Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism by Kathryn Tanner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tanner brings a profound Christian critique to current finance-based capitalism. And it's not at the points where such a critique would be most obvious (such as exploitation of workers or the Earth). Rather, she takes issue with fundamental ideas that underpin contemporary capitalism--how it marks time, how it views the past and the future, how it views individuals and their relationships to the whole--and in each case demonstrates how contemporary capitalism runs counter to what Christianity believes on each of these points. A worthy read that will prompt deep thought.

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"The question turns on what it is people need in order to live well."  That's how Timothy Gorringe approaches the practices of economics, if we are going to create a better world.

Of course our current economic practices are largely to blame for the depredations of the environment and the coming dark age he outlined in the introduction.  And in particular, he blames neoliberal capitalism of the last half-century.

I remain a capitalist and couldn't go along with all of his criticisms, though I do agree that the neoliberal turn fifty years ago, especially away from Keynesianism and the New Deal consensus, was full of mistakes.

His basic point in these chapters of the book is that we've created our system and can chose to have a different/better one.  On that I do agree.

I also agree that theology has a lot to say about economics.  Gorringe quotes Wendell Berry that one way of translating what is usually "kingdom of God" would be "the Great Economy."

What we do need is an economics that prizes cooperation and is focused more on grace than growth.  

His chapter on monetary reform was interesting, as I'd never read a chapter on that topic in a theology book before.  Though I didn't find his arguments there persuasive.  It's also a topic I know very little about.

Finally for this section, there was a chapter on agriculture and the need to replace the devastating industrial agriculture we find ourselves with now.  That chapter I mostly skimmed, already being convinced of this point from decades of reading Wendell Berry.

 

Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism by Anne Case
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Case & Deaton were alarmed by numbers related to the opioid epidemic and further researched showed a rise in white middle class mortality in the United States after a century of decline and with no corresponding rise in comparable nations. What to explain this?

They conclude a loss of a way-of-life that brought meaning and economic stability.

And for them the primary cause is neither globalization or inequality, though those are both part of the narrative, but the American health care system.

The book concludes with their ideas on what we need to do.

The analysis is interesting and persuasive. I scored the book lower because it's not really an enjoyable read. It also seemed longer than necessary.

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An article in Foreign Policy points out that if we withdraw from the Paris accords, then we cede leadership in the new energy economy to China, with devastating economic effects for our nation.  An excerpt:

The proven economic benefits of domestic action to advance clean energy, such as tax incentives for wind and solar energy, have supercharged our fast-growing clean-energy industry, added hundreds of thousands of middle-class jobs, and promoted significant economic growth. Clean energy helped pave the way for the Obama administration to lower greenhouse gas emissions to 1994 levels, while managing to create 11.3 million jobs with 75 straight months of employment growth.

In short, the current administration doesn’t seem to get it. It argues that the Environmental Protection Agency needs to return to its “core mission,” as if carbon pollution doesn’t threaten public health and safety — never mind its impact on clean air and water.

And this point about the economic advantages of environmental regulation:

What are People for?: Essays by Wendell Berry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first encountered Wendell Berry in freshman English at OBU. The essay we read seems to be in this volume, "Word and Flesh" (at least this essay makes the same points I remember from 1992). At the time I disagreed with him, particularly that problems, including environmental problems, cannot be approached globally but can only be addressed locally.

I came back to Berry near the turn of the millennium, when I read his poetry and fell in love. The poetry invited me into the essays, and Berry has been one of the most significant influence on my thought.

But his ideas are rarely easy for me. In fact, they are quite difficult. He is not a writer I read for confirmation of my own ideas, but to convict and challenge me. Whenever I read him, I am reminded of my hypocrisies and moral failures.

Back in 2004 I considered following Berry's advice and abandoning my life and career and moving to a poor small town to become a teacher and grow much of my own food. I didn't do that. I came out, and gay life led in a very different direction. Though I did have friends who did something of the sort.

It is exciting in 2017 to see Berry's influence for good upon our culture--the local food movement, more sustainable agriculture, more awareness about food ethics, the various craft movements, etc.

This is one of the essay collections I had long planned to get to. It seems particularly apt in our Age of Trump, even if the essays are from the 70's and 80's. What Berry was warning us about has come to fruition.

I marked up this volume like my adolescent Bible. I will return to it often.

