The Art of Living: The Economy of Everything, Part Four

This is the last of a four part series on the economy of all things. Part One talks about the disastrous creed that is ‘growth for the sake of growth’. Part Two discusses how this resulting network of manipulatory power warps our souls. Part Three is a call to repentance and right worship. And finally Part Four below puts forth a vision for a better way.

The Art of Living: The Economy of Everything, Part Four

In the previous posts we saw that the economy is not some impersonal force for efficiency or a lever of control. It’s communal and relational. But now the work done by the vast majority of modern people is illegible. We’ve abandoned the real economy for a global economy built on a vast network of deficit economies untethered from the constraints of the real economy of scarcity.

This economic “Machine” in which we find ourselves is more than a means for accruing material wealth. It is a type of sacred object. The Machine breaks every boundary and homogenizes everything to satisfy its voracious appetite for growth. It’s a world where fair is foul and foul is fair. And it’s a globalizing force.

As participants in this system we share a degree of responsibility for it. We let ourselves be enslaved by our own products. Our insatiable greed makes infinite claims on finite resources. But we’re also its victims. Living within this Machine turns us into commodities. People become interchangeable. Relationships are fungible. This ‘throughput ‘society is aesthetically arid and spiritually depraved. And as we advance technologically the stakes increase immeasurably.

Technological fixes are unlikely to save us. But God, in His infinite wisdom has made the world round so when we travel far enough in the wrong direction we find ourselves back at the origin, the source and ground of all being. It’s a return to right worship.

A Truer Story

“The Machine is, before it is anything else, a myth – which is to say a story, promoting a set of values,” says Paul Kingsnorth.¹ And so dismantling it doesn’t require violent revolution or another technical tweak. Rather, the first step is to simply stop believing the story. The next is to stop telling it to others.

To do this we need a better story, one that is truer. We must learn to see work for what it is, a blending of the creativity of the mind with the creativity of others. We need to see work as relational. We need to accept it as a gift. In doing so we should want to share the products of our labor with others in free and open exchange. Work is not merely a way to provide for oneself. The economy is not an impersonal force for efficiency or a lever of control. It’s not an impersonal machine. Work is creative service. Work is communal. Economic activity is relational. This mysterious collaboration is a “glorious opportunity to join with others, literally millions of others, in the divine project of a vast creativity, vast abundance, for the meeting of needs, for the flourishing of cities, for the life of the world.”² We must learn to see every product and every purchase for what it is; “a touch point, a nexus of millions of relationships.”³ Value is found in the relationship of exchange. The fruits of our work are found not in the things we buy, but in relationship with countless others. Work is a reminder that we are not alone and were never meant to be.

This is a story that frees us to be virtuous. We previously saw how Keynes attempted to rationalize our deal with the devil. According to him there was no other choice but to pretend “fair is foul and foul is fair” since he reasoned only avarice and usury could lead society away from economic necessity.⁴ Another British economist, E. F. Schumacher, questioned this whole idea of utopian prosperity. Schumacher believed the cost was too great. He suggested that “the foundation of peace cannot be laid by universal prosperity, in the modern sense, because such prosperity, if attainable at all, is attainable only by cultivating such drives of human nature as greed and envy, which destroy intelligence, happiness, serenity, and thereby the peacefulness of man.”⁵ In other words, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?⁶

Kingsnorth points out that people have known about the dangers of untrammeled want since the dawn of time.⁷ That is why every sane culture discouraged greed and envy instead of making them the basis of their value system. This is an ancient problem. So we might consider ancient solutions. He quotes Schumacher:

Everywhere people ask: “What can I actually do?” The answer is as simple as it is disconcerting: we can, each of us, work to put our own inner house in order. The guidance we need for this work cannot be found in science or technology, the value of which utterly depends on the ends they serve; but it can still be found in the traditional wisdom of mankind.⁸

Reducing economics to science is demeaning. “Economic relationships do not operate on value-neutral laws,” says William Cavanaugh. Instead, these relationships are “carriers of specific convictions about the nature of the human person — the person’s origins and destiny.”⁹

The new story cannot be solely about economics. It must tell us something about who we are and where we are headed. We must let go of the fantasy of a purely mechanistic reality and see things again as they really are, as they always have been. It’s a return to the origin, the ground of all being. Is this not what Christ had in mind when he said, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand”? In other words, the new story is an old one.

