Living in Limbo

I’m not unemployed or underemployed like some of the people protesting at various Occupy gatherings across the US, but I am in limbo. When we were deported from Bolivia, I thought our time at home would be a vacation while we visited family and waited to hear from MCC and figure out what to do next. We have visited family and friends all over Texas from Waco to San Antonio, Kingsland and Fredericksburg to San Angelo. It’s been good to see everyone again, especially my new niece which I couldn’t visit for a while because of a case of shingles.

Shingles comes from the chicken pox virus that lies dormant in your spine. It can be triggered by stress and comes out in your nerves which is often very painful. My case was pretty mild, but it definitely got me thinking about stress and how I was really feeling about our situation. Since we’ve had a lot of down time, I’ve also been following the Occupy Wall Street movement pretty closely. Democracy Now! in their coverage of the movement interviewed Dr. Gabor Maté who was at the Wall Street encampment. Maté makes some interesting connections between the protests, economic crisis, stress and our health:

“50 percent of American adults have a chronic medical illness, and much of that has to do with stress. And if you look at the literature on what causes stress, it’s uncertainty and lack of information and loss of control and lack of expression of self. And the uncertainty that has been forced upon the American population by the recent economic crisis, the loss of control as power has flown into the hands of very, very few people, and the absolute powerlessness of the many in the face of all that, and the lack of expression through the ordinary political process, people are totally disempowered and deprived of their voice. This protest addresses all those issues. So I can only say that this is an extraordinarily healthy thing to happen. People who participate here will be healthier for it as a result, and maybe society, in general, as well.”

Uncertainty, lack of information and lack of control describes our lives over the last few months pretty well. It’s hard to thrive in these circumstances. There’s nobody to blame except the Bolivian government for our situation, but it is clear from this experience that we are not meant to live in an extended state of limbo without job, purpose, productive work or direction. In this period we have also lacked the kind of community we enjoy as a part of Hope Fellowship in Waco.

I’ve written before about this tension we feel in our culture between jobs and community defining and ordering our lives (Looking for a Job in the Kingdom). The thing is that while my life is in limbo, community can provide more certainty, stability, purpose and maybe most importantly a place to express myself. We have not been living in that community and that has made life extra stressful. We’ve visited a couple times and it has helped us remember what life in community provides in circumstances like ours.

I have also missed the time that I had in Bolivia to read and write a lot. Last week marked the end of what I wrote while we were in Bolivia. It also marked the end of our time away from our community. We are now back in Waco. I hope that this will be a time of renewed life with our beloved community and also a renewed energy for the writing and reading I have left off in the last few months. If posts are more sporadic and infrequent bear with me as we make yet another transition to some sort of new norm.

My prayer is that you and I find ourselves in a place and with people that will allow us to freely express ourselves in the midst of a sick society. Raise your voice. According to at least one doctor, it’s the healthiest thing you can do. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll start to make a better world.

The Lazy Way of Farming

I’ve been intrigued by Fukuoka and his natural way of farming for a while. This precursor to the modern permaculture movement developed a way and philosophy of agriculture based on his observations and experiments in Japan. Eventually he was able to produce as much rice using his method as others did with more traditional (mono-cropping) techniques. One of the things Fukuoka did was go into a field and just throw seed randomly out in the field and see what happened. If something grew particularly well in one place, he would make observations and try to figure out what nature was doing. In this way he tried to base his way of farming on nature.

Fukuoka’s method actually reduces the amount of labor needed, because you aren’t trying to apply lots of inputs, use tillage and cultivate the ground in a way that works against nature. Instead you do your best to let nature do all the hard work and you sit back and reap the results. I’ve been wanting to experiment with this way of cultivating food. Well, I had a bag of seeds that were not labeled. So, I had no idea what they were or what to do with them. This was the perfect chance to begin developing what I would like to call the lazy way of farming. Sounds good right?

Here’s the bags of seeds without any labels. I might have learned something by trying to identify the different seeds. Instead I thought it would be fun to plant a bed in my garden Fukuoka-style.

Here is the result of mixing my seeds all together in a bag. Then I prepped a bed in my garden for them by hoeing it up (I know this is not pure Fukuoka, but I’m experimenting okay?). Then I just tossed the seeds out on the bed, watered them in and then mulched them with some weeds.

The thing I’m most worried about is birds getting to the seeds before they germinate, but so far so good. My hope is that something will grow this season and the seeds that don’t grow will lie dormant until the time is ready. So, I won’t replant this bed. I’ll just knock down whatever grows, let it mulch the bed for weeds and see if anything else comes up when the rainy season starts in November or so. I’ll let you know what happens and what I learned from the experiment. Hopefully, down the road it will develop into a low-labor, low-input way of farming a la Fukuoka and permaculture that will result in sustaining ourselves more and more off of whatever plot of ground we happen to be on.

