Tag Archives: economy

Pope Francis on Economics

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POPE FRANCIS' GENERAL AUDIENCE

“Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.” – Pope Francis, TIME Person of the Year, Nov. 29, 2013

The economic disciples of Ayn Rand’s “virtue of selfishness” – many of whom attend Mass or other Christian worship services on Sunday only to act on Monday as though they never had – have met their match in Time‘s Man of the Year. Economics is a spiritual matter – first, last, and always. Thank you, Pope Francis for speaking the truth with clarity.

Abounding in Thanksgiving: the Economy of God

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All Things Considered commentary and audio

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Click HERE and then click the audio link on the Minnesota Public Radio website to hear yesterday’s commentary on the classical spiritual-philosophical-ethical premise we need to remember. This piece was written two days BEFORE the President delivered his speech yesterday at Knox College.

    EXCERPT:

The English word “economy” comes from the Greek work “oikos” – the Greek word for house. The word “economics” derives from the Greek word “oikonomia”- -the management of a household.

Before it is anything else, economics is a perspective, a frame of reference. Before it decides anything about household management, it knows that there is only one house. Good household management – good economics – pays attention to the wellbeing of the entire house and all its residents.

A Critique of the State of the Union

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The climax of last night’s State of the Union Address was the President’s call for an up or down vote on proposals to curb gun violence in America. The applause was uproarious and continuous.

This violence must stop.

But what of the underground stream of violence that erupts in gun violence in the nation that prides itself on the greatest military the world has ever known and the greatest economy the world has ever known?

Is it a coincidence that the geysers of unprecedented school, mall, and street massacres in the homeland have come at the same as America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Is the world’s greatest military something to celebrate?

How does one measure a military’s greatness? By its superior capacity for violence over other militaries, or its ability to subject foreign nations to the American will for freedom and democracy? By the number of dead it leaves behind in other military ventures?

Is an economy’s greatness measured by the size of a nation’s Gross National Product?

The measure of an economy- from the Greek word oikonomia, the management of a household- is how well it serves the inhabitants who live in the house.

How well is the American economy serving its members?

An economy is not measured by the amount of stuff it produces. It’s also measured by the fairness of the distribution of those goods within the one household, the oikonomia.

By that measure, can we really declare that the American economy is the greatest in the history of the world?

During last nights State of the Union Address the loudest shouts came in response to a call to end to gun violence in America. But it doesn’t mean we want to stop the violence. The applause through the rest of the night took for granted the essential goodness of the underlying systemic violence of the American military-industrial-corporate-complex and the military whose superior capacity protects those interests abroad while creating Rambos on our own streets at home.

The home of the brave and the land of the free is neither so brave nor so free. We will only be brave and free when we connect the insanity that shoots innocent school children here at home with the carnage the world’s greatest military has left overseas.

The American republic was born in the violent occupation by Western Europeans who believed they were God’s special people. That belief has morphed over time. But it continues to be the case that violence is as American as apple pie. While we applaud the attempt to end gun violence in our schools, malls and streets, the underground stream of violence rolls on undetected beneath the the nation’s delusions of grandeur about the exceptional greatness of our economy and our military. Violence is enthroned as the god of the not-so-free and the no-so-brave.

The House We Live In

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Gordon C. Stewart, April 3, 2012

The economy is broken. While most of us have been holding our breath, some of us have been out buying the most expensive jewelry at Tiffany’s. Investor’s Business Daily reported that Tiffany’s profits rose by 56 percent during the 2nd Quarter of 2011.

‘Economics’ is about the house we all live in. We get the word from the Greek word oikos (household).   Economics (Oikonomia) is how we arrange things in the one household. They don’t teach that in MBA programs.

This is not an economy. It’s something else. It’s an anti-economy, the antithesis of one household in which all residents are housed, fed, secure, and peaceful.

Profit vs. loss is not a way to manage a household. It divides the members of the household into winners and losers, owners and renters, charitable givers and those who receive, or do not receive, the winners’ charity.

What we call the American economy is spiritually and morally bankrupt. It’s not just broken financially.  Warren Buffett’s proposal to increase taxes on those who can afford to shop at Tiffany’s only scratches the surface of the household problem.  One could argue that the system – free market capitalism – is working the way it’s set up to work. Or one could argue that it isn’t.

It all depends on what floor of the house one lives in.

Two percent of the rooms are in the penthouse. They’re very large, decorated by the best interior designers and decorators. The furnishings are custom-made.  Those who live in the penthouse have a private elevator to leave the for lunch at the country club or the yacht club.  Over lunch they discuss how to maximize their profits with more blue chip stocks or bonds and whether to leave the penthouse for a week, a month, a season in exotic places. They discuss their charitable giving, encouraging each other to give to their favorite causes. Sometimes, in the best of clubs and social circles, they argue vociferously, just like the rest of us, about the economy in the Greek sense, the oikos. They are not all of one mind.  Some belong to the  Buffett Fraternity, others to the Trump Circle, even if they wish “the Donald”  would be more subtle.

The other 98 percent of the rooms in the house are rentals of various sizes. Some very large, some modest, and some small.  Only a few of the tenants have long-term leases or the protections of rent control.  The most vulnerable of us live downstairs on the smallest rooms on the lower levels. A growing number of us have been forced into the cellar.

And the rest?  We watch “the Donald” to catch a glimpse of life in the penthouse. We watch our neighbors and family members move to smaller rooms or to the basement, fearing that we, too, will end up in the cellar, but hoping that someday we’ll win the lottery and move upstairs to the penthouse.

Meanwhile, the folks who own Tiffany’s are laughing all the way to the bank, confident that the 98% are too preoccupied to get what’s happening…right there under our noses in the one house where we live.

Economics 101: “The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and all who live in it” (Psalm 24:1). How, then, shall we re-arrange the one house? How will we Occupy it?