“On the Issue of Sustainable Prosperity”

It is my desire to see economic prosperity touch the greatest number of people possible based on values that neither corrupt them nor hinder the same opportunities for others or future generations. Biblical prosperity is both spiritual and material, and any definition of prosperity that addresses one without the other is incomplete. Short-term thinking tends to be the cause of many of our social and economic problems, and long-term strategic thinking will cure many of the ills created by it. Selfish political opportunism feeds on short-term thinking; nothing exposes that kind of thinking more quickly than statesman-like questions coming from truly informed people who are thinking on behalf of the whole of a community and the welfare of the nation.

As a generality, in terms of economic emphasis, the left tends to focus on people’s security and sense of community, and the right tends to focus on the individual’s rights to prosper without what it considers undue interference. These two concerns are most quickly joined together in what I have called “Kingdom economics,” based on the precepts of Christ’s admonition on the greatest commandment. “The one and the many,” to use theological language, is always the biblical context upon which all admonitions are built. Created as unique individuals, we are eternally placed in the context of relational community to live out our lives and services to God and one another. Any long-term political-economic solutions must balance the equation of how prosperity must benefit both the individual and the greatest number of people actively participating in the system.

There is an essential need for the possibility of upward economic mobility. That mobility is centered in how economic policy particularly affects the middle classes and their ability to contribute to economic growth through the consumption of what is produced. Economies are likewise based on the levels of trust resident throughout the entire system. When trust breaks down anywhere, it tends to spread. Economies are also driven by hope, particularly hope in one’s ability to prosper based on increased personal inputs of time, energy, and resource. Hope is to economic investment what love is to relationships.

One of the most important points I want to make relative to economic theory, is this: Most of the critiques of capitalism are in fact against the abuses of the major corporations in the system, in general, and the financial sectors, in particular. Major corporations make up only about 20 percent of the GDP (gross domestic product) of most advanced nations’ economies. I cannot remember having heard a single vitriolic tirade against those “dirty rotten exploiters from the middle-class business world” that make up at least 80 percent of what capitalism produces. In fact, I do not remember ever having this reality called to my attention, and in my early years at Berkeley, the writings of Marx, Lenin, Eric Fromm, and a host of other anti-capitalist people heavily influenced me. My heart was looking for social justice but concluded it could not be found viewing society from a non-spiritual perspective.

What I earnestly contend is simply this: Wherever political or economic power is concentrated, either in the private or public sector, is where the public most needs proper regulation and guarantees of liberty, justice, and protection from vested interests. Capitalism, like any and all other economic systems, reflects the value base of the people participating in the system. In a fallen world, there is no perfect system; there are only systems generally aligned with Christ’s admonitions or misaligned with them. And that is…

THE BOTTOM LINE.

This month’s Bottom Line is excerpted from Chapter 1 of Dennis Peacocke’s book, On the Destiny on Nations: Resolving Our Economic Crisis, available in the following formats: Paperback | Kindle | eBook