In this thread, we will be undertaking a thorough analysis of the current American politico-economic landscape. Christian political economy is as capable of this exercise as any of its counterparts, but before proceeding I would like to expatiate on the qualitative distinction between Christian political economy and all of alternatives to it. There are many other approaches to political economy, but all are grounded in ideologies, which are in turn grounded in certain value (ethical) presuppositions, and their entire frameworks are philosophically grounded, ultimately purely intellectual in origin and appeal. These are in turn guided by a weltanschaung, or worldview, which tends to be purely materialistic.
Christian political economy does not answer to the same description. Its worldview recognizes a beneficent Creator who provides natural abundance to His human creatures and expects from them only good stewardship and grateful hearts; we are all the intended recipients of this awesome divine largesse, the natural response to which is a will to share God’s gifts, to grow our mutual love founded on God’s love for us as manifest in Creation, and to serve Him in whatever capacity we can. This is not meant as an exhaustive summary of the Christian worldview, but to highlight the essential difference between Christian political economy and its competitors. Theirs are all grounded, as we’ve said, in ideology, in intellectual constructs, in short, in the mind. Christian political economy is grounded in our caritas, in our universal love for the whole of humanity, and this provides the touchstone for all that follows from it. It is the political economy of the heart, and so rather than justifying itself according to some abstract notion of social justice (or worse, Social Darwinism), seeks to articulate social frameworks and practices on all levels that express and allow us to foster and grow our mutual love through our economic life. Provided we go back and back again to this point of origin in our hearts, and test each proposition according to its resonance with the Holy Spirit and the love which Jesus’s life and teachings opened the way for in our hearts, as the root of which we are all branches. This is why the Recovenanting of America is the central theme of this blog, because without that connection with God at the heart of our actions and our thinking, Christian political economy cannot prosper. It is itself a branch of that spiritual, heartful relationship with God, guided by the teachings of Jesus, and is fully rooted in that larger Understanding.
In this regard, we recognize that there are preconditions for the fruitful exercise of Christian political economy, among which is untrammeled respect for our God-given rights articulated in the Bill of Rights. Implicit in them is economic freedom, or free enterprise --- a free market. But those theories of political economy that apotheosize these principles and teach that their mere presence will assure a just and felicitous socio-economic order err gravely. These are all necessary means, true enough, but not ends in themselves; necessary but not sufficient conditions for the good life for all of us.
We see this especially with the institution of money, the overaccumulation of which by some is the presentiment of social disorder and injustice. St. Paul well informs us that the love of money is the root of all evil. We Christians have an unfortunate tendency to suspect that money is therefore an evil in and of itself, and that we would be better off without it, and indeed some Christian ascetics have made the attempt to do so individually, and occasionally collectively. But the problem is that a complex political economy is impossible without some effective communication between producers and consumers, and the free market in which the free expenditure of one’s limited financial resources directs in the aggregate the production of useful goods and services. It is the most democratic way to answer the age old question of political economy: who shall produce how much of what for whom? However, this is the case if and only if access to money is equitable. We go back to our original Understanding again: God has provided natural abundance for all mankind. He means it to be shared equitably. This is natural law in a nutshell, as it pertains to political economy. Therefore it stands to reason that every human being who is willing to participate fully in human productive and/or reproductive activity is equally entitled to the satisfaction of his or her needs, under the assumption that our human needs, by and large, do not vary significantly from one soul to the next. The principle of charity rests on this same assumption: it is self-evidently sinful for me to live extravagantly while you starve...I am morally compelled to make some adjustment, it is your due – I seem to have what belongs to you, and I am returning it. Or is it imaginable that one family might need a bigger yacht more than another family needs more nutrition to stave off starvation and disease? Yet just such obscene thinking as this permeates our current political economy.
Money used properly as an expression of consumer preference may be likened to a secret economic ballot on the direction of production. The aggregate of all these “votes” determines which products or services get produced and which do not. Of course, there are side issues involving “externalities” and unaccounted for social and environmental costs of some products, but this is a topic for another day. The globalists, who are antidemocratic, wish to strip us of the secrecy of our economic ballot by instituting a digital central bank currency which will potentially control the direction of our expenditure, just as American political elections are being stripped of their democratic integrity through various forms of election fraud and digital chicanery. If we Christians do not soon instantiate our own Christian political economy, this oligarchical tyranny, already visible on the horizon, will be our destiny. At the heart of this is our attitude towards money: do we wish more of it for ourselves, regardless of the consequences, or do we wish its equitable distribution to all willing to supply productive labor? If we love money, than we will argue for the former course. But the only proposition that satisfies Christian love is the latter: that we love social justice and economic equity more than we love money, i.e., more than we desire to gain more money for ourselves, we desire to assure that everyone has an equal vote in this ongoing economic balloting. This is the spiritual-ethical foundation of Christian political economy, and its place in our hearts is the assurance against the corruption that leads to social inequality, the Social Problem as it was classically termed. Once we have systemically assured the equitable distribution of money, its free expenditure by an educated and informed citizenry seems the most efficient way to effect what Pope Paul VI in his encyclical called “the universal destination of goods.” Christian love recognizes this principle as paramount, and Christian political economy reflects that Understanding.
These thoughts should especially occupy us as we enter the Christmas season, a time our Christian forebears celebrated with good works for the poor and needy. May God guide you, good reader, to a similar affirmation as we celebrate the birth of our great Mentor in Christian love!