Small Is Beautiful: Organization and Ownership

The final section of E.F. Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful continues his critique of the economic system by scrutinizing the concept of ownership. He also gives real world examples of the ways he imagines an alternative arrangement of the economy working out.

Systems are never more nor less than incarnations of man’s most basic attitudes. Some incarnations, indeed, are more perfect than others. (263)

I think this insight touches on something very deep and basic about our systems, institutions and organizations. I agree that a system is more than the sum of the individuals that make up that system. There is something more at work in the organizations and institutions that we have created. In a very real sense they take on a life of their own. This is what Rauschenbusch referred to as “social sin” which needed a “social gospel”.

However, Schumacher reminds us that these organizations, even while having a life of their own beyond the individuals that constitute them, also are a reflection of the “basic attitudes” of those human beings that created them. It’s easy to just blame individuals for practicing “bad capitalism” or “bad Marxism” and try and maintain the system as something holy and perfect that is untouchable by the errors of our ways. No, the system is a product of our own attitudes towards the world and each other. If some “are more perfect than others”, then it only reflects the better parts of our nature. We should refrain from making idols of systems, because, if we do, Schumacher’s insight reveals that we are making idols and creating God in our own image.

The basis of the capitalist system is clearly the concept of private property. We have discussed this concept in some depth on this blog, but Schumacher has some helpful insights to add.

As regards private property, the first and most basic distinction is between (a) poperty that is an aid to creative work [the private property of the working proprietor] and (b) property that is an alternative to it [the private property of the passive owner who lives parasitically on the work of others]…[quoting R.H. Tawney] “it is idle to present a case for or against private property without specifying the particular form of property to which reference is made.”…It is immediately apparent that in this matter of private ownership the question of scale is decisive. When we move from small-scale to medium-scale, the connection between ownership and work already becomes attenuated; private enterprise tends to become impersonal and also a significant social factor in the locality; it may even assume more than local significance. (263-264)

Schumacher’s thesis, eloquently summed up in the title of his book, is that the scale of things matters. He argues that scale fundamentally distorts the concept and meaning of private property, particularly in terms of relationships, between owners and workers, between owners and property and between the both and their labor. Perhaps one way of describing large-scale capitalism is “extractive capitalism”. This form of economic activity depends not only on the extraction and exploitation of natural resources, but on the extraction of labor from individuals in order to prop up the absentee owner who passively profits from their labor. This, according to Schumacher, is a necessary result of the scale of the economic enterprise.

Just to be fair, Schumacher also points out the problems with the socialist version of large-scale enterprise, nationalization.

In general small enterprises are to be preferred to large ones. Instead of creating a large enterprise by nationalisation…and then attempting to decentralise power and responsibility to smaller formations, it is normally better to create semi-autonomous small units first and then to centralise certain functions at a higher level, if the need for better coordination can be shown to be paramount. (270-271)

While it would be a stretch to call Schumacher an anarchist, the emphasis on small, decentralized units fits within the realm of anarchist thinking and ideas. The anarchist would go further in requiring these small units to be autonomous, whereas Schumacher certainly still sees some role for a centralized authority. Regardless this emphasis on small decentralized units works for the strange bedfellows of both anarchist and libertarian thinking. I appreciate that Schumacher points out that both capitalism and socialism tend toward large centralized authority.

Schumacher uses the example of Scott Bader Co., Ltd. to flesh out some of these ideas. The owner has chosen to forgo the possibility of greater wealth to form a business that is organized and owned by the workers.

“In truth, ownership has been replaced by specific rights and responsibilities in the administration of assets.” (279)

Like other worker-owned cooperatives, this arrangement fundamentally shifts the nature of property and ownership. Rather than the right to simple possession of an object, this arrangement defines ownership in terms of “rights and responsibilities”. This relates to our previous conversations about the biblical concept of ownership and property, and the idea that ownership has more to do with stewardship and right relationship (tsedekah) to material things, including the earth and other human beings. If this other arrangement shifts the relationship of owner to worker and both to material goods, it begs the question what constitutes the nature of the previous arrangement.

Excessive wealth, like power, tends to corrupt. Even if the rich are not “idle rich,” even when they work harder than anyone else, they work differently, apply different standards, and are set apart from common humanity. They corrupt themselves by practising greed, and they corrupt the rest of society by provoking envy. (279)

There is a basic assumption here that the divide between rich and poor itself produces an inequality in relationship that produces a corruption on both sides that is the cause of all kinds of injustice. Can rich and poor be friends? Those who believe religiously in the holiness of the capitalist system might argue that economic inequality between human beings does not create a fundamental division. I, with Schumacher, would argue that this divide is the source of corruption of both rich and poor, producing both greed and envy, a dangerous combination indeed.

Schumacher considers the famous words of Jesus in Matthew 6 with an interesting twist of interpretation.

It is becoming apparent that there is not only a promise but also a threat in those astonishing words about the kingdom of God [Matthew 6:33]–the threat that ‘unless you seek first the kingdom, these other things, which you also need, will cease to be available to you.” (294)

I had never considered the antithesis of these words of Jesus. In light of Schumacher and others insistence on the economy’s dependence on our natural resources, it is clear that when things are not rightly ordered the promise can also become a curse. While human beings have created many different systems to order our lives, from feudalism to capitalism, communism and socialism as well as totalitarianism, democracy, oligarchy and corporatocracy, there are other systems beyond our control and creation which judge the validity of our arrangements, though on a time scale we tend to ignore. I’ll conclude, as Schumacher does, with this thought along those lines.

It is of little use trying to suppress terrorism if the production of deadly devices continues to be deemed a legitimate employment of man’s creative power. Nor can the fight against pollution be successful if the patterns of production and consumption continue to be of a scale, a complexity, and a degree of violence which, as is becoming more and more apparent, do not fit into the laws of the universe, to which man is just as much subject as the rest of creation. (295)

Small Is Beautiful: The Modern World

Not only is small beautiful, but old is beautiful too (see Old is the New New). Schumacher wrote his classic Small is Beautiful in 1975, but it still rings true and continues to speak prophetically to our modern context. His book is divided into four sections: 1) The Modern World 2) Resources 3) Development and 4) Organization and Ownership. I love a series of posts. So, I will take each section in turn. The first section attempts to describe the state of our modern world in economic terms, but also in terms of meaning and values. This first quote, I think, sums up Schumacher general view of our modern economic system and the world it creates.

From an economic point of view, the central concept of wisdom is permanence… Nothing makes economic sense unless its continuance for a long time can be projected without running into absurdities. There can be “growth” towards a limited objective, but there cannot be unlimited, generalised growth…The cultivation and expansion of needs is the antithesis of wisdom. It is also the antithesis of freedom and peace…Only by a reduction of needs can one promote a genuine reduction in those tensions which are the ultimate causes of strife and war. (33)

As you can see, Schumacher take a wide lens to the effects of our economics, and, I think, accurately describes the cause of conflicts as economic. I don’t think Schumacher or I intend to reduce conflicts to solely economic causes, but it is clear that ethnic, religious or cultural differences are exacerbated where there are conflicts over resources, perceived needs, distribution of wealth or other economic inequalities. The idea that growth and needs can expand infinitely continually creates conflict as it runs up against the walls of limitations due to natural resources, population pressures and unequal distribution of wealth and resources. As I have said before, we must understand the purpose, or end, toward which we desire our economic system to lead us and compare it to the actual trajectory of the course we’re on. Schumacher points out this quote from Lord Keynes, of Keynesian economics, on how the ends justify the means.

“But beware!” he continued. “The time for all this is not yet. For at least a hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.” (24)

It seems silly to me, and perhaps you, that this way of thinking gains any traction and is followed by intelligent men and women, much less the leaders of governments, corporations, etc. Yet, this thinking seems to dominate our economics and our imaginations. “The rising tide of globalization will lift all boats.” This future paradise that our economists continue to promise, if we will just follow their advice, buying more stuff, and going further into debt, is an ever-fading horizon that moves further away as we approach. The means must be congruent with the ends if we have any hope of reaching our goal. If we want peace, we must use the tools of peace, not of violence. If we want economic equality, then we cannot live based on fundamental inequalities. If we want sustainability, then we must begin to act, consume and live in a way that “can be projected without running into absurdities”.

Part of the picture Schumacher paints of our world is one in which we have misunderstood in very basic ways what this life is, indeed, about.

