Scripture

Psalm 52:6-9

The righteous will see and fear; they will laugh at you, saying, "Here now is the man who did not make God his stronghold but trusted in his great wealth and grew strong by destroying others!" But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God's unfailing love for ever and ever. For what you have done I will always praise you in the presence of your faithful people. And I will hope in your name, for your name is good.

Tao Te Ching 19

Give up ingenuity, renounce profit,
And bandits and thieves will disappear...

It is more important

To see the simplicity,
To realize one's true nature,
To cast off selfishness
And temper desire

Renounce Zombie "Capitalism" for Divinity's Love of True Capital

by Rev. Cory Bradford-Watts

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Some might say that the topic of large-scale economics should be left to the political arena, but in fact the world's scriptures have much to say about the economy and how we should renounce selfishness in commerce and personal finances. As we see in our readings today, God and our sages repeatedly admonish us to trust not in our earthly wealth, and instead turn toward spiritual wealth and health. In this vein, scripture asks us to give up our hoarding of gold (like dragons from fantasy, but with banks!) for the benefit of ourselves and community. Of course, this is especially true for the wealthiest among us (billionaires), who hold the vast, vast majority of humanity's wealth and income. We see this a bit with certain "altruistic" billionaires (Bill Gates), but even his example only scratches the surface of the radical approach that scripture encourages.

If you ask the average person how much of our wealth as a species is held by our wealthiest people, they vastly underestimate it. I recently saw a CBS news special where the anchor asked folks to divide a pie representing the wealth of the United States between five plates each representing 20% of the population: one plate for the poorest 20%, for the next poorest 20% (the lower-middle class), the middle class, the upper-middle class, and the wealthiest 20%.

Often, the participant puts about half of the pie in the top two wealthiest segments, and then a piece or two on the rest of them. But in actuality, the wealthiest 20% plate holds the vast majority: 9 of the 10 slices! The upper-middle class gets only 2/3 of a piece, the middle class about a third, and the lower-middle class crumbs. The poorest 20% of people actually owe crumbs, due to their indebtedness (on average, $6,000+)!

Often, people think that wealth inequality is exaggerated, but as you can see, the truth is quite the opposite. Further, proponents of our current systems (or who even suggest less regulated forms of our Western economies) say that our "capitalism" is the fairest approach to wealth distribution - not recognizing that our current system is not based on true capitalism, and is designed so that workers get vastly inequitable pay (labor capital is under-valued), which leads to a false capitalistic system of deep oppression. Aside: we won't even start to explore how even the most "capitalistic" systems rightfully employ some socialist programs, which are often loved by the right: such as the police & military.

In a way, this is where I might agree with those who suggest less regulations help: most of the bylaws of publicly traded corporations demand that we maximize return on equity/stock capital which is net income. This, while minimizing the return on labor capital - which is labeled an expense, and so should be driven down. Why do we treat different forms of capital so differently? Indeed, God in scripture often makes the case that the most valuable form of capital is human life. Further, in our systems, offering equity capital automatically means you own part of the business, whereas offering labor capital (your life) typically means no such thing.

My time working in investments and gaining a Chartered Financial Analyst designation (among others) opened my eyes to our shoddy form of "capitalism" and the literal small print often at the heart of our deadened system. And I saw first-hand how people can have the best of intentions but be mowed down by a heartless system directly at odds with God's goal of having a heaven on earth. Like those criticized in our scripture readings and throughout holy texts, our system as a whole generally puts its weight on one type of capital, equity/stock capital, to the detriment of human and even environmental capital: which is our lives, our work and discoveries, and our world! Some may call this "rampant capitalism," similarly, I believe it is a capitalism with a frontal lobe lobotomy, turned psychotic.

Wikipedia defines capital as "assets that can enhance one's power to perform economically useful work," and there are a number of types of capital, from labor to land and cash capital. Our system has decided that one type, cash investment through the stock exchange, deserves both ownership and a maximizing of returns (otherwise CEO's and managers get fired, per companies' bylaws), while labor capital (human life) deserves as small a return as is systematically possible and no ownership. Hardly any company tries to value our workers contribution to output to ensure fair pay, let alone allow people to share in the profit of offering their lives! Workers have so little power and our ignorance in this realm is so great that this doesn't even get lip-service. And yet many scriptures say that the Lord only listens when we empower the powerless, when we give words to and uplift the oppressed.

Ultimately, all of this means that we have a truly zombie "capitalism," one that chews and spits out the greatest capital of all, those beloved by Divinity: we the people.

God(dess), on the other hand, calls on us to slay the human-eating beast. The scriptures repeatedly tell us that if we are to find true peace and joy, heavenliness within and around us, we have to give up our economic psychosis. In our personal lives we find this to be true, as we turn toward altruism, discerning and responding to the needs of our families and community, our spiritual diseases fall away and our hearts bloom. As a society, we must realize that our worship of inequality and material wealth, magnifying CEO's and the incredibly rich with a distorted system, only undermines and oppresses our greatest "useful asset" - our lives.

It's not just that God values the most productive "capital" imaginable, the capital that gives rise to other capital, humanity, but God recognizes that the point of economics is to serve life, to serve our love for each other in community. I haven't meant to bore you, but unfortunately, I believe that it takes a better understanding of the monstrous beast on our backs in order to be able to throw it. Born in the gullet of a dragon, all too often we say, "What monster? These burns are normal."

Thank God, then, for God. Let's reflect on her words through Psalm 52,

The righteous will see and fear; they will laugh at you, saying, "Here now is the man who did not make God his stronghold but trusted in his great wealth and grew strong by destroying others!"

And from Isaiah 58,

'Why have we fasted,' they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?' Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.

Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter- when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.

Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

May the Lord add a blessing to the hearing, the understanding, and the doing of his Word.

And this is only a small portion of scriptures' holy economics!

God makes it clear that she values uplifting the oppressed and the needy far over wealth, ritual and outward religiosity. When we distort our system to promote selfish gain and inequality we are literally setting ourselves against what many traditions call God's Holy Word and the voice of our hearts. As we saw in our reading above, such callous and hollow ways of being turn our faces away from embodying the Divinity within us and receiving her blessings, peace, and joy. May we renounce our hollow praise of "capitalism" and return to the Lord's true capitalism. May we release our coffers of inequitable wealth, false security, and vanity, as we return to the richness of the Source of Life by loving and valuing life.

Amen.

Blessings,

Rev. Cory