It's the economy, stupid

Grace linked to a couple of economics-related posts yesterday, and before I knew it, I had a rant bubbling up in me.

First, Randy claims that the current economic slowdown (recession if you prefer) is a good thing, because it will force those of us who have overindulged in the days of easy consumer credit to buckled down and pay up.

• During the bubble, many people bought stuff they could not really afford. They bought houses far out of their means to pay for, and cars and televisions and computers and Wiis and boats and vacations and clothes and toys. They had to borrow heavily — too heavily — to do it.

• The bubble was caused mostly by envy. The have nots want what the haves have. Who can blame them? But when the covetousness is fueled by consumerism and becomes powerful enough and is enabled by easy credit, acquisition takes the place of dreaming of acquisition.

So far, so good. But then Randy goes on to explain why the real problem is that the government is going to have to bail out some or all of the foolish people who got into this situation, and that will keep the economy from self-correcting. I'm glad that Randy has been a wise steward, and doesn't face the $9,000 in credit card debt that the average American carries; but in my humble opinion, he misses the whole point, which Mike Todd gets a lot closer to, commenting on the latest reports on consumer spending:

Trust me, I understand economics... as much as any of us actually understand economics, that is. This kind of information is not new to me; it used to be my daily bread. But these days I'm learning to see differently, and what I see here is yet another example of how this consumer-driven culture keeps us in its clutches, and resists any attempt to think differently - to think "kingdomly", as it were.

A number of years ago, I was in a preaching class and was assigned a text from Jeremiah 2 -- essentially, a rant against idolatry -- where the prophet says to Israel, you've exchanged the source of living water for cracked cisterns. What I remember about preparing that sermon (and the comments that I received from the class and instructors) was struggling to find an example of idolatry that wasn't a cliche -- addiction to some substance, being a workaholic, etc. It's a pretty sad day when a dozen seminary students and two professors know that they're batting around cliches, but can't see the primary idol that the god of this age has set up in the midst of our culture. Because I don't think it occurred to any of us that what that text really had to say to us was about the economy, stupid.

The economy is the idol we all worship. We listen to news of its ups and downs like we'd wait for vital signs from a family member in the ICU. The economy is healthy if it's growing, so we all do our part of acquiring more stuff in order to make it grow. The President tells us it's our patriotic duty to go to the mall. We don't wonder if it's a good thing that there are so many oversized SUV's in the church parking lot. Stewardship is what you do with 10 percent of your income, and perhaps avoiding getting into too much debt. The one thing we are not allowed to question is the gospel of economic growth -- a rising tide lifts all boats, we're told; wealth will trickle down to everyone. We are not allowed to wonder if we really need the bigger and better, new and improved whatever it is. We are not allowed to ask whether always wanting something else is good for our souls, let alone for our overworked, over-stressed bodies.

I am no economist (despite the fact that econ was the most popular major when I was in college, I refused to take a single course), but I'm here to say it's all a lie. The planet we live on cannot possibly sustain even the population of the United States living an ever-expanding consumption-based lifestyle, let alone all the billions of the rest of the world who are trying desperately to catch up to us. The price of gas should be enough to convince us that this is true.

What I see in the current economic crisis is opportunity. Opportunity to ask those questions. Do I need to make more and more money in order to get more and more stuff that I will have to store, maintain and eventually dispose of when the new and improved model comes along? Is it good for our communities to have most parents making long commutes to a job, while kids spend long hours in day care or after-school care or worse yet, simply unsupervised? Is it good for our families to move every few years in pursuit of the better job, house, neighborhood? Is bigger better?

And what would an alternative look like? What would it look like to know where our food comes from and to know the people who grow it? What would it look like to spend our money in ways that enriches the local economy instead of huge multinational corporations? What would it look like to slow down and spend time together as a family? What would it look like to be free from the mandate of the bigger, better, newer, faster whatever-it-is?