Chapter 1:

GOD AND THE MARKET

HUMAN CONTEXT

‘Market’ is the buzzword in the world today, particularly in Asia. Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization (LPG) characterize it. It is determined by the wants of the rich, neglecting the basic needs of the poor. Thus the modern market encourages compulsive, conspicuous consumption of luxury goods. It is actively promoting the vested interests of the Multinational Corporations (MNCs or the TNCs).

The year ending the millennium, the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle caused quite a stir both inside and outside the Convention Hall. The issue of international trade was deliberately linked to labour standards and the environment by some of the rich nations, targeting the poor nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in January 2000, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) crystallized further the predicament of the modern market-economy and the impact of globalisation. The UN Secretary-General, the President of the Philippines, the Malaysian Prime Minister, the Indian Commerce Minister and others expressed openly their apprehension in Bangkok. Britain’s trade minister asked the rich nations to write off the enormous debt of the world’s poorest nations and at the same time open their markets to receive their goods. Obviously, the LPG wants ‘free’ market but we are not sure that it encourages fair market. They want market-friendly people but not people-friendly market!

The Asian Continent has some of the poorest countries in the world. India, China and other Asian nations together constitute nearly sixty per cent of the world’s population. For nearly forty-five years, India resisted crony or casino capitalism and refused to yield to the pressures of the industrialized world. But in 1991, she decided to launch her New Economic Policy (NEP) of LPG. Now after nearly a decade and into second-generation economic reforms, it is officially recognized that such a deliberate policy has served very well the needs and wants of the rich and the middle classes.

But the majority of the people in India, numbering nearly seven hundred million, do not have access to safe drink water, transportable roads, primary health care and universal elementary education. Levi jeans, Japanese techno-toys, Coca Cola and Kentucky Fried Chicken are popular among the elite and the privileged while the majority do not have sufficient or adequate food, clothing and shelter. In fact, according to the Planning Commission of India, the number of people below the poverty line (PL) has increased from 35% to 43% during the post-reform period. The Asian ‘Tigers’ themselves are growing uneasy and restless with the modern market that marginalizes the majority while the minority monopolizes it. Such is the scenario prevalent in the context of the modern market. At the dawn of the new millennium, millions are dominated and domesticated by the market forces. In this predicament, we turn to the Bible for guidance and help.

OLD TESTAMENT BACKGROUND

The Bible on the whole and the Old Testament in particular stands for authentic freedom and justice. There is no ambiguity or ambivalence about it in the pages of the book. It advocates justice-oriented, free and willing actions in the name of God. The poor and the deprived are the focus of God’s attention.

The story of EXODUS (about the 13th century B.C.) is the ancient story of slavery and freedom; of injustice to justice, from foreign, forced (bonded) labour to willing work for the sake of God. God becomes acutely aware of and sensitive to the suffering of the slaves in Egypt under Pharaoh. God declares to the Hebrew slaves,

I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians.¹

God does not demonstrate just sympathy or pity for the poor people but is willing to act with generous words. Thus it is written,

The Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out. Out of their slavery their cry for help rose up to God. God heard their groaning.”²

In the Old Testament, God openly, publicly identifies with and directly involves in the affairs of such people. This divine identification and involvement is direct, straightforward and intimate. Nothing about this narrative is remote and indirect and secretive. To such a people God affirms, ‘I will be your God, and you shall be my people.’³ Genuine identification leads to a lasting, enduring, persevering relationship or divine-human partnership.

This saga of the Jewish slaves in Egypt and the divine demand of deliverance is vividly portrayed and repeated in liturgical affirmations of faith and the teachings of ancient, classical Judaism. The Exodus story provided a strong basis for their faith. It became their creed.⁴ One passage mentions that a Jew has to stand before the priest and recite the following,

A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt...When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us, we cried to the Lord; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.⁵

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1 Exodus 3:7-8a

2 Exodus 2: 23b-24a

3 Jeremiah 7:23; 11:4b; 24:7; 30:22; 31:22; Ezekiel 14:11, 36: 28b; 37:27

4 Joshua 24: 2b-13; Deuteronomy 6: 20-24; 26: 5-10

The cry of the exploited people for liberation and justice becomes the cry of God - “Let my people go”.⁶ Both for the human and the divine, freedom or liberation was not an empty, abstract concept. For them exodus meant coming out of real, physical slavery or bondage. Consequently, freedom must be real and physical. It is stated,