Above anything else there is need for a proper philosophy of work which understands work not as that which it has indeed become, an inhuman chore as soon as possible abolished by automation, but as something ‘decreed by Providence for the good of man’s body and soul.’” (37)

As a Christian, you often hear overtones of Schumacher’s faith in his writing (though one famous chapter in this book is titled “Buddhist Economics”). In our economy work is the means to the end of weekends, vacations and retirement, where we seem to believe real, authentic life is lived. An alternative perspective (and a biblical one) is to see creative, productive work as part of what makes us human. When work is degrading, detached from the product and mechanical, whether it’s in a factory or a cubicle, it detracts from our humanity. In our hyper-capitalist world the entrepreneur is one of the most celebrated individuals. Yet the conditions for people to be entrepreneurs are kept at a minimum. They are the exceptions that keep alive the dream that our lives and work can be productive and meaningful in this system. The truth is that they are the exceptions and the cubicle, the assembly line, the fields and the mines are the rule for the great majority of humanity. Schumacher quotes Dorothy Sayers along these lines,

“War is a judgment that overtakes societies when they have been living upon ideas that conflict too violently with the laws governing the universe…Never think that wars are irrational catastrophes: they happen when wrong ways of thinking and living bring about intolerable situations.” (37)

The idea that wars and conflicts are the result of forces extraneous to the system, that they are anomalies, allows us to continue perpetuating the system that is the cause of these conflicts. Our modern world is built on systems in direct conflict with nature, human and non-human. We are getting the results, violence, conflict, inequality, etc. that the system is designed to get. I know I often sound all doom and gloom, but I do recognize that where values like democracy (or even better consensus), human dignity, individual rights and the kind of wisdom Schumacher mentioned above are upheld, honored and practiced we have seen great strides toward the kind of world envisioned by the Bible, most world religions and many great thinkers of justice, equality, happiness and meaningful existence. I just believe that these have been bright spots in spite of the system of exploitation, extraction and oppression to which we have become so accustomed.

If a buyer refused a good bargain because he suspected that the cheapness of the goods in question stemmed from exploitation or other despicable practices (except theft), he would be open to the criticism of behaving “uneconomically,” which is viewed as nothing less than a fall from grace…The religion of economics has its own code of ethics, and the First Commandment is to behave ‘economically’…To the extent that economic thinking is based on the market, it takes the sacredness out of life, because there can be nothing sacred in something that has a price.” (45)

While there are certainly other factors at play in shaping our modern world, it seems clear to me that economics has succeeded in establishing itself as the trump card, as Schumacher claims in this quote. While many of us long for more than just a job at an individual level, on a government level (community,local, regional, state, federal and international) are made with economics as the primary criteria and motivator. We would look down on any governing body that used other priorities or criteria. In other words, we believe that the other values and priorities we have (family, faith, meaning, time, education, etc.) are best served by putting the value of economics and development first. Surveys and statistics paint a very different picture. The more our economy has grown and the wealthier we have become in the United States the less time we have for these other activities that we claim to value.

There are ways in which economics tries to incorporate aspects of value and meaning outside of the usual parameters of profit and loss statements. Schumacher has this to say about such cost/benefit analysis, “In fact, however, it is a procedure by which the higher is reduced to the level of the lower and the priceless is given a price.” (46) In other words, what is beyond and higher than economics is absorbed into the values and parameters of economics and thereby reduced to the level of economics where it does not pose a threat or dictate to economics the way that things should be ordered. If economics is not an end, but rather a means, then this is exactly the reverse of the way it should be. Economics must be made to serve our values and vision of the way the world should be.

Finally, I think Schumacher admirably deconstructs dualisms that continue to perpetuate dichotomous rather than more holistic ways of thinking about human needs and values.

We always need both freedom and order. We need the freedom of lots and lots of small, autonomous units, and, at the same time, the orderliness of large-scale, possibly global, unity and coordination. When it comes to action, we obviously need small units, because action is a highly personal affair, and one cannot be in touch with more than a very limited number of persons at any one time. But when it comes to the world of ideas, to principles or to ethics, to the indivisibility of peace and also of ecology, we need to recognise the unity of mankind and base our actions upon this recognition. (65)

This way of thinking provides a foundation for future vision based on human needs and ecological limitations. It also breaks through some of the arguments about scale (which is particularly interesting from a book titled Small is Beautiful). Schumacher’s point seems to be that there is a proper place for large-scale thinking and names it, the problems of peace and ecology that humanity faces as a whole. In terms of organizing our lives together (which is the realm of economics) we need the freedom of smallness to adapt and connect in the ways in which we are wired. (I wonder how social networking affects the evolutionary reality of the limited connections our brains are able to make and maintain which Malcolm Gladwell puts at about 150 in The Tipping Point.) I believe the idea that there is a proper space for both large-scale and small-scale thinking is helpful in reaching a way forward. Our problems stem in large part from confusing the proper space for each way of thinking and organizing.

