ChristianWeek

Markets&Morality

Evangelicals are concerned for the poor. However, they choose radically different ways of going about caring based on their economic allegiances.

This can be seen most clearly in the latest documents signed by American Christian leaders regarding policy decisions surrounding climate change. The Evangelical Climate Initiative group—including various college presidents, Ron Sider and the editor of Christianity Today—seeks government regulation for carbon emissions which they see as a major factor in the famine-striken future of African and other geographically poor nations.

On the other hand, we have the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance—James Dobson and an impressive train of scientists—who claim that putting the breaks on free-market capitalism will do more damage to poor people around the globe and won’t help us anyway, now that we’ve waded too far into the rapids.

Both sides laud environmental concern. One is perhaps at home with capitalism—with a guilty conscience.

The other is deeply committed to classical economics, that science blamed by environmentalists for global warming in the first place. Differing degrees of faith in the enlightenment project par excellence is at the root of how evangelicals will respond to global warming.

In this next installment of Markets and Morality, Green Party leader Elizabeth May responds to the question “Do free-markets foster the decline of virtue?” by focusing on the nature of idolatry in the marketplace. A student of theology and a practicing Anglican, May began her career as an environmental lawyer advising Brian Mulroney’s environment minister. She is an officer of the Order of Canada, was the founding executive director for the Sierra Club of Canada in 1989, and was elected leader of the Green Party in 2006.

The question about morality and the marketplace isn’t the work of an afternoon. Take the time to read what Christian leaders are saying. The entire series—including responses by Gregory Baum, Anthony Waterman, Bill Blaikie, David Koyzis and Paul Williams—will be available in packaged form.

—Andrew Siebert

There is no question that our society has—in becoming more secular—lost track of the need to celebrate virtue. In fact, in the 1990s, an orgy of economic growth and triumphal capitalism after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR led to the moment when in the film Wall Street the central character could proclaim “Greed is good!” and theatre audiences did not spot the irony. Many agreed.

In a course I took last fall at St. Paul University, “Moral Existence,” Professor Kenneth Melchin pointed out the following. Our society has adopted the view from economics of human nature and applied it to our political and social realms. As anyone who has taken first year economics knows, all actors in economic theory operate rationally to improve their own rate of return; to increase their own advantage. Everyone acts from self-interest. In other words, the theory of economic models presumes selfishness and greed.

This may be an appropriate way to understand markets, but it is an entirely inappropriate and misguided way to view human nature. We are not all motivated by short-term self-interest 100 per cent of the time. The virtues of charity and kindness—the central role of altruism in all great societies—is very present in our society, but unheralded and viewed as an anomaly. In that sense, our society has turned the hierarchy of virtues and vices on its head. We celebrate vices and ignore virtue.

This conclusion is certainly dismal news for the practicing Christian. Christ’s attitude to wealth was clear: “A rich man has as much chance as entering heaven as a camel through the eye of a needle.” Christ’s message continually urged charity and extreme measures to alleviate suffering and poverty. “That which you do to the least of my brethren you do unto me.”

Markets do not care about the poor. Markets do not care about the environment. Markets do not have the capacity of “caring” about anything. The market system views everything outside the exchange of goods and services (produced by capital and labour) for money as “externalities.” The poor are irrelevant. The loss of breathable air is an externality. The felling of the last tree and the catching of the last fish will still register positive in the measurement of the Gross Domestic Product. Markets are morality-free zones.

I think the question “do free markets foster the decline of virtue?” must, on the evidence, be answered in the affirmative. Does that lead to a debate, as in Anthony Waterman’s article, that another system has a better claim on promoting virtue? In other words, does answering the question “yes” mean that we must abandon free markets? I think not. What is urgently required is that we place market theory and the role of economics back in their proper place in our society. Economic activity is in aid of a healthy society. It is subservient. Society and communities and families do not exist as raw material for economic growth.

As a Christian, it seems to me the problem of idolatry is at the core of this discussion. Our culture worships economic growth. We have elevated markets and economic growth to a central place in our political and social realms. They belong in a subsidiary place. As Gregory Baum points out, the central place should be occupied by the service of the common good.

We cannot worship God and Mammon at the same time.

So how can a society operate under market capitalism, enjoy the fruits of economic activity and reverse the trend toward the celebration of vice and virtue amnesia? Clearly, much of the solution is outside the role of governments. Still, political leadership plays a role. The language of the political discourse reinforces (or, conversely, could challenge) the assumptions about virtue and human nature. Most political leaders, for example, craft their political messages around the assumption of selfishness and greed. Political promises are made with language about “people who work hard for their money….working families who want their money spent wisely…lower taxes…more money in your pocket.”

That is all well and good, but fails to ennoble the spirit. It does not call on us to be more than self-interested. It is a long cry from the discourse of John F. Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Now, there was a statement that raised expectations of virtue, rather than reinforce a self-interested, lowest common denominator view of the human animal.

We need to find the virtuous circles in our society and reinforce them. In other words, rather than habituate vice, we need systems that habituate virtue.

A wealthy country like Canada could, for example, choose to eliminate poverty. The tax system could be re-adjusted to allow for a negative income tax for those below the poverty line with a guaranteed livable wage. That would ensure farm families of sufficient resources to live on the farm in dignity. We could adjust the tax system through income splitting to allow more choice for couples where one spouse has significantly higher income than the other. This would allow more time for one spouse to be at home to raise children, or to volunteer in the community.

We could adjust the labour code (federally and provincially) to allow more paid time off. Canadians are significantly over-worked compared to people in most Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, with the result that time for social investments—volunteering in the community, time to care for elderly parents, time for family vacations—is curtailed. In fact, if you count all the mandatory feast days in the Middle Ages, serfs had more time off than 21st century Canadians!

We could, accepting that free markets provide many benefits, decide to keep economic activity where it belongs. It is like the plumbing in our homes. It is essential, but we do not live for it. We live for our families. We live for our communities. Our governments could play a role in shifting the centrality of economic growth to a secondary place. We could move the service of the common good to the central place in our political priorities and in our public discourse. We could try to develop those systems that habituate virtue.

We may be rational economic actors in a market, but that is not all that we are. It is not the sum of our existence. We are loving, caring, engaged citizens in a democracy. We do many things that are economically irrational. If we do not, how can we call ourselves Christians?

Elizabeth May is an Officer of the Order of Canada and is Leader of the Green Party of Canada. She is also a practicing Anglican.