{"id":39035,"date":"2024-10-23T13:10:06","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T20:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=39035"},"modified":"2024-10-23T13:10:06","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T20:10:06","slug":"beyond-the-bottom-line-why-faith-demands-a-more-human-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/beyond-the-bottom-line-why-faith-demands-a-more-human-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Bottom Line: Why Faith Demands a More Human Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The American dream: a concept as varied as the individuals who dream it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In his 1931 book, <\/span>The Epic of America<\/span><\/i>, James Truslow Adams coined the term, \u201cthe American dream,\u201d and defined it as, \u201cThat dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone.\u201d [1]\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In her paper, \u201cDefining the American Dream\u201d, Carla Riggio more helpfully discovered six themes that run through all the definitions she heard from her subjects: \u201chard work, freedom, social mobility, material gain, family connection, and individuality. Older participants had a richer and more clear definition of the American Dream while younger generations expressed more skepticism toward the concept.\u201d [2]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The desire for a better future drives us all, regardless of where we are in life. We all desire to be happy; we all desire to flourish.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet for many people, achieving this dream increasingly means juggling multiple jobs, often within the “gig economy.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, 16% of Americans rely on online gig platforms for income. [3] The Economic Policy Institute paints a bleak picture for gig workers: low wages, technical difficulties impacting earnings, and basic needs insecurity. [4]<\/span><\/p>\n

As Cornell professor Louis Hyman notes in a WBUR interview:<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to realize that for a hundred years, the industrial economy didn\u2019t deliver the good life either. That it was this transformation in the 1930s and 940s, where workers demanded better lives, and the state guaranteed that, that made it possible for those 25 years, for which we are nostalgic now, to occur. As we think about autonomy and self-reliance and self-determination, I completely agree that those are core American values going back to Jefferson\u2026 But they are also values that we need to fight for, and make sure that, even if our jobs are flexible and autonomous, that there is still a measure of security in our lives. And that\u2019s what\u2019s not being delivered now for lots of people. [5]<\/span><\/p>\n

A Self-Regulating Market<\/span><\/h2>\n

Hyman is likely referring to Karl Polanyi\u2019s 1944 book, <\/span>The Great Transformation<\/span><\/i>. Polanyi believed, \u201cthe idea of a self-adjusting market implied a stark utopia. Such an institution could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness.\u201d [6]<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, true laissez-faire capitalism, where the market dictates prices without any intervention from the government, would simply burn itself out because, by not taking account of the needs, relationships, and dignity of the people within the market, it would leave behind the very people it is meant to support. We see this today in the gig economy, as well as in other aspects of the market.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jason Clark states, \u201cThe SRM [self-regulating market] destroyed all non-market relationships through this move from production to exchange. Whilst the policy of laissez-faire in early capitalism was the \u2018freedom from regulation in production\u2019, the late-capitalist condition is a move to \u2018consumption\u2019 through exchange.\u201d [7]<\/span><\/p>\n

I was reading books with my granddaughter Clara this morning. She suddenly was eager to show me a children\u2019s book about Clara Lemlich, the girl who masterminded the New York shirtwaist strike of 1909, a women\u2019s labor union strike. Thanks to Clara, the workers gained higher wages and better working conditions. Their dream of a better, richer life became more realistic when the needs of the people overcame the bottom line of unchecked market forces.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fictitious commodities<\/span><\/h2>\n

Polanyi explains that there are real commodities: items made or manufactured, and sold. This includes cars, houses, clothing, jewelry, etc.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But when we turn labor, land, or money into a commodity, we turn what is essential for life into \u201cstuff\u201d to be traded. He calls these three in particular, \u201cfictitious commodities.\u201d Polanyi explains a series of assumptions about a self-regulating market such that, \u201cIf these conditions are fulfilled, all incomes derive from sales on the market, and incomes will be just sufficient to buy all the goods produced.\u201d [8]<\/span><\/p>\n

Polanyi goes on to state, \u201cA self-regulating market demands nothing less than the institutional separation of society into an economic and a political sphere\u2026 But labor and land are no other than the human beings themselves of which every society consists and the natural surroundings in which it exists. To include them in the market mechanism means to subordinate the substance of society itself to the laws of the market.\u201d [9]<\/span><\/p>\n

Why are land, labor, and money false commodities?<\/span><\/p>\n