Article 27:
The Destructiveness of Free Enterprise Capitalism
by Wendell Krossa
(From the series "Creating A Horizontal God", Copyright, W. Krossa)

Recent years have seen the Western societies pushing the rest of the world to adopt free enterprise capitalism. Some overly excited academics caught up in the joy of the US triumph in the cold war, declared the end of history had been reached with the victory of the free enterprise system. The whole world would now enter free enterprise heaven. This economic ideology was seen as the ultimate triumph of the values of freedom and democracy. After a few recent years of steady growth, exuberant US economists even stated that contemporary free enterprise had solved the business cycle. There would be no more up and downs of recessions and booms. Free enterprise utopia had been attained at last.

 

Globalization (the new term for world-straddling free enterprise ideology) appeared to be sweeping and converting the world.

 

Then scarcely a year later (1998) we find the ultimate capitalist, George Soros, declaring that capitalism is coming apart at the seams. There is an increasing chorus of others stating the same thing. A worldwide collapse of free enterprise economies has stunned economists and left major world economies rudderless and no one seems to know what to do to remedy the situation. IMF free market solutions don't appear to work anymore and they have always impacted most brutally on the poorest members of societies. It is now believed that IMF austerity programs even undermine the ability of many people to earn and save (higher interest rates leading to increased unemployment and debt burdens) and therefore these programs actually worsen the situations of many countries.

 

Many Western economists are still suggesting that all we need is to get better banking systems in place, maybe better laws to regulate investors and speculators, and of course better democratic (read Western) institutions to guide free enterprise societies. But it may all be just tinkering around the edges that is too late. None of these suggestions deal with the root issues of free enterprise that make it such an inhuman and destructive system.

 

But before pronouncing capitalism dead, let us note that states will probably squeeze a few decades of life (or even more) out of the system.

 

We want to suggest that something more serious is wrong with free enterprise capitalism. Free enterprise is simply an inhuman system that is destined to fail because it can not meet basic human needs and values. It can not contribute positively to the development of true humanity or truly human relating and existence. As Schumacher said, "any system based on selfishness is corrupt at heart and destined to fail" (Small is Beautiful).

 

The inhumanity of capitalism lies in the fact that it is an ideology that focuses on and encourages selfishness and greed to the point of destroying human community and society, subverting truly human relating, and destroying the environment that it depends on for its survival.

 

Free enterprise capitalism is based on Adam Smith's idea of each person pursuing their individual self-interest. Smith argued that this focus on self-interest would lead to the greater good of the whole society through the guiding hand of the free market. It was an ideology that appeared to encourage individual freedom and to stimulate and reward individual initiative. Surely something encouraging freedom and increased personal productivity must be good?

 

But Smith's idea unleashed historical social forces far beyond Smith's ability to foresee. These forces have led to unprecedented environmental destruction and unprecedented social instability and disintegration.

 

Smith made widely acceptable, something that had previously been present but was widely shunned as socially unacceptable- greed and selfishness. Smith, in arguing that self-interest would benefit the greater good of society, opened the flood gates for this previously banned social evil. Eventually, this greed would find embodiment in such things as the Protestant work ethic. If you worked hard, then you deserved to be rewarded with material prosperity. It all seemed so wholesome, natural and even good. But it undermined community; it broke the last community restraints against selfishness and the remaining widely held sense of responsibility to community (primarily in the West). This destruction of true human community and healthy community interdependence has resulted in numerous personal and social pathologies. We are reaping the whirlwind that Adam Smith sowed.

 

Free Enterprise Capitalism Destroys Freedom And Equality

With the wider social acceptance of greed and selfishness, there emerged the movement to hoard wealth in unlimited extremes not seen before in human existence. A few people can now hoard more wealth than billions of other people.

 

Each person pursuing unlimited individual gain, unlimited by community restraints, has led historically to the few gaining control of most of the resources needed by all for their livelihood. Unlimited free enterprise has led to the new social reality of few winners, many losers.

