Reformed faith and economic justice

Geneva, May 1996

With thanksgiving we acknowledge the abundance of life offered to us by God and accept our responsibilities to nurture the life of the household of God and to care for creation. With distress we view the current distortions that make the household the servant of the economy. Although it claims universality, the newly emerging global economy creates enslavement and injustice.¹

This situation can be compared to the unleashing of the idol Moloch. The consequence is exclusion, injustice and death, the denial of God's blessing. Care for the household is driven out by greed and the competition for individual survival. The abundance of God's creation is limited by the demands of the market. Everything has a price that can be paid only by those with the money to become consumers. In place of care for creation we find exploitation. In place of the order of creation we find the disorder of injustice.¹

Hearing the pleas of the deprived and excluded, we seek to understand the mechanisms of their misfortune. We witness today a process of globalization, promoted by improvements in transportation and communications technology coupled with the use of mass media to reach "new markets". Through advertising, cultures around the world are converted into markets. Autonomous peoples are transformed into consumers. The trade and payments agreements that have facilitated this process provide the basis for the transcendence of transnational corporations over the limitations of national boundaries and cultures. The pressure of "competitiveness" has been loosed on the world.

The claims made for this new global economy are that it will bring the peoples of the world into the global marketplace where they can freely choose among abundance. We find, however, that the globalization of the market economy has been accompanied by the denial of the expectations of development. There has been an institutionalization of the transfer of wealth from the South to the North, leading to the exclusion of millions of people from an economy that was supposed to meet their needs.

We can no longer believe that economic globalization is merely a process of extending the structures and benefits of the economy of the industrial countries of the North to the rest of the world.

The driving force of globalization is the relentless accumulation of capital. Its vehicles are transnational corporations and financial institutions. Through the press and media, we are told that the welfare of these corporations is more important than the welfare of the household of God.

Until the changes in 1989-90, globalization was to some extent restricted by the existence of the Soviet bloc and the Council for Mutual Economic Cooperation (Comecon). While the system in Central and Eastern Europe was not a real alternative to the emerging global market system, for many people around the world its existence was nonetheless a source of hope because it provided employment, education and health for all its citizens. It introduced trade relations with the Third World that were fairer than those offered by Western countries.

Globalization has resulted in a massive debt crisis for developing countries. As a condition for loans with which to repay debts, the indebted countries are required to implement Structural Adjustment Programmes (stipulated mostly by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund). As a consequence, national budgets for health, education and social services are drastically reduced. Priority is given to the repayment of debts, although in fact it is only the interest that is being paid while the debt remains as a means of domination.

The sovereignty of nation states is put into question. National control over domestic policy has been largely lost with the signing of the trade agreements and the consolidation of power by transnational corporations. As governments have reduced trade barriers and other restrictions, they have also reduced their ability to act in the interests of their citizens.

Economies such as those of the island states of the Caribbean and South Pacific, too small to be sources of wealth in and of themselves, find new roles in the global economy as money laundries as well as tourist resorts. This is a significant function, since only a small percentage of global currency flows is actually required to finance trade in real goods and services. The fact that so little capital is actually required for trade purposes means that there is a large and growing amount of money available for speculative purposes or to be applied for political or economic leverage anywhere in the world on short notice. This results in a high degree of instability for the temporary host economies of this capital (as was the case in 1995 in Mexico).

The culture of competition created by the corporate and financial forces behind the global market economy creates a downward spiral of impoverishment and injustice as cities, regions and states compete against each other for corporate favours in the form of investments and jobs. There is also competition for deregulation and environmental exploitation to attract capital. Eventually the poorer regions no longer have anything with which to compete, not even cheaper labour. At this point, they become excluded from the global economy altogether, consigned to the garbage dump, except for the women and children who are forced to sell themselves in the new globalized sex trade.

The globalization of advertising that accompanies the globalization of the market creates a monoculture of consumerism. It creates insatiable desires that can easily be manipulated, including the desire to exploit women. It can be described as a colonization of the consciousness. As a result of the financial rewards of advertising, the media develop a symbiotic relationship with their corporate benefactors and begin to see themselves as autonomous agents shaping political choices.

What is generally referred to as "the environment" also becomes a victim of the culture of competition fostered by the global economy. It is essential that we gain a new understanding of creation, not as our "environment", as something outside and apart from us, but as the matrix of our life, both physically and socially. Creation and our household must be restored as the context of our lives and the economy once again viewed as the organization and structures of nurture.

A new beginning lies in the act of repentance. We, Christians of the Reformed tradition, have to confess our complicity in the global system and our insensibility to the victimization of the people. Warc member churches must continue to discern the suffering of the households of the poor and the weak due to globalization. They should enter into consultations with the key actors of the global economic system. They should enter into the liturgical movements of tithing, celebrating the Sabbath and Jubilee, as well as confessing guilt of involvement in globalization.

We cannot be silent if so many people are excluded and discriminated against. We are called to resist the mechanism which serves mammon in the first place and requires both human and environmental sacrifices. We are challenged to search for a system which affirms and promotes life. We are inspired by God's promise: "My covenant is a covenant of life and peace" (Mal 2.5).

Notes