'll use the rest of this post to outline four very serious assumptions that followers of Jesus must be mindful of as they engage the market. For another excellent article in this direct, and from a Republican perspective, read my friend Dean Ohlman's article, The Free Market and the Environment.

First and most foundationally, it is a way of organizing a society rooted in self-interest, which leads to greed and hoarding and selfishness and all other vile sorts of business. Yet we Saints are to pursue the good of all, not just the proverbial "Me." If as the People of God we are to be a part of God's setting the world aright by modeling God's Future in the present, and we know that it is a future characterized by love and other-mindedness, how ever can we get along in this society rooted in self-pursuit? If my own country, America, is leading a global economy and way of life which is rooted in competition, then may God help His people called to live against that lunacy as a peculiar, cooperative people! Surely we must work toward a society which is not primarily structured by Greed and Self-Interest.

Second, the Market as it has existed since 1913, has demanded constant economic growth. As long as we have fractional-reserve banking (lending more than you have in reserves) and fiat currency (make-believe money that isn't backed by a limited physical commidity like gold or silver), the Power that is the Market will continue to demand whatever it takes to make it grow. Rather than mature and stabilize, it mathematically must grow or bust. This sense of infinite growth is actually the ideology of the cancer cell. It grows until it kills its host. And, tragically, that's the way money works. It's the Minotaur unto which we must always sacrifice our youth, ere he escape and harm us.

Looking into the future, we must ask ourselves what will happen when we can no longer feed this minotaur. We must consider and prepare for a future in which growth starts to kill the host. There's only so much oil and soil to use up -- we've got to be ready for when their availability begins to diminish. We must prepare for an age of Less.

Third, when a society so worships Mammon as our generation has, some pretty luducrious things start to happen. Consider the following:

-- You can profit off of crime. Corporations which specialize in the building and maintaining of prisons trade their stock publicly on Wall Street, which means it is in the stockowners' interest for more people to be imprisoned. That is, if crime goes down, so does their net worth.

-- You can profit off of torture and murder. Coca-Cola hires para-military terrorists and mercenaries to kill and kidnap labor organizers in their Latin-America plants. This keeps their labor costs down so their profits can stay up.

-- You can profit off of war. Billions of dollars are made every year because of our nation's propensity for war. If there isn't an enemy to fear or a war to fight, many peoples' (and politician's) net worth would go down. Moreover, tens of thousands of blue-collar jobs in the military-industrial complex would be lost. As one former U.S. General wrote, "war is a racket."

It's clear: in a political climate where "it's the economy, stupid" is the secret to election, and in a system whose existence is rooted in greed and growth, the Power that is the Market can unleash some awfully sick things on humanity. As one of my heroes, Wendell Berry, wrote, it is "an economy firmly founded upon the seven deadly sins and the breaking of all ten of the Ten Commandments."

Lastly, the Market ignores "externalities", which are the costs of a product or service not reflected in the price tag. I'll leave it to the late, great Bobby Kennedy to elaborate on this point:

"Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."

It should be clear after these four critiques that this Power is clearly out of control, and the one most to be guarded against. While all of the Principalities & Powers seek to usurp the Lordship of Christ and claim their authority over creation, it is the Market, that old demon Mammon, to which all the other Powers seem increasingly to obey and worship. It is today's Prince of Demons.

May the Lord reveal this to his Saints, and may he drive them to courageously speak truth to these Powers in how the live and vote and pray. May Christ's lordship be ever clearer to a world increasingly tormented by the false lordship of the Market and all the other powers behind it. May their evil be overcome with Jesus' good. Amen.