And I have come down to deliver them (Jewish slaves) from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.⁷

Freedom was the perennial promise of God, partially fulfilled in their history. It was given as, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you will eat bread without scarcity, where the people lack nothing.⁸

Thus the God of the Old Testament is a God of liberation from hunger and thirst - freedom to enjoy food, clothing and shelter. These are their fundamental rights, which should not be denied anyone.

Related to the Exodus tradition of the Old Testament, is the anawim tradition. Those ancient Hebrew slaves were the few patriarchal clans, considered later to be habiru, the semi-nomadic, or ethnically mixed socio-political outsiders. They were marginalized from the main stream of life. The Hebrew words for such an exploited, oppressed people are rash, ebon, dal and anawim. The last word literally means, ‘to be bent over’ or ‘to be crushed’. To begin with, the poor or the poverty-stricken in the Old Testament are those who are bereft of honour and dignity; deprived of the essential existence in terms of food, clothing and shelter - “a land flowing with milk and honey” came to symbolize that.

The story of the Exile (about 586 BC) is described by Second Isaiah or Deutero-Isaiah (40-55). The Jewish people are in Babylon, taken into captivity. Jerusalem had been captured and people in Babylonian captivity long for freedom and liberation - love and justice.

It is necessary to note that in the Old Testament, the concern for the poor and the enslaved was not ad-hoc and temporary. This concern and compassion is epitomized in the institution of the SABBATH and the JUBILEE. Thus a genuine concern becomes a system that is objective and impersonal in the sense that it is not left to the vagaries of changing moods and manners or to some generous-minded or charity-oriented individuals. These two definitive systems are documented in the Book of Leviticus and in Deuteronomy. It explicitly states,

And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family . . . You shall not cheat one another, but you shall fear your God for I am the Lord your God.⁹

Jubilee is a year of celebration and liberation. It is a time of joy and justice in terms of property, relinquishing of debts and the release of slaves.¹⁰

With regard to the Sabbath, it is stated,

Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you . . . Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.¹¹

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9Leviticus 25:10,17

10Leviticus 25: 28-33, 40-54; 27:17 - 24

11Deuteronomy 5:12-15, repeated in Leviticus 25:1-7; 19:3 and 30; 26:2, 34-35 and 43; Exodus 16:23-26; 20:10; 31:14-

It is a year of REST and REMEMBRANCE. Rest engenders mental-spiritual space or freedom. Sabbath is a year of remission, restoration and return to the divine origin and purpose of creation and life. Remembrance of past captivity is to resolve to release in the future. It is a time of hope and happiness.

The Old Testament testifies to an institutional, as well as individual, attempt to work actively for freedom and justice for the poor and the needy. It records the brave deeds of people like Moses and Joshua, who under the divine mandate, led the people from slavery to freedom’ from gross injustice to justice.

The ancient prophets of Israel foretold forcefully the wretched condition of the poor people. Prophetic proclamation is that God demands justice because essentially God is Just or justice. For them, religion or spirituality is not just about rites and rituals but more important it is to do with righteousness - being right with God and all humans. Morality and ethics are at the core of their faith - public morality in terms of socio-economic-political justice. Prophet Amos (eighth century BC) is the best example. For him socio-economic justice is an integral part of covenant responsibility. He was dully concerned about the concentration of wealth and power. Such a situation insults and offends God. Thus he had openly and categorically declared,

I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an overflowing stream.¹²

Human justice, mishpat, was measured in terms of divine righteousness, tsedeq. Such justice is not penal or retributive or even distributive but it must liberate or change fundamentally, the power and wealth equations. Such a prophetic pronouncement was possible because of the nature and function of the emerging market of the transitional society of the time - from the nomadic

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12Amos 5:21-24

to the settled agricultural to the semi-urban. Amos found that the rich “grind the heads of the helpless in the dust and push the humble out of their way¹³” by levying taxes on the poor and extorting a tribute of grain from them. “You bully the innocent”¹⁴ and buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.¹⁵ In this context of corruption and injustice, he uses the plumb line as a prophetic symbolism - symbolizing utter honesty and straightforwardness.