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This piece in the Guardian explains the rise and dominance of Neoliberalism, how the failures of the philosophy are to blame for many current problems (including the rise of Trump), and how the left has developed no coherent alternative.

An excerpt:

So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom even recognise it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a kind of biological law, like Darwin’s theory of evolution. But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of power.

When Trump named Carl Icahn as a chief advisor, I sat at my office desk and wept openly, for Icahn is the villain who laid waste to the economy of my hometown.  Now a new book details how Icahn did the same to Lancaster, Ohio. Here is a review of the book, on Slate.

And the article's conclusion reveals the sad state of affairs in US and the puzzle of many of us who grew up in this era for why our fellow citizens didn't learn the same lessons we did:

When push came to shove, however, 59 percent of Fairfield County voters voted for Trump. Carl Icahn, the billionaire financial buccaneer who opened season on Anchor Hocking, is one of Trump’s key economic advisers, and Stephen Feinberg, founder of Cerberus Capital Management—one of the firms that gutted the company to line its own pockets—is another. Many of the town’s residents, marinating in conservative cable news, remain in deep denial about what caused the decay of the local economy and how bad it’s become. “Their pro-business bias blinded them,” Alexander writes, “to how … Cerberus picked their pockets.” But not quite all of them. When Alexander asks Eric Brown, the head of the Major Crimes Unit, what happened to destroy the “social contract” in Lancaster, the policeman responds, “Corporate America is what happened.” No one can blame him for crying about that.

George Will continues the free market critique of Trump's carrier deal with a column entitled "Trump’s Carrier deal is the opposite of conservatism."  An excerpt:

When, speaking at the Carrier plant, Vice President-elect Mike Pence said, “The free market has been sorting it out and America’s been losing,” Donald Trump chimed in, “Every time, every time.” When Republican leaders denounce the free market as consistently harmful to Americans, they are repudiating almost everything conservatism has affirmed: Edmund Burke taught that respect for a free society’s spontaneous order would immunize politics from ruinous overreaching — from the hubris of believing that we have the information and power to order society by political willfulness.

Evan McMullin makes important points in his op-ed in the NYTimes pointing out the ways Trump is acting like an authoritarian already.  

Mr. Trump’s inconsistencies and provocative proposals are a strategy; they are intended to elevate his importance above all else — and to place him beyond democratic norms, beyond even the Constitution.

This is the wake of Larry Summers' op-ed in the Washington Post criticizing the Carrier deal. 

It seems to me what we have just witnessed is an act of ad hoc deal capitalism and, worse yet, its celebration as a model. As with the air traffic controllers, only a negligible sliver of the economy is involved, but there is huge symbolic value. A principle is being established: It is good for the president to try to figure out what people want and lean on companies to give it to them. Predictability and procedure are less important than getting the right result at the right time. Like Hong Kong, as mainland China increasingly imposes its will, we may have taken a first step toward a kind of reverse transition from rule of law capitalism to ad hoc deal-based capitalism.

One article praising the deal does so for the very reason that Summers (and I) are alarmed by it.

It may be a qualified win, but the Carrier deal suggests that Trump’s promises of greater federal intervention in the economy were not just posturing. It could open the door for Trump to take a much more active role in the economy, not simply through fiscal policy but through direct involvement with specific companies.

All point to an erosion of the norms and traditions of our country.  We must work to conserve what is important in our tradition of order.

Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis : On Care for Our Common Home by Pope Francis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've read a few papal encyclicals through the years, but none were as inspiring to me as this one. Francis is an easy and engaging writer. Benedict to craft intricate theological statements. And John Paul paradoxically combined the writing talents of a poet and playwright with the sometimes obscure philosophical speculations of a phenomenologist. Francis' writing is both clearer and more engaging to a wider readership.

And what he writes is challenging and inspiring. In many ways, there is nothing new here. The Roman Catholic Church has long criticized Western capitalism for its greed, consumption, and exploitation and/or neglect of the poor. But what Francis has accomplished is a beautiful, cheerful, and hopeful connection of the deep problems of our current society--ecology, economy, and quality of life. He has sought common ground with other faith groups and nonbelievers while also articulating specifically how a catholic, Trinitarian theology promotes engagement with the poor and radical changes in our lifestyles in order to live as better stewards of the earth.

I intend to look back through the letter (I've been reading it here and there over the last month during free time at work) in order to organize my thoughts more. I very likely will preach on topics from the encyclical this autumn.

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