 

Smith simply could not have foreseen the immense explosion in human population and the intense explosion of human greed no longer constrained in any way by a responsibility to the community or to the greater good. But with these complicating factors, what he argued for as working for the greater good, actually undermined the greater good.

 

Inspite of the continued denial of some that there are no limits to growth (see Rees below), it is increasingly evident that there are indeed strict biological limits to economic growth and the creation of wealth. Environmental limits mean that there are limited resources for all and if a few gain control of more than they need, then there is less for everyone else. The unlimited pursuit of personal self-interest in free enterprise capitalism has led to a few controlling what the rest need for livelihood. This has resulted directly in social inequality and with that a loss of freedom for the disenfranchised majority.

 

Note that the 400 plus billionaires on earth now control more wealth than the bottom 50% of the world's population. If you include the thousands of multimillionaires around the world, then you probably have a few thousand people owning more resources than the majority of the world's population. This will only get worse as the population moves toward 10 billion people by 2050.

 

For an example of the growing inequity that free enterprise capitalism produces, note that in America, a nation that once valued freedom and equality, the richest man now owns more wealth than the poorest 100 million Americans. The top 1% of Americans now own 33% of the wealth of the country. There are now an estimated 68 million poor people living in the US alone (based on revised estimates of US poverty levels, Atlantic Monthly, Oct. 1998).

 

These disenfranchised and dependent people are not free.

 

And may we state clearly that freedom and equality are not just cute Western ideas to play with as long as they do not seriously threaten our pursuit of wealth and power. Freedom and equality are essential to being truly human and to all true human relating. Without them you do not have humanity.

 

Smith's idea of self-interest, which has been used as the basis of free enterprise capitalism, has actually been more effective in undermining freedom for the vast majority of humanity than perhaps any other idea. It has undermined the freedom of this majority by removing from them control of resources they need for basic livelihood. This is the inevitable result of encouraging and allowing the aggressive few to gain control of resources needed by all.

 

This ideology of free enterprise, much like religion does, claims to represent good things such as freedom and democracy. But it instead undermines the very things it claims to promote.

 

Free Enterprise Capitalism Destroys Community

As we noted above, the emphasis on individual pursuit of gain in the West broke the last ties to community and the restraining bonds of responsibility to community. Some of these restraints were healthy and necessary for true human well-being and human community.

 

With the development of capitalism and its values there also emerged the development of intense Western individualism. This has been the outcome of discarding community for unrestricted individual liberty. But it needs to be asked- is Western individual freedom, really freedom? Is our intense focus on individual achievement and success over the success of the larger human community, really true human freedom?

 

Traditional community could be a very stifling reality, holding back creativity, diversity, experimentation, and advance. But the interdependence of such community did provide a sense of security, responsibility to the greater good, and identity with a greater whole. Loss of this security and identity has led to an immense array of social and personal pathologies: alienation, isolation, loneliness, depression, crime, suicide, alcoholism, etc.

 

In this regard George Bennello has said that "Where community is lacking, people are impelled to seek maximum economic gain- well beyond what is necessary to lead a decent life- in part as a form of substitution for needs which are not met... The Ontong Javanese call a person poor, not when he is lacking in material goods, but when he is lacking in the resources of shared living... Recent English research has caused renewed interest in this definition of poverty. Where psychic poverty (the loss of community support and security) exists, the effort is to substitute material goods. This in turn gives rise to the market ideology where selfish interest prevails" (1989. "Economic Behavior And Self-Management: Some Governing Principles" in Building Sustainable Communities, p.83).

 

This insight regarding psychic poverty helps to understand how the move away from community responsibility and support, toward individual self-interest and achievement, has led to each person striving to get as many personal resources as possible. It is easy to see how this competitive personal drive to gain leads inevitably to few winners, many losers, and a devastated environment.

 

Peter Boothroyd has noted the damaging consequences that have followed the loss of community in emerging individually oriented capitalist society. He says "The price we have paid for the material progress, personal liberty, and cosmopolitanism enjoyed in (modern society) is a deep sense of aloneness, anxiety, and impotence. This sense comes from the realization that ultimately only we or our immediate family cares about our economic fate, that our lives have no meaning outside that which we invest in them, that by pursuing our individual interests we are collectively destroying the planet, and that we have virtually no power to manage our territory and economy" (Boothroyd. 1991. "Community Development: The Missing Link In Welfare Policy" in Ideology, Development and Social Welfare: Canadian Perspectives, p.105).

 

Robert Wright has said that "One reason the sinews of community are so hard to restore is that they are at odds with free markets. Capitalism not only spews out cars, TVs and other antisocial technologies; it also sorts people into little vocational boxes and scatters the boxes far and wide. Economic opportunity is what drew farm boys into cities, and it has been fragmenting families ever since. There is thus a tension within conservative ideology between laissez-faire economics and family values, as various people have noted... much modern psychopathology grows out of the dynamics of economic freedom" ("The Evolution of Despair" in TIME, Aug. 28, 1995, p.38).

 

The self-absorption that comes with individualism and loss of identity with a larger group and its needs has led to a variety of neuroses and psychoses, which are the destructive imbalance of human personality and relating (The Art Of Intimacy).

 

No one is arguing for a return to traditional community with its often stifling conformity. That would not be desirable if it were even possible. But as Wright has said, "to say we wouldn't want to live in our primitive past isn't to say we can't learn from it... We don't have to slavishly emulate, say, the Old Order Amish, who use no cars, electricity or alcohol; but we can profitably ask why it is that they suffer depression at less than one-fifth the rate of people in nearby Baltimore" ("The Evolution of Despair" in TIME, Aug. 28, 1995, p.34-35).

 

Boothroyd has said the same in stating, "Though the values of (modern society) are deeply embedded in our economy, culture, and politics, (modern society's) ability to deliver on its promises is beginning to be questioned. The alternative to (modern society) is not a return to (traditional community). The prospect is unthinkable now that we have tasted individual freedom on the one hand and are aware of our global interconnections on the other. The alternative to (modern society) is community in non(traditional) forms, community that is planned, open..." (Community Development: The Missing Link In Welfare Policy, p.130).

 

As Boothroyd argues, we need to experiment with new forms of community that encourage individual diversity and yes, even individual freedom, along with creativity, change, openness, and responsibility to others. Also, the reality is that most of the world's population is becoming urban and traditional geographic communities are becoming more rare. New forms of community will mean multiple overlapping relationships with sports communities, work communities, social communities, as well as family and neighbors. Community is now becoming borderless and ill-defined.

 

Free enterprise capitalism can not serve to manage economic activity in a manner that supports truly human community development. Capitalism can not encourage true human community with its essential cooperation because capitalism by its very nature encourages individual achievement or winning through aggressive competition with all others. It pits people against each other in win/lose outcomes. And historically this system has led to few winning and most losing.

 

In free enterprise capitalism, economic laws like competitive efficiency have always come before people and meeting basic human needs. People and their communities are often discarded in the interests of competitive efficiency for the benefit of the wealthy few.

 

Fortunately, Western individualism has failed to take hold around the earth in community oriented cultures and this in part explains the current failure of Western free enterprise ideology in Asia and elsewhere.

 

The pursuit of individual achievement has also destroyed the possibility for harmonious human relating. The few gaining more possessions than they need for decent level of survival has led to power over others, the domination of the majority by the few. Where a few can aggressively compete and gain more resources than others you have the inevitable verticalizing of relationships. These power relationships are inherently inhuman and prevent the expression of love or equality between people.

 

Also, some gaining more possessions and power than others leads to the arrogance of status and prestige in socially stratified societies, along with all the envy and bitterness that such inequality engenders. It leads to the powerless naturally resisting inhuman domination and inequality, and consequently, much social instability.

 

The pursuit of individual gain has been masked in such things as the Protestant work ethic and in some ways it seems only common sense, the right way to treat human labor. Some would argue it is God's way. If you work hard, then God will bless and you will make it, you will succeed materially (Jesus' parables, however, show an entirely different view of a scandalously generous and egalitarian God). Before unquestioningly accepting such ideas let us remember that the motivation for work and productivity has not always been as intensely focused on material reward or material wealth as it currently is. In traditional community oriented societies, there have always been other more community oriented means of stimulating human motivation to work. These reward work in ways that strengthen the entire community, not just the individual.

 

In the contemporary insane commitment to personal success, no one ever stops to question if some are gaining too much of the resources that belong to all, and if so, then how are the rest supposed to make it? How does the harsh reality of some individuals gaining excessive wealth affect others? What about the fact of what has been called zero sum economic reality or limited good? If some take a lot, then others simply lose out. Limited good is an inescapable reality now bringing the proponents of free enterprise binge back to their senses.

 

The capitalist commitment to individual achievement and gain contributes directly to the disenfranchising of others, even at great distances (see Rees). The damaging consequence is social inequality and instability which undermines freedom- our most valued ideal.

 

Free enterprise advocates are good at mythmaking and respond to such concerns with the myth of endless growth and endless creation of new wealth. Just get the economy growing they say; increase the size of the pie so all can enjoy affluence.

 

Or blame the victim. If some are not affluent then they must be lazy.

 

But there are a variety of harsh facts that blow the foundations out from under so many of these myths. For instance, it is a well known fact that fully 80% of new businesses fail within 5 years of starting. Of the remaining 20% only a few are real success stories, the rest just survive. It is simply not possible for everyone to make it, even by the hardest of work (see articles 18 and 19).

 

William Ryan speaks to this issue of success for only the few in saying, "A study of unskilled and semi-skilled workers in an automobile plant showed that the workers blamed themselves for their lack of promotion in rank during their working life rather than the system within which the operated, even though there was opportunity for advancement for only a handful out of the total number of workers, and even though factories are generally places of very limited chance for personal advancement. Both of these instances illustrate the power of social myths and ideologies. So firmly does the myth of success by individual efforts rule over our minds that we pay tribute to it even in the face of facts over which we have little or no control... The 'blaming the victim' syndrome... offers further evidence of the myth's power. It is difficult for members of our society who have 'made it' by hard work, use of opportunity, intelligent planning and preparation to understand how others can not do so as well. The unsuccessful are held to be at fault in some way" (William Ryan in Poverty And Economic Justice, p.173).

 

Many wealthy people are simply unaware of how their greed impacts others. They have little understanding that some taking more resources and the best opportunities, means others losing access to those resources and opportunities. A wealthy American entertainer said, "I have worked hard for what I have. I just don't understand why everyone can't live as I do?" She believed there were limitless resources and opportunities for everyone. The mythology of limitlessness is a powerful and widely believed myth.

 

Free Enterprise Capitalism Destroys Environmental Integrity

We are arguing that in free enterprise capitalism only a few can succeed while most will lose. Environmental constraints ensure this reality. The environmental systems that economies are embedded in, impose strict biological limits to growth and wealth creation.

 

Remember that all apparent economic production is actually consumption and biological systems can only sustain so much consumption before their integrity is compromised, sometimes dangerously so.

 

Bill Rees says nature imposes strict biological limits to economic growth. In reference to the concept of 'sustainable development' he says, "That much debated concept does not mean- as some would have it- that we can maintain our current economic system... Our economy requires continuous growth, and as presently structured, this is based on the 'liquidation of our natural assets'. Humanity today consumes more of nature's goods and services than are produced by the world's ecosystems, threatening a global crisis..." (Garwin Wilson, "Profile" in UBC Reports, July 16,1992).

 

"Rees points out that the signs are everywhere: the collapse of once abundant fisheries, the depletion of agricultural soils, disappearing forests, desertification, the thinning of the ozone layer...'These are all symptoms of the same problem- overconsumption by excessive human populations'" (Ibid).

 

A new economic theory (Bill Rees, School of Planning, University of British Columbia) is arguing that every generation must pass on to each succeeding generation undiminished stocks of natural capital. Natural capital being the stocks of soil, water, plantlife, wildlife, wilderness systems, and all other resources in any given area of the earth.

 

Every year through photosynthesis and consequent biological growth there is an addition to the basic natural stocks in every area. The new economics of sustainability argues that this annual addition to the basic stocks may be consumed by the present generation, but the basic stocks of all resources should be passed on undiminished to the next generation. It is the right of every generation to receive undiminished stocks of natural capital from the previous generation.

 

One of the key reasons for maintaining basic levels of natural systems is that they perform vital services in maintaining the health of the overall environment, in maintaining resource levels, and therefore in maintaining the level of economic activity needed for a decent lifestyle. There are strict limits which if exceeded can compromise the ability of natural systems to perform their valuable services upon which all economic and other social activity depends. And these services are not just to supply material resources. For instance, there is the important economic function of forests as carbon banks, helping to keep the earth's carbon cycle in proper balance.

 

Inspite of the obviously strict limits imposed by natural resources, you still hear economists, politicians, and others arguing that all that is needed to solve disparity, poverty, and unemployment is to get economies growing. This is expressed in the dated myth that by increasing the pie everyone can get a share or a larger portion of wealth. Another version of this myth talks about a rising tide floating all ships. In this ideology, it is still argued that all can enjoy prosperity and affluence. Endless economic growth becomes the answer to all problems of disparity and poverty. Warnock says that discoveries of fuel reserves and advances in technology have led to the creation of the myth of limitlessness that now dominates economic ideology. This has led to humans exceeding the carrying capacity of the earth (The Politics of Hunger, p.35).

 

Much of our contemporary wealth creation is built on resources stolen from future generations. We have already gone well beyond using the annual gains to stock resources and used up much of the natural capital that belongs to our children's generation. What appeared to be the creating of wealth in the present was really the theft of resources from future generations. The free enterprise call to create more wealth does not consider such intergenerational equity let alone current equity issues worldwide. Warnock says, "The logic of the liberal view of economic man is clear. People pursue their own immediate self-interest. The goal is to maximize personal well-being right now, today. There can be no concern for future generations" (Ibid, p.43).

 

The strict biological limits imposed by earth's environmental systems ensure the eventual collapse of any economic system based on limitless growth. For this reason alone we argue that free enterprise capitalism can not continue to manage human economic activity.

 

Neoclassical or free enterprise economists can not accept the idea of any sort of resource limits. For one thing, their theory of substitution leads them to argue that if any resource becomes scarce, it will rise in price and people will then move to using another resource as a substitute. This theory failed horribly in regard to the ozone layer and is failing dismally in regard to fishing stocks, forest ecosystems, climate regulating systems (oceans), and many other critical resources.

 

Also, in allowing unlimited material gain as a possibility for some, you must offer it to all. So the myth has emerged in free enterprise capitalism that anyone, through hard work, can make it to success and affluence. Free enterprise ideology does not even bother to think through the implications of 10 billion people making it to free enterprise success. Where is the land base to support such levels of consumption or affluence (Western levels are the standard) for all these people, let alone meet their basic needs?

 

Bill Rees' research on carrying capacity has shown that the land needed to support one person at the level of consumption of an average Canadian would be about 5 hectares of productive ecosystem. This includes land for food, wood products, fuel, waste processing capacity, etc. To support the current world population would then require some 30 billion hectares of productive land. But, as Rees says, "the total land area of earth is only just over 13 billion hectares of which only 8.8 billion hectares is productive cropland, pasture or forest" (Natural Capital In Relation To Regional/Global Concepts of Carrying Capacity, p.9). As Rees says, it would require at least two more earth's to support everyone at an average Canadian level of consumption. The 'American dream' is obviously an impossible dream for the vast majority of mankind.

 

Our Western free enterprise insistence on such high levels of consumption for ourselves and our allowing the aggressive few to take far more than they need is leading to the disenfranchisement of billions of people as well as the destruction of earth's productive ecosystems.

 

The roughly one billion of us affluent people, each of us using our 5 hectares to support our lifestyle (with much of this land base being the best resources appropriated in other parts of the world), ensures that there is little left over for the other 5 billion people on earth. If each of the one billion affluent people depended on just 5 hectares to support their lifestyle, that would mean they are using at least 5 billion hectares out of the 8.8 billion hectares of productive ecosystem available on earth.

 

However, many wealthy people, among the affluent billion, have gained control of far more than just the 5 hectares that would provide them with a very comfortable lifestyle. They are, through their excessive wealth, controlling many other products and services that require resources from all over the world, resources that belong to others. The affluent one billion are therefore using far more that just the 5 billion hectares that they would be using if each had been restricted to depending on only 5 hectares. This means that the remaining 3.8 billion hectares of land (often the poorest quality) that should be used to provide basic livelihood for the remaining 5 billion people, not even all of that land is available to those people. Because an aggressive elite take far more than they need, there is far less than even the 3.8 billion hectares for the remaining 5 billion people. And there are billions more people yet to come. By 2050, some 9 billion people will have to scrabble for the remaining few billion hectares of land and other resources.

 

It is obvious that the affluent Western lifestyle leads to gross inequity and horrific environmental damage. Radical cutbacks in consumption must be made by affluent Westerners and a system of radical sharing of available resources must be implemented in order for all earth's inhabitants to have more equal access to resources and opportunity for a decent lifestyle.

 

Rees points out that few people in affluent areas survive only on their local land or resources. Affluent Westerners appropriate the land of other areas of the world (often the very best land) to support their levels of consumption. As an example, note that the Dutch in one West African country use the best land there to grow a root crop just to feed the pigs of Holland. The area of land used to grow this crop is larger than Holland itself. Local farmers are then forced to use marginal land to survive on. This appropriation of other's resources through trade is repeated all over the earth.

 

We, the affluent, buy products from all over the world. Our purchases are like votes that support the work of huge transnational corporations. These corporations take control of resources all over the earth (often the best land and other resources) to then sell to whoever will pay, which is most often the affluent in the Northern or Western world. This control of resources for use by the wealthy, prevents local people from gaining access to those resources.

 

As an example, I am reminded of the huge companies that use the best land of the island of Mindanao (Southern Philippines) to grow bananas, pineapple and other crops to be consumed by people in other countries. This forces local people to cut rainforest on steep mountainsides in an effort to survive.

 

Rees says "urbanization and trade have the effect of physically and psychologically distancing urban populations from the ecosystems that sustain them. Access to bioresources produced outside their home region both undermines people's sense of dependency on 'the land' and blinds them to the far-off social and ecological effects of imported consumption" (Ibid, p.9).

 

"Because the products of nature can so readily be imported, the population of any given region can exceed its local carrying capacity unknowingly and with apparent impunity. In the absence of negative feedback from the land on their economy or lifestyles, there is no direct incentive for such populations to maintain adequate local stocks of productive natural capital... trade enables a region's population and material consumption to rise beyond levels to which they might otherwise be restrained by some locally limiting factor" (Ibid, p.9).

 

With strict limits imposed biologically, we continue to press the point that if some take more, then others will lose. All individual pursuit of self-interest and consequent gain is at others expense. This is an inviolable law of economic life on earth.

 

This reality of strict limits to productive capability, wealth creation and consumption and the free enterprise consequence of control of most resources by the few makes equality of opportunity for all a lie. This new buzzword of free enterprise has replaced earlier more strict material ideals of equality. It may be that the growing realization that free enterprise can not produce true equality and freedom has led to the creation of this new myth of equality of opportunity, a watered down version of genuine equality.

 

With this new definition of opportunity equality, free enterprisers continue to offer the dated myth that with hard work all can make it to success and prosperity. Again, just keep the economy growing until all get a bigger share of the growing pie.

 

But you simply can not exceed the carrying capacity of regions and their systems or you will destroy the very biological systems that economies depend on for their existence. Evidence is mounting everywhere that contemporary free enterprise excess is doing just that. As Rees stated above, note the fisheries worldwide that have collapsed- anchovies off Peru, cod off Eastern Canada, salmon on the west coast of Canada. Also, forestry systems around the world are collapsing (the worldwide rate of deforestation is 10 times the rate of reforestation), soil erosion is far beyond new soil generation (25 billion tons yearly of erosion in excess of new soil production) and the agricultural production crisis worsens (gains from green revolutions have leveled off). There is also the damage to systems from polluted air, soil, and oceans, ozone depletion, and many other threatened systems.

 

Studies on carrying capacity have shown that earth can only sustain somewhere around 1 billion plus people at a Western level of consumption. There are already 1 billion of us at that level. What about the other 5 billion and the next 4 billion yet to come?

 

1.3 billion people already live in extreme poverty. Another 2 billion people live in conditions described as inhuman. Three quarters of the earth's population earn on average $1000 a year.

 

No matter what excuses we make for our greed in the West, that greed is a direct cause the suffering of the immiserated billions noted above. We may argue ourselves blue in the face that we earned our affluence by our own hard work and therefore it is ours to keep. But that argument simply ignores the fact that our colonial forefathers took over ancient production and trade systems by force for their advantage and we as their descendants inherited that advantage in modern systems that maintain those same trade and other advantages. If your economic system and ideology encourages you to work to get as much as you can, then you will inevitably be appropriating what belongs to others and to future generations. Lets not bury our heads and deny history.

 

Also, as we noted above, affluent Westerners use not only their own resources but through trade continue to appropriate the best resources of other areas of the world.

 

Free enterprise answers that the above so-called 'imperfections' in their system can be resolved by means of redistribution through welfare programs. It is basically a good system they argue, it just needs some tinkering around the edges with a few things like handouts.

 

But this welfare state response is dehumanizing, demeaning, and embittering. Instead of the humiliating subservience of the giver/receiver relationship, every person deserves sufficient control over their worklife or livelihood in order to enjoy basic human well-being. Without such control the consequences are devastating to human mental, emotional, and physical health.

 

Note this summary of research on loss of control in the workplace, just one arena where powerlessness works its damaging effects. "Some jobs are to die for. Citing the strongest evidence yet, researchers find that people who have little or no control over their work life (such as secretaries or assembly-line workers) have a 70% higher risk of dying from heart disease than those who can decide for themselves what they will do and when" (TIME, April 6, 1996). The evidence is overwhelmingly conclusive; loss of personal control or being controlled by others has devastating effects on human well-being. In fact, control is so bad for your health that it may even be killing you.

 

In response to the devastating effects of powerlessness experienced by the majority in the lower strata of contemporary free enterprise societies, one person has made the insightful suggestion that every person deserves as a birthright and basic human right, access to and control over sufficient resources for livelihood. This is not a handout to be groveled for, this is a basic right necessary to have minimal human dignity.

 

As one man said, one man's right to survival must come before another man's right to private property in excessive amounts. The authors of Poverty and Economic Justice have said, "Excessive private property leads to an economic system of subjugation... people have a natural right to private property...(but) a piece of land measuring a thousand square miles can not be natural private property".

 

We feel Jesus' ancient message about sharing and giving has profound relevance to these economic issues today. He taught a vision of society where no one would possess anything, and no one would have prestige above another or power over another. It was a radically egalitarian vision. It would mean freedom for both the oppressed and the oppressors.

 

True freedom in Jesus' vision did not mean freedom to pursue unlimited individual achievement and gain. It meant the denial of self-interest in order to live for the good of others. While such self-denial has often been abused and taken to silly extremes in religious movements where people have been urged to deny and repress normal human drives and emotions, practiced in the way Jesus intended, it can be very useful in the development of true human freedom. This would entail a freedom from the debasing drives of selfish possessing of material good, prestige, and powerholding. This is a liberation of the human spirit that ennobles in every way. Freedom to serve others leads to the experience of true humanity and that is cleansing and liberating in the highest sense.

 

Jesus primary teaching on the destructive inhumanity of possessing material wealth and seeking prestige and power over others, condemns utterly the very heart of modern free enterprise societies which value supremely material gain, prestige, and power.

 

One of the best outlines of Jesus' vision for a truly human society is set forth in Albert Nolan's book 'Jesus Before Christianity'.

 

Where Is The Economic Future?

With the crisis in capitalism growing, people are already suggesting the need for a third alternative, some mixture of free enterprise with tinkering around the edges to meet obvious imperfections in the system. But there are not just 3 options to be selected from- communism, capitalism, or a new third alternative. We need to open up the future much more to experiment and explore a wide diversity of options for different cultures and situations.

 

As a basic requirement, any economic system, to be truly human, must embody and encourage genuine freedom, equality, and love. A truly human system must take seriously Jesus' teaching on the inhumanity of possessing material wealth, prestige and power.

 

A truly human system of economic activity must set strict personal limits to material gain that reflect the carrying capacity of regions and their biological systems and then ensure that all members of society have equal access to and control over remaining available resources necessary for basic livelihood and human dignity.

 

Equality of opportunity is a meaningless concept where the few are allowed to gain control of most resources that all need for their well-being.

 

In this regard, some areas of the world are resource poor, while other areas are resource rich. States have set up boundaries to protect their advantages for their own citizens and this often means the few (i.e. Canada) enjoy lots, while many others suffer with little. A new more human economic system must allow more inter-nation sharing, perhaps through allowing more migration from crowded resource poor areas. Other people must have more equal access to resources, even across borders.

 

A new system will have to face the same realities of free enterprise experience such as efficiency in production and resource use. But these important issues must never again be allowed to dominate any system in such a way that human needs are subordinated to these economic laws.

 

Any new system will also have to ensure cooperation replaces competition as the central organizing principle of economic activity. Unlimited free competition has played a major part in fostering the destructive inequality of contemporary economic systems. The enslavement to competition has led to the unemploying of hundreds of millions of people around the earth (now close to one billion). If this brutal trend of competitive efficiency continues, soon only 20% of populations will be needed to meet all the needs of any society. The rest will simply not be needed. Others are stating that soon only 20% of jobs will pay decently, the rest will be marginalized employment.

 

Current efforts at cooperation are too often overwhelmed in the harshly competitive environment of free enterprise capitalism. They may be simply mutually exclusive realities. Whatever the ultimate conclusion here, competition and efficiency must be kept subservient to human needs. Only then can they play any useful part in a new system.

 

What is clear is that contemporary forms of free enterprise capitalism lead inevitably to inequality and loss of freedom for disenfranchised majorities. This then results in social instability. It is simply not a human system nor is it suited to human development and relating. It destroys human community. And it devastates the environmental systems that human communities and economies depend on for their survival.

 

Note: The above material is covered in more detail in the revised articles, numbering 16-19, on 'The Freedom and Responsibility to be Human'.

 From the series "Taking The Vertical Out of God" by W. Krossa.
Copyrighted material.