A New View of Various Sectors of Society

See also: page on Power - Political, Economic and Other.

New View of Economics

If humanity is meant to represent God in blessing and shepherding the rest of creation then our economic systems and activity should contribute towards this - at all levels, individual, corporate and societal. Instead today we find economic activity at all levels contributing to destroying the earth rather than blessing it, and the practice and root beliefs of economics almost completely fail to represent or 'image' God.

• "God is love"; love is self-giving rather than self-interest. Competition presupposes self-interest, the very opposite of self-giving. Yet the entire economic system assumes competition.

• The aim of most sales and marketing effort is to find ways to get you to shift your funds from your pocket to mine; sales and marketing convince you that my product is nice to have, then that you want it, then that you need it. While all the time you don't need it and would probably be better of without it. Most sales and marketing effort is therefore an expression of a lie, as well as self-interest. God is truth; God is love.

• Casino banking is based on the assumption that it is good if I find a way to make money for myself where the expense to others is spread around in ways that those 'others' might not notice. This is not only based on self-interest, but also on cheating and deceiving in the sense of hiding the truth from those affected.

• We put too high a price on the resource of which there is almost no limit - human labour - and too low a price on resources that are limited. So we squander the latter while not sufficiently engaging the former. This is not as God intended.

• Firms often make hasty decisions to do things (e.g. take over another firm) from the fear that rivals will do them first. This fear is the opposite of trust in God.

• Money as the measure of all things at individual level; for example when houses are bought not as places to live but as investments.

• Money as the measure of all things at global level; GDP used as a measure of the goodness of economic activity, and this measure, in league tables, becoming what mainly determines government policy, overriding all else. (See how the economic slowdown of 2009 almost completely obliterated environmental responsibility and climate change as something to be concerned about.) The self-interested pride of league tables.

Humanity's economic activity should be characterized by:

• Motivation: self-giving and blessing the other. Creation, management and sharing of resources for the sake of the other, with wisdom.
• Marketing: should be the provision of information to apprise the other of a new resource as well as seeking to find out what would truly bless the other and the earth.
• Money: Assuming there is money, it should be nothing more than a token of exchange and value, and never a commodity and never treated as a resource in its own right.
• Wages: Human labour should be rewarded juridically not economically, because it is not very limited as a resource. Non-renewable resources should be more carefully spared.
• God involved: We should act as if God were involved, ready to bless us as we act economically. "There is no room for fear in love."
• Diversity: The diverse aspects of life should be all treated as of equal importance, the economic aspect being one of them, and money being only one small part of that. Responsibility much more important than money.
• Aspirations: To do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God, rather than to elbow our way up GDP league tables.

This page is offered to God as on-going work in developing a 'New View' in theology that is appropriate to the days that are coming upon us. Comments, queries welcome.

Copyright (c) Andrew Basden 2010, but you may use this material subject to certain conditions.

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Created: 2 May 2010. Last updated: