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last October, âIt is hard to see why institutes whose fairlue cannot be contemplated should be in the private sector.â Inequality. People are losing benefits, employment and homes and will have to work longer for smaller pensions, while bankers are receiving record salaries and bonuses. We are among the most unequal of developed countries, and inequality is rising. Is this âour faultâ or does it indicate that there is something wrong with the financial system? Martin Wilkinson, brother of the co-author of The Spirit Level, is a Quaker and is pressing the message that inequality causes social disintegration.Growth. Economists and policy-makers consider growth to be essential for a healthy economy; unfortunately they are right, within the constraints of the money-system we use. It was a Quaker economist, Kenneth Boulding, who made the widely quoted statement: âAnyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist.â Growth in the value of other things, assets like property, leads to bubbles that burst. How can a steady economy be achieved?Debt. Interest on debt is fundamental to the money-system we use today. The Pentateuch forbade interest and introduced a jubilee every 50 years when debts would be cancelled. Most people today, other than the rich minority, are in debt with a mortgage and maybe other borrowings. This is surely a psychologically unhealthy situation. Our laws protect the creditor but not the debtor (whose house may have fallen into negative equity through no fault of her own). In nature everything is subject to entropy â all our belongings gradually deteriorate. Debt, on the other hand, is a purely mathematical concept, divorced from its effect on peopleâs lives, which can grow forever unless paid off. And compound interest gives the lender a rising income while debt increases. If Jesus had invested a31 in our financial system it would now be worth many trillions. This concentration of wealth is corrected either by debt cancellation, economic collapse, revolution or war. Indebted countries. Heavily indebted poor countries and heavily indebted rich countries are subject to different regulations, largely due to relative military strength. Tax havens. Secrecy locations deprive the UK of vast revenue streams and distort the global financial system. They are largely responsible for third-world debt. The City of London is at the heart of the network, and many of these havens are crown dependencies over which we choose to take no action. In spite of claims by the government, the problem is growing, not reducing.'Thank you JamesJonJon LongRedland Bristol Meeting
By: | Jun 17, 2012 | Report Comment
Two individual psnroeses from Banchory (North Scotland):First response:What do you see as the relationship between economics (production, consumption, marketing, financial institutions) and faith?Clearly Quaker Testimonies should be followed in all our economic dealings. Consciously and deliberately employing yardsticks such as considerations of peace, equality, justice, simplicity, sustainability, truth and integrity to our activities as âeconomic agentsâ must be the right thing to do. We also need to be prepared to advocate this attitude to others and especially we must âspeak truth to powerâ to push lawmakers to employ such yardsticks as they construct what must soon be a new legal framework for economic action across the world, in the aftermath of the economic/financial crisis and in the face of climate change.What helps and what hinders you in making these connections and act faithfully in relation to the economic system?Hindrances: Laziness, self-indulgence and especially the process of ânormalisationâ by which each generation grows up to think that the advantages of life enjoyed by the modern, western, developed world are ânormalâ and that âprogressâ means a higher standard of living for each new generation. We have to rethink this attitude of entitlement, by which we accept our prosperity as some kind of ârightâ and we must come to new definitions of âprogressâ and âstandard of livingâ.Helps: Constant reminders to myself that I live how and where I do as a matter of fickle luck and that I have no entitlement to such comfort. Constant reminders to myself of the lot of others in other cultures, places and life situations and of the sanctity of nature and of the needs of the Earth as our only home. Constant reminders of moral encouragements such as the Quaker testimonies.How do you feel influenced and constrained by the economic system? Do you think that our current economic system is broken? If so, how might it be fixed'? Or, what can/should we put in its place?I feel guilt and fear at how the less developed world regards our western affluence and at how future generations will regard our stupidity and selfishness, but also baffled by the scale and scope of the task of how to put this inequality and exploitation right. Yes, the current economic system is broken. I have always leaned toward doing away with capitalism, BUT the modern, large-scale attempts to create alternatives have always worked out extremely badly (I have spent most of my adult life studying and teaching on related matters â Soviet communism etc). I would hesitate to advocate any new system created in the minds of one generation of mankind as the future is always unknowable and time renders the very best and most well-meaning plans useless or monstrous. We need an evolutionary approach, so that time itself becomes an agent in the creation of a new system. First we must weed out the worst of the old system, then set legal limits and constraints on its independence, so that people have a say in the justice, integrity etc of the project and most importantly we must weave into its very fabric a previously unknown degree of transparency. So many of todayâs problems with the economy have their roots in secrecy, ignorance, opacity and even outright, institutionalised fraud. The cruelty and deceit of offering mortgages to poor people who would never have been able to repay them, and then wrapping up those deals so that the investor would be unable to discern what he was being offered to my mind such practices are fraud in all but name. We need open discussion of economics and an end to the âprivate languageâ of economics/finance, whereby outsiders who might wish to object or point out flaws are excluded from the conversation (âcredit default swapâ eh???). As a first step, modern capitalism has to shed its recent manifestation as âcasino capitalismâ which bets on failure. The very idea that people are, right now, betting on the collapse of the Greek economy, with all the fear and suffering that would bring, so that they might profit, is simply obscene, and especially so when combined with corruption and political influence. Finally, of course, we need to rethink our definitions of what âeconomyâ means. We have come to think too much of price and not enough of value. Very many things crucial to our wellbeing as a species and a society have value beyond price and capitalism struggles to find profit there. Under the current threats of economic collapse and climate change I think freedom from fear should be a universal socio-economic goal.Yearly meeting asked us to move out of our comfort zone. How do you define your comfort zone and what might moving out of it mean for you?See 1 & 2 above. By trying to scale back my own consumerism, to live more thoughtfully and