Why Jubilee Works Inter-religiously and with Other Groups for Alternatives to the Capital Economy
When it comes to the capital economy and the captivity in which it holds us today, it’s not that great alternatives aren’t available. It’s that the web of the capital economy is complex and strong. It is, in fact, holding civilization and the planet in the clutches of death. In the face of today’s dire future, requiring radical action, I am asking three questions: (1) How did capital markets come to be? (2) How did they come to capture and kill so much life? and (3) why does Jubilee join with religious and other movements that work on alternatives? Furthermore, today’s dire future requires allies! The monster we face is too big and deadly for any one group, country, or religion. By asking basic questions, we find the common ground for partnerships that get us to OneEarth living.
Our Radical Struggle for Life
Through countless groups worldwide, millions of people are working on reforming civilization to fit our one planet. What’s underway is really a radical reformation. It protests what’s failing, and creates alternatives that work for the common good. It’s the kind of reformation that gets below the surface. It gets to the root causes of why human civilization is currently a civilization of death for so many people and for millions of species. That’s why “radical,” which comes from “radix,” the Latin word for “root,” is the right description of this reformation. All groups working on deep reformation—reformation that gets to the roots of what supports a civilization of death—are radical. I emphasize the word because we know that cosmetic changes to the current institutions will not do. We must get at the roots and change to a culture of life for all. And by “all” we mean species as well as people.
The Civilization of Death from Which We Seek Freedom
This struggle for life, a struggle that seems so obviously the right way to go, is being met with aggressive resistance and domination by civilization’s major, supersize institutions around the globe. These institutions and their leaders remain doggedly committed to their profits and growth even though they require multiple planets, not one—an impossibility at this time in Earth’s story. That is why we must describe these institutions and their leaders as delivering a civilization of death. The heart of their struggle is not life for all, but the growth of capital, the endless growth of capital. It’s a cancerous growth toward more control and more money.
Making Our Reforms Radical Enough—the Thoughts of Ulrich Duchrow
Fifteen or so years ago, I first met Ulrich Duchrow. Ulrich is from Heidelberg, Germany, and is in the generation there that grew to adulthood following World War II asking, “How could the Nazis’ takeover have happened here?” Out of that question, he came to understand the difference between the civilization leading to death and the culture that pursues life. During the years I’ve known him, beginning around the year 2000, I’ve benefited enormously from his training and experiences in theology, economics, and ecology.
For the past seven years, Ulrich has been guiding a process aiming to fuel and radicalize reformation. Though he continues to live in Heidelburg, the process has involved groups from many countries. The groups have developed excellent tools to critique the aggressive insistence of MultiEarth voices that growth is the only mode providing solutions for civilization’s ailments. At the same time, they are evolving countless OneEarth expressions in different countries.
On Nov. 3 and 4, Duchrow gave three presentations in the San Diego region that spoke of this project of radical reformation. Seven books have come out of this project. A website, http://www.radicalizing-reformation.com/index.php/en/ gives considerable information on the project.
The Starting Point for Work on the Culture of Life
The 3rd of his 3 presentations was hosted by OneEarth Jubilee Economics on the topic: “interreligious Critique of Capitalism.” Because of how culture and religion are integrated with one another, Duchrow has come to believe that the first step in retrieving a new culture of life is to critique religion. The trick in this critique is to recognize religion that supports the civilization of death and the complete counterpoint to it, namely, religion that supports the culture of life. The critique digs to the roots of how empires and superpowers have fully embraced the rise of capital that began in the 8th century BCE.
Where Capital Markets Came From
How did it happen that capital became the center of civilization? Capital began in the 8th century BCE in a complex of forces that Ulrich described as the COINAGE-SLAVERY-MILITARY (MERCENARY) COMPLEX. The professionalization of armies required that the soldiers be paid a livelihood. For some time they received precious metals from the spoils of war. Then the metals became coins that were used in the trading arrangements happening in an emerging capital-based economy. Debt followed immediately. Interest on the debt followed. Society divided more and more into those with money and those without. Those with money had access to markets; those without did not. They were peasants.
Quickly it became advantageous to have more and more money. Money was THE key to empower INDIVIDUALS to be IN the market economy. Along with this emergence came patriarchy because only men owned property.
From the start of capital’s rising influence, major components in world religions rose to critique that rise.These religious movements illustrate why Duchrow regards religions as key to both the rise of capitalism when they support the powers in control. But, conversely, religions have also shown themselves especially powerful in radicalizing movements of resistance and reformation. In this capacity, then, religions expressing themselves in the arguments of liberation from the system—a liberation for life—hold such promise for the movements we need today.
Religious Movements in Resistance That Work on Economies for Life
History shows remarkably strong examples of religious capacities at radicalized reformation. The Jewish 8th century prophets and the Torah are examples. The Hebrew prophet of the 8th century BCE, Isaiah, spoke clearly against the capital economy and its products of usury and debt.
Your princes are rebels
and companions of thieves.
Everyone loves a bribe
and runs after gifts.
They do not defend the orphan,
and the widow’s cause does not come before them. (Isaiah 1:23)
That reform was continued by Jesus as he spoke, acted, and formed a movement countering the empire of Rome and the religious right embedded in the Temple religion in Jerusalem. In another case, the case of Islam, the reform movement arose well after the time that capital entered civilization, but the issues were still about resisting a core practice of capital which is to make money off of money. The tools for doing so are debt and interest. Muhammed rejected usury and making money from money because of its murderous impacts on people.
