Nurturing Justice 16 (2007)
This issue of Nurturing Justice is to make a general comment on Economics, the fifth on our list of "big issues". We have begun to explore what nurturing justice might mean for us as citizens, confronting demanding questions about our vocation as citizens. What does justice mean for our citizenship on the global stage and what is our responsibility to the region? How should we respond to globalization and what about global warming and climate change? What is our responsibility for future generations? There is a decades-long widening gap between rich and poor, not only between the "North" and the "South" but also in our own country and region, and so, numbered among the wealthy of the earth, we have to confront our responsibility for the poor, the hungry and the excluded. What are we going to do about all these things?
Clearly, politics is one important dimension of our response to these issues. And by asking ourselves these questions, quietly and persistently, we will make life uncomfortable for ourselves and perhaps others - but what alternative is there? We will confront the unreality by which election campaigns are conducted these days - its easy to sense this unreality but then we have to find a way to respond by "getting real" in politics? How do we explain the problem of political unreality in a way that mitigates the cynicism that sits patiently at the door of our lives, just waiting for an opportunity to barge in and take over? How do we confront the trivialisation of our task to seek justice and thereby strengthen our resolve to act with persistent compassion?
Here then let us discuss the place which economic policy should have within our country's political life. But to find that place we first have to address our current political experience which is dominated by economics. This dominance is deeply engrained and it can be easily demonstrated by noting the way we speak about, and think about, our political responsibilities. At an election we confront rival electoral machines telling us over and over that we are engaged in buying a political product. The very terms that we use to explain the political process indicate that our political world-view has been swamped by a way of thinking in which voters are viewed as political consumers, elections are a three-yearly political market, candidates are wanting to be elected onto the national or state board of directors (the parliament) that then take over the running of the nation's business. And that is only the start.
Why does an economic metaphor have such priority in our thinking and talking about politics? What does this language tell us about our priorities? I am not going to try to answer that question here, at least not directly, but I do want to provoke some reflection about this language so that next time a discussion of politics, the election or "the economy" comes our way, we might be alert to the terms we use to explain ourselves.
Let me ask you this? What is the usual explanation that is given in your conversations with others to explain the political mess the world is in? The answer I often hear is: "It's greed." I suspect this explanation is widespread, if not universal. This is usually followed by, "And what can anyone do about greed?" When that statement is made, especially by the fellow you thought would be interested in discussing politics and justice issues, you realize the discussion is almost over, if it isn't dead in the water already. "It's greed and there's not much you can do about that!" Full stop.
Greed: over-extension of self-interest; self-interest at the expense of others. Isn't it interesting that in all the talk about how our country's economy is working, whether it is working so well (as the government claims - despite the drought for which we'll have to pull the farmer assistance lever) or whether it is working so poorly (as the government's critics claim - because the wrong levers have been pulled and the right ones not been tried), we don't ever hear politicians speaking about policies that could stem the flow of greed - policies that would challenge greed at its source. Even when the national curriculum standards are on the agenda where is the discussion that emphasizes the need to educate young people to challenge our nation's greed?
Politicians are very good at complimenting communities who act generously in floods and fires; but even with the initiative to prevent child abuse in remote aboriginal communities, which has shown a residual deep concern across our polity, how much have we heard of government anger and disdain at the greed of those who exploit marginalised people by producing and selling pornography? It's been there in small doses but it is muted, not played in a major key.
How many times have you heard candidates address the issue of greed as a problem that has to confronted politically, in the structure of our society, our political life, by all of us? I'm not talking about what is called "gutter politics" where one candidate tries to accuse a rival of being on the side of greed, but even when that moralistic tone is sounded politicians don't dare to suggest that we might have to build a society that confronts greed with a comprehensive political alternative of generosity.
Greed: everyone is talking about it, but when it comes down to policy it seem we avoid it, or simply throw up our hands and assume that there is nothing that can be done.
Why is that? Is it that the challenge to greed is too challenging. Will it challenge our view of our selves, our own self-interest? What would be so wrong with that? We have had a "war" on poverty, and now a "war" on "terrorism". Why not a war on greed?
In all the talk about the "Christian values" that are said to be the "core" of our nation, where's the assertion of the Christian value of self-denial in public life, self-criticism in ethical conduct, self-restraint in the market place? Are we really wanting to go head-to-head with greed, the greed we all profess to carry around with us but do so little about? It doesn't seem like it.
Go to your local op-shop and have a look at old economics texts that end up there. Or go to the university bookshop and look through the latest ones. Find the sections which deal with the economics of greed; with economic policies that can confront the causes of the mess the world is supposed to be in. It would seem that greed is so central to our underlying economic world-view that our economic theory doesn't even bother to address it (except a brief mention in passing). Greed is so central to our political economy that it is the one thing our political and economic powers have agreed not to discuss. In this they follow John Maynard Keynes who is famous for this statement:
For at least another hundred years, we must pretend to ourselves, and to everyone that this fair is foul and foul is fair. For foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and greed must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.
Keynes may have indulging in rhetoric, but he was assuming that humankind was capable of overcoming its problems and would surely emerge out of the tunnel of necessity. But the problem with his economic view of greed is that "foul" remains an unavoidable norm for the present:
translated into economic theory we note an inability to deal conceptually with the human causes of economic hardship; the realities of human suffering and poverty are somehow off in another dimension of reality, which the figures, the trade weighted indices and the policy levers just cannot touch;
when this comes to government policies we see an inability of politicians and voters, on all sides, to accept our God-given responsibly and to think structurally about these problems and so the pessimistic cynicism that nothing can be done prevails;
and so when it comes to mere friendly discussion with those we meet as we walk along our daily path ….?
In Australia, politics has often been construed as a battle between "greed" and " envy" - I'll leave readers to line up this dichotomy with our political spectrum. But usually these days elections are about how generous the candidate will be to the electorate once in office. And that typifies the shpeel we will hear on the hustings. At election time it is as if politics is simply a product which the candidate sells by giving attention (with our public funds) to packaging and advertising but after the election politics is simply about economic policies as our elected "salespersons" try to convince us that they are helping us go about consuming the real products that life is all about. And so the electoral-market cycle begins again.
If we acquiesce in this way of thinking, then we had better face the fact that we are also admitting the necessity of Keynes' vicious treadmill of avarice and greed as a sine qua non for our political lives. But, to turn away from that tunnelled enslavement and to accept restraint, care and enough is to start out on a new and better path, a path of political stewardship that can be trod step by step each day knowing that our citizenship - global, regional, national, local - holds together as a very real facet of our lives, as a service of God and all our neighbours.
Nurturing Justice
September 2007
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