By returning to the origin, we see ourselves again as created and sustained by a holy and just God who rules on matters of right and wrong. We accept our rightful place as “sub-creators”¹⁰ working in harmony with the laws given to us, “using imagination to fashion things of use and beauty”¹¹

By casting a broader vision of where we are headed, we see beyond the horizon of our own death. We start to wonder, “Who will trust us with the true wealth if we cannot be trusted even with the wealth that perishes? Who will trust me with a spiritual body if I cannot control even an earthly body?” Like C.S. Lewis, we start to understand that “these small and perishable bodies we now have were given to us as ponies are given to schoolboys. We must learn to manage: not that we may some day be free of horses altogether but that some day we may ride bare-back, confident and rejoicing, those greater mounts, those winged, shining and world-shaking horses which perhaps even now expect us with impatience, pawing and snorting in the King’s stables. Not that the gallop would be of any value unless it were a gallop with the King; but how else – since He has retained His own charger — should we accompany Him?”¹²

Not only do we see ourselves differently, but we begin to see the inherent worth in others. We’re able to view those who despise us and spit on us with generosity and compassion. We see something within our neighbors that they cannot see themselves. We see their creative potential, their capacity to be gifts to the world. We see their dignity. And we are willing to give ourselves up to keep that memory alive. We put the weight, or burden, of our neighbor’s glory on our back. This is the “weight of glory” that Lewis writes about.¹³ It’s a load that suffocates any pridefulness within us. We know that even the dullest person we meet could one day become such an everlasting splendor that we’d be tempted to fall down and worship, or else an immortal horror so corrupted as to belong only in a nightmare. There are no ordinary people, only “immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” And so, “it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations cultures, arts, civilizations – those are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.”¹⁴ Lewis doesn’t think this should make us perpetually solemn. “We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and that is, in fact the merriest kind) which exist between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners — no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”¹⁵

This perspective allows us to regain a sense of meaning and purpose. We stop viewing economic ‘efficiency’ as the ultimate assessor of value. Commerce becomes less of a driver. Let’s face it, pursuing growth at all costs is not terribly inspiring. Is it any wonder that a society centered around this experiences high levels of nihilism and resentment.

The Fourth Frontier

We cannot allow ourselves to be governed by want. No doubt, it is in our nature to be unsatisfied. This is what drives exploration and discovery. Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein identify three basic frontiers where man historically pushed boundaries; these are geographic, technological, and transfer-of-resource frontiers. We set out and explore, we push the boundaries of science, and we tend to capture whatever resources we can get our hands on.¹⁶ Heying and Weinstein examine our situation through an evolutionary lens. They acknowledge that this desire to explore has served humanity well in the past. But they argue that because of the sheer number of people today, the power of our tools, and the interconnectedness of our economic, ecological, and technological systems, this perpetual dissatisfaction poses an existential threat.

Heying and Weinstein suggest we channel our desire for exploration, turning our attention to a fourth frontier that involves the pursuit of quality and a concern for posterity. This fourth frontier that Heying and Weinstein imagine strives for a more functional society that is both scalable and less fragile. It’s a quest to find win-win solutions focusing on authentic long-term interests rather than immediate gratification. The forth frontier represents a commitment to quality.¹⁷ In a healthier society food is more satiating making us less prone to overeat. People are less susceptible to sales pitches because they are more satisfied with their own possessions. Romantic partners are attentive to each other rather than attending to porn. People spend “more time producing art, music, and insight and less time coveting, purchasing, and flaunting trendy goods.”¹⁸

We have an obligation to deliver the next generation a functional world. To do that we must start to value quality, beauty, the minimization of waste, the reduction of pollution, and conservation of resources. We might also want to become less dependent on distant suppliers who hold us ransom with cheap products made with forced labor. Someone who possesses a beautiful and functional piece of furniture might hand it down to their children. A society that sees this as a problem is deeply perverted. But that’s what we have today. Manufacturers cheapen their products to maximize profit by engineering them to fail and making them costly to repair.¹⁹ But wouldn’t it be nice to pass down something of value to the next generation?

Markets aren’t necessarily the problem. Markets don’t deserve our worship, but neither do they deserve our disdain. Markets simply reflect our values. It’s our values that we need to rethink. We have an environmental crisis only because we consent to an economy that parasitizes the natural God-given world. As Wendell Berry says, the environmental crisis is not so much a crisis of our environs as it is “a crisis of our lives as individuals, as family members, as community members, and as citizens.” ²⁰ We are all complicit in this. The more we value our neighbor the less we’re willing to sell out to the corporate interests. The more we value honesty the less willing we are to deceive others. Values provide a motivational structure. We would do well to keep our markets “as far away as possible from our motivational structures” so that “we don’t let someone else’s profit motive determine what we desire or do.”²¹

Embracing Limits

If we want to guard our motivational structures that means we may need to impose some limits. We already accept certain limits to economic competition. For example, we don’t allow someone to kill their economic competitor. We all acknowledge that with economic competition there will always be some winners and losers even when there is a clear net benefit to society overall. Wendell Berry asks us to consider how much destruction we are willing to accept. Are we willing to take another person’s property or to accept that person’s ruin as a normal result of economic enterprise? If so, then might we even accept murder if the economic stakes are high enough?²²

Economists aren’t qualified to judge such questions. The ‘science’ of economics cannot tell us who or what we ought to value. These are moral and ethical questions; the very things that we’ve removed from the curriculum in the naive hope of maintaining some value-neutral fiction in the education system. But a value-free education isn’t actually possible. The very idea implies a certain set of beliefs. And a society without any core set of values isn’t really possible either. That would be akin to a society without any common language. It’s hard to imagine how that would work. It’s not so much a question of whether or not society holds some set of values. Rather, it’s a question of which values society holds.

