By
Michael Boover, guest blogger March 31, 2017
Economics
was once described by Victorian historian Thomas Carlyle as “the dismal
science.” The term has taken on many shades of meaning since Carlyle first coined it in relation to the promulgation of slavery in the West Indies, a horror he supported in view of his philosophy that people are intrinsically unequal. Thomas Malthus upheld a similar outlook
when, in his view, a growing population need be pitted against the fearful
reality of limited resources. Lack of economic discipline from the top would surely
yield a burgeoning population below that would then predictably outstrip food
stores. Perpetual misery would be the result.
Paradoxical
abstract economic thinkers like John Stuart Mill argued there was an intrinsic
equality in people and that the need was for structural change, not slavery. Mill’s
approach spelled disaster in Carlyle’s worldview wherein a financial elite need
tenaciously hold the economic reins. When I first came across Carlyle’s descriptive,
images of miserly accountants poring over
multitudinous ledgers came to mind as did the deft, vivid portrayals of the economically
deprived found in the novels of Charles
Dickens. These images also have much to
tell us about economics being viewed as a dreary discipline, as the sphere of the would-be depressed.
In
contrast to Carlyle’s view, still lingering today in keeping states in
dependence for the sake of economic growth of the strong, is the economic
thought of the beloved Hindu mystic Mohandas Gandhi. His nonviolent actions on
behalf of the Indian poor helped free them from the shackles of a religiously
rigid caste system fortified by the corresponding ethos of British colonial
rule. The Mahatma, much moved by his Hindu faith and much influenced by the
life and teachings of Christ, asserted that “there is enough for everyone’s
need but not enough for everyone’s greed.” This was the quite essential nonviolent
economic salvo, the would-be pacific “shot heard around the world.” This
Gandhian seed of envisioned equity, if planted and watered in welcome soil in
the contemporary West, could instigate a restoration of economic health for
those suffering from the affluence, self-interest, indulgence and indifference that
have produced negative consequences for our own minorities at home and the
subjugation of other peoples abroad. Much progress has been made but too little
has substantially changed as to make 19th century scenes out of the Jamaican
plantations or Dickens’ London completely things of the past. Who among us would
care to take good note of these historical precedents and current realities and
do something about them?


What
if we acknowledged our larger roles as participants in exchanges of all sorts,
coming to see for ourselves that economics really is about relationships as Chuck did? Are not all of us
economists in fact? The recognition of such can potentially place us in a new context
for solving problems thus helping to renew our interdependent lives and
replenish the resources we necessarily depend on for our shared well-being.
Might we more courageously take up bold initiatives in the direction of
sustainability? Might we better honor the rabbinical saying that before each
and every person there walks an angel proclaiming: “Make way, make way for the
image of God” or adhere more closely to the Gospel mandate to treat “the least
of these” as we would Christ himself? What if our economic lives were defined
by our belief that we should defend the dignity of each human being by lovingly
being each other’s economic keeper?
When
my friend Chuck died, 500 friends and admirers showed up for his memorial
service at the Roger Williams Church in downtown Providence, Rhode Island. The
editor of Sojourners Magazine, Jim Wallis, who published Chuck’s writings on
economics, told the assembled that while Chuck never claimed to be a Christian,
he knew no one more like Jesus than this man. 500 heads nodded in assent. It
was quite a tribute to a man who took nonviolent economics very seriously. In
his honor and for our own, might we do the same?
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