Is our economic system blocking the kingdom of God that Quakers seek to build? How do we even begin to address that? It’s a question Pamela Haines has thought a lot about.
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Transcript:
Quakers have always asked really big picture questions. I think it’s because of that belief of “that of God in every person” and the idea that there is a way of thinking about “what would the kingdom of God look like here on Earth?” That we wrestle with that question and that requires us to think about what’s happening around us and apply our faith values, look for where that of God is present and where it’s being blocked. That’s just part of our work as Quakers, I think. I would definitely say that our current economic system is blocking the kingdom of God in all possible ways.
A Quaker Perspective on Economics
My name is Pamela Haines. I live in Philadelphia, and my meeting is here in Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting.
John Woolman is the person that I go back to again and again when thinking about economics. A Quaker from the late 1700s who just thought hard about his relationship to the world around him. So John Woolman says, “dig deep; that you may carefully cast forth the loose Matter, and get down to the Rock, the sure Foundation, and there hearken to the Divine Voice which gives a clear and certain Sound.”
You know what he said about getting to the root? That seems critical. It seems critical, and as I look at the world around me—I’m called to engage with the world around me as a Quaker—and as I look at the world around me, I keep looking for the roots. You see a lot of things that are wrong, you go looking for the roots, looking for the roots, you get to the economic system. Looking for the roots in the economic system, you get to the money.
If I’m digging deep and casting out all that loose material and trying to get down to the foundation in society, it has to be the economy, and it has to be the money that drives the economy.
The Flaws in Our Economic System
The assumption in the economy is that we make decisions on the basis of self-interest and greed. That’s a problem, and so there’s a really big cultural issue. Assumptions about who we are and what we’re for and what our roles with each other are and what our connections with each other are.
On a different level, there’s a couple of ways that it’s deeply flawed structurally. One is, the idea of ever-increasing growth is running up against the limits of the Earth. I think people know about that pretty well. The other is that the interest-debt dynamic means that those who have more continue to get more by getting interest from the people who have less who are paying off debts to them, so it’s like this inherent pulling apart of the society into the more and more “haves”—fewer “haves” with more and a lot of people with less.
Reconciling Our Faith With Our Economics
Integrity means wholeness, so we have to bring the economy and bring our faith and bring them together and think about all the decision we make and all the things that we’re part of as a faith issue.
So think about the testimonies. We value integrity but there’s no place for conscience in our economic system. We value simplicity but we’re told that our role is to consume more and more. We value equality but our economic system is driven toward increasing inequality. We value community but we’re told to act as individuals, and people on the margins are discarded. We value stewardship, yet we’re running through the Earth’s resources at an alarming rate. We value peace, but the economy is creating more destruction than any war ever has. So it seems very, very compelling that we have to ask those big questions about our economic system if we’re going to be true to our testimonies.
A New Economic System
We have to think freshly about what really could work. I’m not so interested in labels as thinking about what a new economic system could really work for everybody. We’ve come to the end of just being able to grow and grow and grow physically, the way children come to the end of their growing, growing, growing physically. So we need to make a shift to: what is a mature economy? What is an economy that can exist in a steady state? What’s a new economy that could work in the situation that we’re in?
So we need to look for an economy that can exist within the confines of the world that works for everybody. What an interesting thing to try and figure out.
Discussion Questions:
- Do you agree with Pamela Haines’s assessment of our economic system? What would it look like if Quakers applied their faith to economics?
- Pamela compares our economy to the growth of a child, asserting that we may have reached the point where we can no longer expect steady growth. She asks, “What is an economy that can exist in a steady state?”
The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.
Excellent
There is so much wrong with this video I don’t even know where to begin. There are lots of things wrong with our economy, and lots of things that go against our Quaker faith, and none of them have to do with markets and all of them have to do with the state using its power and violence to interfere with it.
Corporate welfare is a good first example, but there are many more.
We need to find deeper, more relevant, and contemporary analysis of our societies and governments than what is given to us in popular political discourse. “Market vs. State” discourse may have made sense a hundred or two hundred years ago, but societies and capitalism have radically changed. Same with notions of “limited government” from the 1700’s, which is now simple used to justify the extension of the privatization of the State through the semi-Feudal Corporate-State bureaucratic systems that are in place globally now. On top of it within the context of rapid technological growth and serve environmental degradation, our society as it exists cannot be explained or even adequately critiqued in the discourse of even a generation ago. We need a radical reinventing and re-imaging of all of what we thought made sense with past economic logic.
I do agree with what she is saying here, and I think she says it well.
My frustration with this, and with so many critiques of our current system is that – yes, we delineate what is wrong, but we don’t seem to have any vision of what an ethical system would look like. That’s the hard question, but it needs addressing. Where are we going? What models are there for what an ethical, sustainable, egalitarian economic system might look like?
My view is that the models are out there. I would encourage people to look at Rojava, Syria, the Zapatista communities in Chiapas (Mexico), the Mondragón cooperatives in Spain, the worker cooperative network in Argentina, the vision of Jackson, MS and Marinaleda, Spain, and the New Economic Coalition in the US.
Not only is it helpful to have something to work towards, because it shows that a better system is possible. But also, it gives us a place to start now, today. We can do more of this because it is already being done and it is working.
Thanks, Pamela, for describing so clearly how we need to link economics and ethics (and how the current systems fails to do so).
So nicely spoken, thank you Pamela…
Can’t help but think about what I heard, as a kid, all those many years.
“Don’t let Money become your God”
Truthfully, I’m seeing that happen and it is troubling.
Love & Light
Jules from Northwood, Ohio
Economics or the study of production, consumption, or transfer of wealth can in capitalism become a worship of mammon or against the Spirit of Life. Some in life, do reach a point of fame, like Ghandi, King Jr, Mandela, and Mother Teresa by reaching well beyond the fields of economics, in life with and for others. SPICES (Simple, Peace, Integrity, Commmunity, Equality, Stewardship) provides a solid base for a world of souls reaching beyond the worship of wealth and thereby helping others in their lives. For those individuals, religions, governments, and organizations seeking fame and/or fortune, in the capitalistic system, SPICES can be very difficult to follow and live by.
My take is that this is spot on with what’s going on in the world today economically! Small group of people at the top who are only there for themselves. Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth are the 7 deadly sins. The majority of the ‘people’ who drive the economy of the world today all suffer from at least 5 of these. Scary but true. Economy as we know it is not going to be sustainable as the world cannot keep producing at the rate it has too today so something has to give and something has to change! May it begin to right the many wrongs,
It is bad enough that our economic system is driven by narcissism and consumption.
Worst of all is that our current economic system is wholly dependent upon maintaining and increasing the levels of poverty to support it.
Last of all is the problem of the oil companies and war industry maintaining a clutch hold upon our economy.
We already know the answers, we just are unable to effectively act upon them.
This is the first post that has come close to asking questions similar to those of Henry George, 19th c. economist. I learned about him in the ’90’s in NYC at the Henry George School. There were Quakers from NJ who were taught Georgist ideas at home from their parents !! HG was from Pa. also, I think Harrisburg. Certainly has applications today.
Simply stated…
“People & Planet before Profits”
Profoundly true now, just as it was, when first uttered!