It’s worth considering what set of hidden norms, beliefs, and values are transmitted by this value-neutral fiction. Wendell Berry observes, “It is impossible not to notice how little the proponents of the ideal of competition have to say about honesty, which is the fundamental economic virtue, and how very little they have to say about community, compassion, and mutual help.”²³ Berry sees it as a privilege to live under the laws of justice and mercy. But the ideal that Berry sees as the most important is affection. Affection is a powerful motive force, but it requires us to ignore all other motive powers, both political and economic. “If we are sane, we do not dismiss or abandon our infant children or our aged parents because they are too young or too old to work. For human beings, affection is the ultimate motive, because the force that powers us, as Ruskin also said, is not ‘steam, magnetism, or gravitation,’ but ‘a Soul.’”²⁴

Economic science fixates on ever increasing efficiency. But just how much collateral damage are we willing to accept in order to save 3¢ on toothpaste? Economists coldly calculate a net benefit from displacing a few workers if it means lower prices for millions of consumers. But wouldn’t you gladly pay an extra 3¢ on toothpaste if it meant your neighbor doesn’t loose his job? There are things that are incalculably more valuable like gainful employment, preserving a cohesive community, being rooted to a particular place. Berry points out that if we valued people and place more than profit we might have used the gains afforded by mechanized farming, “not to displace workers and decrease care and skill, but to intensify production, improve maintenance, increase care and skill, and widen the margins of leisure, pleasure , and community life.”²⁵ In other words, we might have used the saved labor to take better care of the land and better care of each other rather than cashing in on big profit margins on sugary drinks that ultimately make people fatter and sicker.

We have to learn to govern ourselves before attempting to govern others. It’s not so much a question whether the law should tolerate the murder or ruin of another. Rather, I have to ask myself whether I am okay with second and third order effects from my economic choices. Now, I am well aware that some people cannot be saved from the ruin they bring on themselves. We might ban certain economic activities, e.g., the sale of recreational drugs, but that won’t necessarily save the addict. Nonetheless, treating our economic decisions as if these decisions are ours, and ours alone, is reckless and dumb.

Wendell Berry advocates for what he calls a “community economy.” A community has a shared fate. Berry uses the example of an old-timer who rents his land to a younger farmer on the basis of a ‘crop share’ rather than asking for fixed rent. If the young farmer has a good year so does the retired farmer. Their shared fate means they have a common interest. Now imagine the banker, the farmer, the grocer, the school teacher, and the housewife all having interests that align. This presents a more formidable opposition to the Machine. Kingsnorth observes, “[I]t remains true in my experience that the most effective, dogged and occasionally even successful resistance to the Machine comes not from rival grand systems like Marxism, which quickly accelerate into tyranny themselves, but from local communities – people with something real and rooted to lose, who are prepared to stand their ground and defend it.”²⁶ Perhaps we should look to those rooted in place, community, and tradition for answers rather than rely on those rooted purely in theory. But this means we must accept the limits imposed by community and tradition.

An Artistic Endeavor

Living must be seen as more of an art than a science. Treating life as a series of experiments is dehumanizing, not to mention dangerous. Wendell Berry makes this point saying, “We will have no chance to redo our experiments with bad agriculture leading to soil loss. The Appalachian mountains and forests we have destroyed for coal are gone forever. It is now and forevermore too late to use thriftily the first half of the world’s supply of petroleum.”²⁷ The real world doesn’t afford redos. Unlike in a video game, there isn’t a reset button to hit when we screw up. We have to live with our mistakes. And so do those who come after us. Biodiversity isn’t recovered by carbon offsets. A married woman does not recover her virginity through divorce, and her innocent children certainly don’t recover the family they lost.

