{"id":16261,"date":"2018-02-01T18:44:29","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T02:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=16261"},"modified":"2018-02-01T18:47:59","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T02:47:59","slug":"capitalism-a-temporary-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/capitalism-a-temporary-solution\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitalism: A temporary solution"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In reading The Great Transformation<\/em> by Karl Polanyi, I paused frequently, reflecting that this man seems to be a prophet ahead of his time. \u00a0His seminal work outlines the history of the liberal self-regulating market, now a globalized phenomenon and is an inescapable structure within societies.\u00a0 Written in the latter years of World War II, he predicted the end of market capitalism by 1944.[1]<\/a> Prophets may not always be perfect with their timelines. But perhaps the end of market capitalism as we have known it is still to come.<\/p>\n

We are certainly seeing signs of the disintegration of market capitalism. While at one time, so much good came from the power of the markets to raise living standards around the world, we now see major cities becoming unaffordable for the young[2]<\/a>, a widening chasm between the haves and have-nots, and a retraction from decades of movement to freer markets towards protectionism, exemplified by Brexit and Donald Trump\u2019s crusade against NAFTA.<\/p>\n

The chief problem with market capitalism, according to Polanyi, is that it assumes that land, labour, and capital are commodities to be exchanged. As a result, problems such as human trafficking, food insecurity, expensive healthcare, and unaffordable housing remain intractable social issues in most globalized contexts. \u00a0Capitalism tolerates the existence of poverty in our midst. Within an amoral system where the quest for gain is the main driver, there will always be winners and losers. People, those made in Christ\u2019s image, are commodified and reduced to a barcode to be scanned. Polanyi believed that self-regulating capitalism lacked a moral centre.\u00a0 He states, \u201cThe true criticism of market society is not that it was based on economics \u2026 but that its economy was based on self-interest.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

A critique of Polanyi as a moral economist came from William Booth\u2019s more recent work, On the Idea of the Moral Economy<\/em>.\u00a0 Reviewer Sener Akturk reveals contradictory evidence for the morality of market capitalism:<\/p>\n

\u201cBooth asserts that, contrary to Polanyi’s view, market society has moral foundations (1994: 661). Market liberalism is embedded’ both institutionally via property rights made operative in the form of law, and normativity-ethically via the egalitarian universalism of market exchange (1994: 661). Free markets as arenas of exchange do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, sex, or any other criteria apart from having enough money to purchase the desired goods.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Polanyi\u2019s thesis surprisingly coincided with themes present in David Bebbington\u2019s survey of British evangelicalism[5]<\/a>, particularly during the Victorian Age.\u00a0 Motivated to tackle perpetual societal problems of poverty, homelessness, child labour, and hunger exacerbated by being on the wrong side of the Industrial Revolution, evangelicals crusaded to reform their society through a pietistic message of salvation and good works. \u00a0However, Polanyi provides the context.\u00a0 He states that social injustices existing because of free-flowing capitalist expansion became the evangelical focus. But because the gospel was focused on the individual and not the redemption of society, the full extent of the good news was not proclaimed.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026[T]he more readily the poor acquiesced in their condition of degradation, the more easily they would turn to the heavenly solaces\u2026 But these empty husks of Christianity on which the inner life of the most generous of the upper classes was vegetating contrasted but poorly with the creative faith of that religion of industry in the spirit of which the common people of England were endeavouring to redeem society.\u201d[6]<\/strong><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hannah More\u2019s Cheap Repository Tracts could only offer a \u201cpractical transcendentalism,\u201d[7]<\/a> not a renewed, just society. Evangelicalism just didn\u2019t go far enough. We need faith that speaks into society and changes systems as well as individuals.<\/p>\n

In our capitalist societies today, grave inequalities continue to create opportunities for evangelicals to assist. Indeed, evangelicals are often on the front end of campaigns to offer their support. It is ironic that philanthropy, representing the proceeds of capitalistic success, is channelled towards areas of need in society which have been destroyed by capitalistic excess. I believe that philanthropy is a stop-gap solution for the period we are living in. It isn\u2019t the permanent, ideal way to assist those who have need \u2013 it is often just a band-aid covering a gaping, bloody wound.<\/p>\n

As a former board member of Opportunity International Canada<\/a>, I\u2019ve had multiple occasions to see their work firsthand in countries as diverse as Colombia, Ghana, and Indonesia. Opportunity is a Christian NGO which offers microfinancial products \u2013 small loans and insurance \u2013 to the poorest of the poor who can\u2019t qualify for a bank loan but often depend on loan sharks charging egregious repayment rates. I\u2019ve walked through dozens of slums, visited clients in hundreds of simple shacks, and seen the gratitude on the faces of the entrepreneurial poor as they discover a way out of endemic poverty. Opportunity is a big believer in the power of creative capitalism. But it\u2019s an even bigger believer in the power of Christ to heal and transform society. The first solution is just a temporary one. It\u2019s Jesus who will lead us in a societal transformation towards justice and peace for all.<\/p>\n

Isaac William Martin, sociologist at the University of California, San Diego, states: \u201cIn place of the image of society as a coherent, unified subject with mysterious powers of self defense, their reconstructed Polanyi gives us a vision of society as an articulated set of arrangements for living\u2014or as a congeries of \u2018\u2018multiple social institutions and dense networks of social relationships\u2019\u2019 (p. 226).\u201d[8]<\/a> In this picture, there is a seat at the table for the church.\u00a0 May we step up, offer our networks, systems, and faith in Christ coming to reorder all things, and to reformat how we live in this world tomorrow.<\/p>\n

_________________________________<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Martin, Isaac William. \u201cReading The Great Transformation.\u201d Contemporary Sociology<\/em> 44, no. 2 (March 1, 2015), 163. Accessed on February 1, 2018. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/0094306115570270b<\/a><\/u>.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> http:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/economy\/torontos-unaffordable-why-cant-halifax-or-saskatoon-take-advantage\/<\/a>, Accessed on February 1, 2018.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time<\/em>. (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001), 257.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Akturk, Sener. \u201cBetween Aristotle and the Welfare State: The Establishment, Enforcement, and Transformation of the Moral Economy in Karl Polanyi\u2019s The Great Transformation.\u201d Theoria: A Journal of Social & Political Theory<\/em>, no. 109 (April 2006), 102.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Bebbington, David W. Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s<\/em>. Routledge, 2002.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Polanyi, 180.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Polanyi, 179.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Martin, 165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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