This naturally transitions to an understanding of our human and non-human resources, their nature and limitations, which is the subject of the second part of Schumacher’s book.

A Theology of Work and Art (Exodus 25-40)

Exodus 31:1-6 Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts– to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship. Moreover I have appointed Oholiab, son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, to help him. Also I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you.

Almost the entire last half of the book of Exodus is dedicated to the minute detail God gives to Moses for the construction of the Tabernacle, including the Ark of the Covenant, altars, tables, lampstands, courtyard, garments for the priests, basins, oil and incense. This description takes up six chapters on its own. Then there is an incident involving a little idol worship for a few chapters to which we shall return and then five final chapters describing again in detail the Tabernacle as it is constructed. For fans of John Grisham this reading is excruciating in its detail and repetition.

Ellen Davis has a wonderful section of her book Scripture, Culture and Agriculture discussing this portion of Exodus and its import for a theology of work and art. I do not have the book with me here, but recall that the choosing of Bezalel, his helper, Oholiab, and other craftsmen to the task of constructing the Tabernacle points out the importance and role of both work and art in the Israelite community, and therefore the Christian community. Both artists and the working class have marginal places within the modern North American church. On the one hand artistic expression seems superfluous and unnecessary (notice the contrast of megachurch buildings designed primarily for their function with the incredible architecture of gothic cathedrals). On the other hand, the working class fills pews as merely warm bodies there to be told what to believe by the authorities from the pulpit. If that last sentence sounds shocking, think about how often you have heard a plumber or construction worker exegeting Scripture for the congregation.

Sandwiched between exquisite descriptions of instructions and construction of the Tabernacle is the infamous Golden Calf incident. It’s important to remember that the people did not just pull the idea of worshiping a golden calf out of thin air. There were other nations that practiced some religion that worshiped a god in this form (I can’t recall if this was the baals of Canaanite religion or something else). Like many of the various religions of the time this had a lot to do with fertility. The gods represented forces that were beyond their control and that they could only hope to placate, if not manipulate, for their own survival. While Moses receives intricate details about constructing the dwelling place of God, the people become restless. They ask Aaron to make them “gods who will go before us” (32:1) and Moses’ right hand man obliges saying, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing and bring them to me” (32:2). This is a direct contrast to the previous instructions to Moses about the people’s offering for the construction of the Tabernacle,

The Lord said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites to bring me an offering. You are to receive the offering from each man whose heart prompts him to give. These are the offerings you are to receive from them: gold, silver, bronze; blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen; goat hair; ram skins dyed red and hides of sea cows; acacia wood; olive oil for the light; spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense; and onyx stones and other gems to be mounted on the ephod and breastpiece.” (25:1-8)

Two things stand out to me: 1) the offerings here are given freely as each’s “heart prompts him to give” and 2) there is more opportunity for people to contribute with the many different materials needed for construction. I’m not sure how many former Egyptian slaves would have had gold earrings (unless perhaps this was a symbol of their bondage). Aaron’s request is simple and direct and does not require the cooperation of the whole community, whereas the instructions Moses received seem to require an enormous amount of cooperation, particularly for people who are supposed to be wandering through the wilderness. So, it seems that this episode of the Golden Calf is meant to stand as a contrast to the instructions and construction of the Tabernacle. One requires the contributions, “skill, ability and knowledge” of the whole community, in particular craftsmen, artisans and manual laborers, while the other requires only one man taking the material wealth of the community and making “an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool” (32:4), a blunt description compared to the intricacy of the Tabernacle. In short, the idol is a short cut. It is an attempt to find the easy way out when patience runs out.

Industrial agriculture is our golden calf, not the Tabernacle. It has turned work that many have described as an art into an idol that we can manipulate through petroleum sacrifices and placate with burnt offerings of glyphosate and transgenic seeds. It is the easy way out. We must recover the kind of love of work and art that spends such detail on the construction of a Tabernacle and remember that it is for the presence of God. I am reminded of some lines from Wendell Berry’s poem The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer,

I have planted by the stars in defiance of the experts and tilled somewhat by incantation and by singing and reaped as I knew by luck and heaven’s favor in spite of the best advice.

The truth is that a theology of work and art stands in intimate relationship with the subject of our labor and does not make of it an object. When industrial agriculture reduces our relationship with the earth to percentages of N-P-K, it objectifies the Creator that called it good. Work and art are more than functional acts that produce products to be consumed and thrown away. Rather they produce relationships with the Creator and all of God’s creatures, human and non-human, plant and animal, that produce life.