The art of living involves making do with what we have. It challenges us to be satisfied with less and to overcome our many mistakes. It’s a quest for quality and depth in our relationships. It’s not something we control, but rather an adventure to be had. Chesterton talked about what it means in the context of loving our neighbor:

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbour. Hence he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors of nature; he is as strange as the stars, as reckless and indifferent as the rain. He is Man, the most terrible of the beasts… Duty towards humanity may often take the form of some choice which is personal or even pleasurable. That duty may be a hobby; it may even be a dissipation… The most monstrous martyrdom, the most repulsive experience, may be the result of choice or a kind of taste… But we have to love our neighbour because he is there — a much more alarming reason for a much more serious operation. He is the sample of humanity that is actually given to us. Precisely because he may be anybody he is everybody…

The best way that a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random, and get along as well as possible with the people inside. And that is essentially what each of us did on the day that he was born. This is, indeed, the sublime and special romance of the family. It is romantic because it is a toss-up. It is romantic because it is arbitrary. It is romantic because it is there… It is when you have groups of men chosen irrationally that you have men. The element of adventure begins to exist; for an adventure, by its nature, is a thing that comes to us. It is a thing that chooses us, not a thing that we choose… the supreme adventure is being born. There we do walk suddenly into a splendid and startling trap… Our father and mother do lie in wait for us and leap out on us, like brigands from a bush… When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world that we have not made… We step into a fairy tale… but in order that life should be a story or romance to us, it is necessary that a great part of it, at any rate, should be settled without our permission… A man has control over many things in his life; he has control over enough things to be the hero of a novel. But if he had control over everything, there would be so much hero that there would be no novel… The thing which keeps life romantic and full of fiery possibilities is the existence of these great limitations which force all of us to meet the things we do not like or do not expect… To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance.”²⁸

The art of living encompasses all other arts including culinary arts, industrial arts, the art of accounting, and the art of medicine. We must not approach these the way we do modern art, viewing them as entirely subjective. That just leaves us to seek aesthetic satisfaction apart from any transcendent meaning or significance. Good art should have some connection to beauty. Beauty is not something abstract. Rather, it connects imagination to the world as it is. Beauty amplifies what is true and what is good.

Good implies fit for some purpose. The universe has a one origin and one aim. All of Creation can be seen as iconography, as a sign, or collection of signs, pointing us to God. And God made man in His image. But something transpired that corrupted everything. This explains the naturalness of human malevolence. But God didn’t leave man in this state of exile and confused longing. The Giver of all gifts responded with yet another gift. That is salvation. The author of the universe put on humanity and entered into the Story. The Word, i.e. Logos, became Flesh to set things right. Just as life issues from death in other realms, e.g. seedtime and harvest, and morning and evening, life triumphs over death through Christ. Life is a gift. Salvation is a gift.

We, too, are to be givers of gifts. So let us offer up value for everything we receive. Let us offer ourselves in service to others. Let us take the creativity of our minds and combine this with the labor of our bodies. Because the economy is not governed by a set of sterile equations. It’s the nexus of countless relationships for meeting the needs of others.

The lens of science would collapse the analogy between nature and art so that the artist no longer sees form in unity with content. This just leaves us to chase abstract experiences of aesthetic satisfaction. It’s the wrong way of looking at things. God has a plan for us. But it isn’t about us. The economy isn’t about personal enrichment. It isn’t about dominating or winning. It’s about turning scarcity into abundance. All this is for the life of the world. Personal freedom must be tied to a measure of fidelity to the truth. The freedom to destroy oneself or others is not freedom, but a demonic parody of it. The art of living involves the art of cultivation. It’s not about conjuring up aesthetic experiences. Its about creating the conditions that lead to flourishing.

The Acton Institute produced a series of videos exploring God’s Economy of All Things. I close with a monologue from the episode on Creative Service:

Consider the lilies and and how they grow. They labor not. Neither do they spin. But I say to you, not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these.²⁹ Jesus commands us not to be anxious about our needs. So why then do we toil? Not merely to tend our bodies, but also to shape our souls. In giving us work, God invites us to blend the creativity of our minds with the labor of our bodies, and then to share the products of this work with others in free exchange to make real our communal nature, our gift nature through personal callings. We must never see our work as simply a way to gain. We must never see our labor as an impersonal force of efficiency. We must never see our work as a mechanism that we might control with levers and switches and power. And all our work together, that’s not a machine either. Work is always personal because working is always relational. Whether you are a janitor, a CEO, or a programmer, work is creative service so let us cherish our work as the glorious gift that it is. The glorious opportunity to join with others, literally millions of others, in a divine project of vast creativity, vast abundance, for the meeting of needs, for the flourishing of cities, for the life of the world. Let us see every product, every purchase for what it is, a touch point, a nexus of millions of relationships. At every moment you are surrounded by the fruit of the great and gracious collaboration. At every moment you are being reminded that you are not alone, and you were never meant to be.³⁰

^{Photo Credit: “From New York to Tokyo” by Trey Ratcliff is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0}

The Art of Living: The Economy of Everything, Part Four

A Truer Story

The Fourth Frontier

Embracing Limits

An Artistic Endeavor

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