As If Values Mattered

New voices that transcend the old polarities of left and right are offering fresh alternatives in economics. For decades we were enmeshed in endless arguments between the "market economy" of world capitalism and the "command economy" of state-directed socialism.

With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communism, capitalism also requires fresh evaluation, especially in its failures in regard to both equity and ecology. The sheer number of the world's poor and the magnitude of our environmental crises demand a deeper moral response. The failures of both ideological systems cry out for something new. But what could it be? Perhaps the new concept we are searching for is best described as a "community economy."

The details of what a community economy would look like are far from clear. But any new possibilities will require important shifts in our habits, assumptions, ways of thinking, and--ultimately--our ethics concerning economics. It is time to recall our best moral and religious values and begin to reshape our economics as if those values mattered.

Asking some fundamental questions can help to suggest some new directions. Instead of merely asking what will make a profit or what a central bureaucracy could do, we must begin to ask ourselves what would best serve the needs of a human and ecological community.

Goods and services need to be produced, but the wealth from such production could certainly be shared more equitably than it is now. The enormous income disparities between the top echelons of corporate America and the bottom rungs of the economy simply cannot be justified by differences in class background, education, opportunity, or even ability. How do we square the enormous polarities with the ultimate moral worth that our ethical and religious traditions would ascribe to each individual?

To decrease the discrepancies between the top and the bottom, and thereby more fairly value the contribution of each person to the productive process, is not something that can be easily specified in legalistic detail. However, we could move toward some new shared social understandings regarding both the minimally acceptable levels of decent human existence and the upper limits of financial remuneration. What legal coercion cannot accomplish, new standards of social affirmation and social shame might be able to.

ALREADY SOME SMALL and mid-size businesses are making decisions to compensate their leading executives with less money, reducing the gap between the top and the bottom. Meanwhile they make substantial contributions to saving the environment or assisting economic development among the poor. The profits to the community are thus greatly increased.

There are many more human incentives than financial ones, and there are greater enhancements to personal and community well-being than endless economic accumulation. The fact that non-economic incentives seem so foreign in the contemporary marketplace indicates how far we have strayed from a balanced perspective of what constitutes quality of life.

There are also new and creative efforts afoot to encourage and enable wealthier people to contribute to a more equitable society through various forms of voluntary "tithing"--a tradition familiar in religious congregations (though almost forgotten in many). Realizing that the sources of wealth are also social and not merely personal, commitments can be made that allocate portions of earned income to projects that generate economic development where it is most needed. Such a process of redistribution is based on notions of "accountability," a deeper response than one out of charity.

New patterns of individual, family, and cooperative ownership of property--all shaped by community standards of land use--could provide a greater measure of equity and environmental responsibility. Various experiments in community land trusts and cooperative housing corporations are already demonstrating some alternative directions.

Again, the willingness of people and institutions to tithe some of the "social value" of their property toward employment, land, or housing for the poor would result in a creative redistribution of resources. And the destruction of our forests, farmlands, water resources, and wildlife can only be reversed when community-based commitments to stewardship replace the selfish and shortsighted practices of acquisitiveness that are despoiling the Earth and threatening our fragile ecosystem.

Neglected biblical instructions and traditions could guide us today, such as the practice of the poor "gleaning" from the edges of the fields, leaving land fallow occasionally to replenish its fertility, observing the Sabbath both to rest and avoid over-production, and periodic forgiveness of debts and redistribution of land in the ancient Hebraic idea of the Jubilee Year. Modern equivalents of such biblical practices are urgently needed.

IN THE AREA of capital investment, why should a narrow profit motivation predominate over all other considerations? Why couldn't there be social and economic incentives for investing in critical areas of development, such as business enterprises for low-income people, affordable and energy-efficient housing, family-farm-based agriculture, rebuilding the country's infrastructure, safe and ecological transportation, preventative health care and wellness programs, education and job training for a changing society, and environmental conservation? If these are identifiable community needs, why couldn't we invest in such social goals instead of producing an endless and mostly useless array of luxury consumer items?

Social investment can also create economic activity, jobs, and wealth, while at the same time generating more natural equity and protecting the Earth. Indeed, more jobs could be created in the aforementioned areas of economic and environmental activity than in the high-tech, corporatized global economy now envisioned by the world's economic elites. As it is now, some of the most creative projects in all of the above areas are languishing for lack of resources, because they fail to meet the outmoded but still rigid criteria for financial investment.

Pioneering a different direction are new non-profit loan funds that defy the conventional financial wisdom yet show great success in funding a wide variety of socially constructive projects. In fact, a whole field of alternative social investment is emerging that in most cases demonstrates an equal if not better record of repayment than many of the more traditional investment options.

The key question is one of values. Important questions of scale, forms of technology, and patterns of ownership and decision making will need creative thought and experimentation. But the critical issue is a change in our ethics and assumptions regarding economic activity. And the key shift is the movement toward community--the idea of the common good--as the criterion by which we evaluate our economic structures and practices.

Many people are turning their attention to economics, and the need for new visions is great. The key will be to no longer regard economics as merely a science but as a moral discipline.

Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.