There’s a reason we don’t gain our theology from economists
Largely on the grounds that economists know little to nothing about theology. Certainly nothing professionally relevant. This is also one of those symmetric things, there’s a reason we don’t gain our economics from theologians. There’s nothing professionally relevant.
This does not mean - not in the slightest - that a theologian cannot or should not have a view on “Werl, what’s it all about then, innit?” As with moralists and ethicists, those addressing the same questions without the Deity part. Sure, what is it all about? But those are all either before or after economics, not within it. Economics being an amoral subject. One that does not say what the goal is, the right answer or outcome. Merely describes how, given where we are, we might achieve whatever the goal we’ve decided upon is.
At which point the query from Rowan Williams here is just fine. But a little more knowledge of economics would also already have provided the answer:
We are being hypnotised into the position of the gangster (played by the immortal Edward G Robinson) in the Bogart/Bacall classic Key Largo, who, challenged as to what he really wants, agrees that the answer is simply “More”.
But there are some better answers that could be given – answers that correspond more to what actual citizens might say they hope for from public policy. I’ve been working with the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (Cusp), led by Prof Tim Jackson at the University of Surrey, where some of these possible answers have been analysed and “road-tested” in a series of wide-ranging public conversations. The evidence emerging is clear. Those involved in these conversations – and the very diverse social and economic groups they represent – are convinced that stable, successful, confident and positive societies are not produced by the pursuit of growth for its own sake, but by clarity and purposiveness about what growth is supposed to serve. People look for more stable patterns of employment. We want opportunities for secure work and fulfilling leisure for ourselves and our children – dependable public services and affordable housing. We want – a fundamental matter, surely – resilience, a durable, trustworthy environment rather than a state of fevered anxiety. We want breathing space, literally and metaphorically: it’s no accident that “breath” and “spirit” are the same word in so many languages.
The economic answer here really is that more. Just “more”. More of what people wish to have that is.
Abstracting out from the mere numbers of GDP and so on we’re measuring the value added on the productive side of the economy. Or, equally and alternatively, the incomes of everyone, or their consumption. How they consume what they consume is up to them. Us market types tend to think that both the what and the how are something to be determined by the individual doing the deciding. As, in fact, is common in many theologies, that there is actually choice in this world even if it leads to consequences in the next.
Economic growth is simply that more. If that more is to be consumed as security well and good. Or if it’s to be consumed as polka dot Ferraris then also well and good - because it is the people doing the consuming who get to decide upon they consumption they value.
Take the example of breathing space for example. We’d suggest that this is a synonym for leisure. Richer societies enjoy more leisure. That more turns into taking more of the greater wealth as that breathing space. This should be obvious - starving peasants work every hour not to starve. And so on through the list.
This is all rather reinforced by the way that we do those sums for that GDP. It’s at market prices - meaning that things are valued at what people value them at. Our very counting method itself is insisting that people are gaining what they want from that more simply because that’s what we’re counting - the value people apply to that more.
Of course Tim Jackson, being an ecological economist, prefers not to know this. But we think this might be useful for a theologian like the former Archbishop of Canterbury. This is a point already considered and solved within economics. Yes, the aim is more - more of whatever it is that people desire to have and if that includes the soft and fluffy then so be it. What else does anyone think an economy is for other than that more people gain more of what people want?
Tim Worstall