enjoy a simpler life. Also by taking a more active role in the activities I have advocated above and below.How might we support one-another as a Quaker community to engage more powerfully and faithfully with our economic system?Letâs start with a âBlogâ so that we can easily and directly discuss these questions. Letâs hope that some people who know more than most of us about the workings of the economy will join us in the exercise to bring into being an economic system which is just, sustainable and transparent. We need to educate ourselves and stop being frightened and ignorant. The more that ordinary people know about this complex system, the less likely it is that the self-seeking will cheat the mass and that the planet will continue to be degraded.How do we face our responsibility as one of the nations which has benefitted at others' expense, to redress inequalities ?This is tough â one obvious answer would be aid, but this also is becoming subject to subversion by the economic system and has become an aspect of business to be honest Iâm not sure, except to say that we must do our very best to help prevent developing nations from being dominated by big business interests to the detriment of their societies and economies â Iâm thinking of Nigeria/oil, the âbanana warsâ of a few years ago and the more recent wholesale purchase of the cocoa crop, not to mention the examples we heard at the September conference, e.g. the healthcare business in Africa. Transparency and vigilance seem reasonable first steps, but, as a historian, I advocate the research/writing of a neglected sort of history concerned with acknowledging our past roles regarding the subjugation of other cultures, societies and economies, and trying to get this recognised by more citizens in countries like our own, which played such roles.Yearly Meeting encouraged us to practise speaking truth to power at local level what will this mean in practice? What truth will you be speaking? Can you see opportunities or merely obstacles?First of all we need to be well informed. There is no point in trying to âspeak truth to powerâ without correct information. The shock shown by politicians when the banks collapsed in 2008 shows that even our countriesâ leaders did not know what banking involved. Secondly, we need to reclaim accountability. There is very little trust between public, politicians and the finance sector we have come to expect to be lied to by leaders in the economic and political world. We need to reclaim accountability and transparency. We need to seek out the powerless and helpless in our communities and help them find their voice. I am thinking of people who need the help of the community to have a reasonable life, those on whom the state and local authorities have placed the burden of âausterity cutsâ and who do not have the means to fight back. My own question:I see a problem of reconciling our perception of phenomena on two scales:- On the level of the personal or small-scale, many events can be seen as triumphs: a sick baby saved, a life prolonged, a childless couple using IVF, the easing of people's lives through the advent of agriculture/industrialisation/'development', the invention of labour-saving devices/electricity/means of transport- in fact progress' in so many guises has improved our lives over millennia who would want to turn the clock back? However, when you see such phenomena on a larger scale, especially that of the planet/biosphere/nature these same things can seem tragic as so many of them have unforeseen consequences â the population explosion, habitat/species loss, climate change, ecological degradation etc, etc. These days we are forced to ask How much of this can the planet take?' a0How do we tread the tightrope to reconcile our concern for the immediate welfare of the individual with our concern for the welfare of the planet, humanity as a whole and the diversity of nature?Second response:1.What do you see as the relationship between economics (production, consumption, marketing, financial institutions) and faith?Relationship of all aspects of life are fundamentally connected to our beliefs/moral compass.2.What helps and what hinders you in making these connections and act faithfully in relation to the economic system?As an individual we need to realise what strength we give or take from others in our decisions. As to how this is helped or hindered access to clear unbiased information is one key. Would it be timely to consider whether, in the past when times of stress impacted on the economic system, there was a consensus of how it should be dealt with? Did the activities taken resolve or worsen the problem? Are answers/solutions purely to be found in economic alternatives? Should we not consider a more holistic approach?3.How do you feel influenced and constrained by the economic system? Do you think that our current economic system is broken? If so, how might it be fixed'? Or, what can/should we put in its place? Constraint is an aspect which is placed on all of us if society is to operate. Constraints are sometimes put on by ourselves and sometimes by others, lack of constraint can in some instances be as negative as lack of influence. Could the outcomes of recent economic events be seen as an inability to exercise the constraint of a few and also the manipulation of many to persue an economically unviable life style.4.Yearly meeting asked us to move out of our comfort zone. How do you define your comfort zone and what might moving out of it mean for you? Comfort zones evolve and take perceived perameters of comparison in terms of physical, mental and spiritual well being. Movement from each of these zones does not necessarily coincide. In some instances moving out of one of these zones of well being may mean moving into another comfort zone. Should we define which zone we are asking people to move out of? Would a more positive and popular activity might be to promote moving into a different comfort zone!5.How might we support one-another as a Quaker community to engage more powerfully and faithfully with our economic system? Through the types of discussion this paper is encouraging support to one another is given. Perhaps a more holistic approach to various methods of engagement should be encouraged. In many cases there are channels that are open for us to use but lack of conviction, understanding, reticence can intimidate us from using such channels.6.How do we face our responsibility as one of the nations which has benefitted at others' expense, to redress inequalities ?Feel that this question, though well intended, misses the key point in the complex circumstances of inequalities. In the first instance can we agree on the key level' of equality we would wish to see? While we' have responsibilities should we not consider a wider we' is needed to give an active response to addressing inequalities?7.Yearly Meeting encouraged us to practise speaking truth to power at local level what will this mean in practice? What truth will you be speaking? Can you see opportunities or merely obstacles?Engaging with others and exploring our own understanding of the truth is part of our everyday life. It can uncover unpleasant discoveries as well as moments of optimism and hope. Is it not a matter of unquestioning opportunities but of reflecting on the opportunities that exist in finding our way round an obstacle?
By: | Apr 12, 2012 | Report Comment
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