Déjà Vu Economics

While many of us were otherwise occupied during the holidays, more politically conscientious fellow citizens were keeping the faith by following a long train of presidential candidates along backroads and into musty halls while struggling politely but forcibly to resist frenzied media representatives' substituting spin for candidates' words. We owe these friends of democracy a lot, even though the system seems to make their votes weightier than ours. The "vetting" they did for us in Iowa and New Hampshire beats the heck out of what we could have done ourselves.

Now that my attention has returned to looking more squarely in the face what is coming at all of us in this new year, including ideological assault and media manipulation, along with anxiety over making our votes count decisively at an historical crossroad, I am finding it interesting to read and hear that the big issue looming up all over again is the economy. It's about time. For one thing, to update the immortal words of the late Senator Everett Dirkson, a trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon we're talking about real money. For another thing, in my words and not the Senator's, a tax cut here and a tax cut there, a new war here and a security plan there, and pretty soon we're talking about fewer and fewer people with access to either wealth, freedom, or a meaningful future.

There is certainly a lot to settle on the economic front. Surely the time has come for this country to guarantee at least a minimum level of health care for everyone; every developed country in the world does it, and provides better health care than we do to boot, for less money than our inequitable system costs to run. Would, for instance, allowing the current tax breaks for the upper crust to expire as they are supposed to expire, in 2010, by itself release enough money to fund universal health care? Possibly. It is morally offensive that the former is even now in place at the expense of the latter.

While we are at it, how about our representatives' really getting down to business and secure both treatment and a cure for our psychotic, double-bind thinking about so-called illegal immigration? "So-called" is the right word here; the fact that we have left unenforced the "laws" supposedly on the books strongly suggests that they do not in fact have the force of law except for law and order types whose world is the world of high abstraction and the a priori only. The economy won't work without "illegals." So let's send them all home? (A transfusion for ailing air and bus lines, or perhaps shoe manufacturers?) What about, instead, figuring out how to provide them the opportunities and benefits their service to the economy already warrants?

What will be especially worth watching in the months ahead is how the surviving candidates choose to draw upon or not draw upon their faith as they address the broader question of ensuring fairness, and even more, honesty, in the economic marketplace. I for one would like to witness less overreaching from evangelical Mike, less dissembling from Mormon Mitt, more Wesleyanism from Methodist Hillary, and more of anything from Barack without being referred to his books. If anybody else is left in the race, weigh in, too!

One thing that should be clear to all of the candidates, whether from the perspective of economics or of faith, is that the marketplace itself is neither fairness nor honesty-oriented. The ambivalences that lie deep in our sinful hearts make sure that it isn't. Nevertheless, and now from the perspective of faith, sin is not the last word on human behavior. Like every addiction and compulsion, it is forgiveable and correctible. And like all human behaviors, it is something for which we are the ones who carry the responsibility.

For the purpose of getting global economic issues in proper perspective, it might help to start with local ones. In the eighth chapter of the book of Amos, the ancient prophet spoke a word of judgment on people who treat the poor and the weak badly in the process of bringing to market goods (wheat and silver in this case) which will be fraudulently overpriced and whose producers will be bought for a pair of sandals and enslaved. In the present-day marketplace, of course, there are no longer any slaves, just "illegals." There is no longer any sanctioned discrimination, just racist attitudes and union-busting. There is no longer male and female, just glass ceilings. There is no longer separate and unequal education, just poorly funded public education for the have nots and cripplingly expensive private education for the haves. Will those candidates and party officials who have ears to hear please listen?