Instead of money being at the core of civilization, these religious movements put life there. So it is that OneEarth Jubilee living attacks the illusionary notion that more and more rushes us toward eternal life. Luther argued that we cannot understand God without understanding Mammon. Mammon is the idolatry of money, the deity of the growth civilization. It is a name for the system. Luther spoke of the arch-thieves (currently transnationals) who move money away from species and peasants. They violate “thou shalt not steal.” Once the economic mechanisms of theft are in place and operating, murderous policies and actions follow. People and species die from being deprived from participating in the market economy. Hence, the capital market economy also violates the commandment “thou shalt not kill.”
Capital continually recreates the split-up society. Jubilee reconnects what money splits. Jubilee restores the interdependent society. A recurring Jubilee strategy in the split society is to boycott the system while creating the arrangements of interdependence.
Congregations today must be capitalist-free. They need to form contrast societies, free from Market totalitarianism.
Many Faiths Radicalizing Reform in the 21st Century
Through his involvement in global ecumenical and interfaith gatherings, Duchrow tells the story of how a new reformation is going on in all religions over the past 30 years. This reformation within religions is that in every religion of the world there are people, groups, and movement for liberation from the civilization of capital and death.
Many declarations and documents have come out of these events. All of them include a critique of capitalism. For example, the recent encyclical by Pope Francis, entitled “Evangelii Gaudium” or “The Joy of the Gospel,”
No to the new idolatry of money
55. One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.
56. While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules. Debt and the accumulation of interest also make it difficult for countries to realize the potential of their own economies and keep citizens from enjoying their real purchasing power. To all this we can add widespread corruption and self-serving tax evasion, which have taken on worldwide dimensions. The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.
We need circles where we are not threatened by imperial theology.
Though our time was limited for the vastness of the topic, Duchrow spoke of liberation theologies in all three Abrahamic religions. He gave examples of Michael Lerner, Jewish Renewal: A Path of Healing and Transformation, among Jews and Farid Esack among Muslims, Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity Against Oppression . Similar efforts are underway elsewhere. He mentioned India, Malaysia, and Tunisia.
Within Buddhism, the International Network of Engaged Buddhism brings together Buddhists working on liberation movements in Buddhism.
Three Pillars of Capitalism for Which a New Economy Has Alternatives
Duchrow named three pillars of capitalist civilization from which Earth needs to be liberated.
1. The Money order–We must develop money for the common good. Regional money, also called local currencies, are needed.
2. The Property order—see Chap. 7 in Property for People. The criteria for property is that every property must serve the common good. Wikipedia is an example of such a property. Its organization and all organizing of property in a commons differs from state socialism.
3. The Labor order—Labor cannot be viewed as just a cost factor as corporations do; rather it must be viewed as human activity. Viewed thus, it is coordinated in new ways. Worker cooperatives, in which workers are owners, are a prime example. Taxes often attack labor along with other mechanisms. Taxes in OneEarth living must not attack labor. Many wrestle with this. Henry George is one example, see http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/George.html
What Is the Name of the New Economy?
What do we call the economy for OneEarth? It is the economy of enough for the fullness of life—this is the common vision. It is an old-new economy, an economy for now. To advance this economy with policies and laws we need two kinds of laws. (1) Preventive laws, e.g., making money off of money must be prevented because the new economy prohibits robbery. (2) Corrective laws, e.g., sabbath year for debt and slave release. These laws recognize that people with less have a right to be part of the commons/community. No person must need to depend on grace to be part of the human or Earth community. It is our right.
The long history of capital privatizing what is for the common good is stealing. Jubilee makes the private public again. It’s our common heritage given by God. The new economy MUST DEVELOP FROM BELOW; not be planned and put in place from the top.
We need circles (Jubilee Circles, for example) where we are not threatened by imperial theology so that we release one another’s creativity and imagination for actions in a new economy. There is no one new economy, but many. Imperial theologies continue to produce reactions from below, from those oppressed by the aggressive attacks of capital which is given justifications in religion.
One example of the great negative impact of imperial theologies in the West is how they contribute to creating terrorists, religious terrorists. Terrorists are created by Western civilization’s attitudes toward Islam. The terrorism mirrors the attitude and action of the West.
Advice to Youth and Others Looking for Work—Which Economy?
1- Go to alternative economy projects. They are proliferating around the world. Seek out cooperative alternatives. Be attentive to movements such as peasant farming, for example the international movement of Via Campesino. To cite one example, in El Salvador where they used local seeds to be independent of Monsanto. They gained political power. They lost in the WTO. But subsequently they triumphed over Monsanto in the marketplace because they sold their seeds cheaper than Monsanto could.
2- Work from the inside. But the difficulties are many and the seductions are more than can truly be resisted without firings and such. For example, Joseph Stiglitz works from inside. He was inside the World Bank. But the U.S. had him fired from World Bank. So he worked in social movements countering the system while working in the system. Or as a Buddhist professor of economics puts it: I teach the system and then why it is wrong.
Duchrow emphasizes that we are at the end of civilization. Civilization based on the compulsory growth of capital is murderous and suicidal. Capital, to be clear, must grow. It is of the essence of capital that it must grow. Therefore, this civilization must end. It will end.
Finally, a Challenge to Jubilee Circles from Duchrow
A challenge from Duchrow for the Jubilee Circles: Create a statement on what revisiting NAFTA can look like. It does need to be revisited, but for totally different reasons than what Trumpism and the corporations want.