Prophet Hosea (in the 8th century BC) emphasized love, hesed, in terms of justice. He used the analogy of marriage and parental relationship to view justice for the poor.¹⁶ Prophet Micah (in the 6th century B.C.) made possible the reform of Hezakiah in 706 B.C. He noted,

They covet fields and seize them; houses and take them away; they oppress householder and house, people and their inheritance.¹⁷

Micah is against those “who tear the skin off my people, and the flesh off their bones; who eat the flesh of my people, flay their skin off them, break their bones in pieces, and chop them up like meat in a kettle, like flesh in a cauldron”¹⁸ and “who abhor justice and pervert all equity.”¹⁹Micah finally affirms, that the Lord requires the people to do justice, to love kindness, and “to walk humbly with your God?”²⁰

APOSTOLIC WITNESS

The apostolic witness perpetuates and promotes the Exodus and anawim traditions of the Old Testament. There is a unique unanimity of the total Biblical corpus. In one of the early epistles, Jesus is referred to as the Rock, the Paschal Lamb who is sacrificed as a response to the cry of the poor.²¹

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13Amos 2:7a

14Amos 5:11a and 12a

15Amos 8:6; 2:6b

16 Hosea 6:6; 10:13; 11:1- 4, 8-9; 12:6

17 Micah 2:1-2

18 Micah 3:2-3

19Micah 3:9b

20Micah 6:8

21 I Corinthians 10:1-5; 5:7

They recall with joy and gratitude the story of Moses and the Exodus and link it with the story of Jesus²²^. In some ancient manuscripts, Jude seems to refer to Jesus as the one who saved the people out of the land of Egypt. Indeed in Jesus humanity experiences a new exodus.

The apostle James advocates for anawim tradition. He is unequivocal when he utters:

You rich people weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you . . . You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen, the wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord . . . You have condemned and murdered the righteous one who does not resist you.²³

The same idea of the intrinsic relationship between faith and practice, is espoused by John when he states,

Whoever says, ‘I am in the light’, while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. ...How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and see a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action . . . Beloved let us love another, because love is from God...if we love one another, God lives in us. . Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. Those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.²⁴

We have to understand these apostolic texts, not individualistically but institutionally or collectively in the modern world. It is not an issue of ‘charity’ or patronage of individuals but of loving and doing justice to nations and people who are deprived and marginalized. Love and Justice are structural, systemic issues. Peter and Paul realized it in their encounter with the gentile world in the first century. They earnestly sought to abolish or change systems that did

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22 Hebrews 11: 23-29; Jude vs 5

23 James 5:l, 3b-4 and 6; see also 1:9-11 and 27

24 I John 1: 9; 3:17; 4:17, 12, 20-21

not enhance human freedom, love and justice. Consequently, they were concerned about the relationship between the Jews and Gentiles circumcised and uncircumcised; slave and free. They made a frontal attack on discrimination and inequality and made a powerful plea for breaking down barriers and partiality. In the First Council in Jerusalem in 50 A.D., they challenged and questioned the practice of circumcision among Christians and found it unnecessary and a hindrance.²⁵Peter realized that God shows no partiality and makes no distinction between Jews and Gentiles.²⁶ Peter, Paul, Barnabas and other early disciples and apostles experienced authentic metanoia, repentance, which for them meant standing out, overcoming of false pride and prejudice and learning to accept people as they are.

The apostles were definitively and decisively against slavery and advocated freedom of speech and action - freedom to enjoy fuller life and liberty for all people. In their freedom manifesto, they publicly declared,

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence . . . There is no longer Jew or Greek; slave or free; male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. ²⁷

Freedom is not a license to hurt, insult and marginalize other people. Fundamentally, freedom must govern and guide the thinking and action of Christians.²⁸ But, according to Paul and Peter in particular, we should be considerate in our exercise of freedom. Paul used the example of food to illustrate his point.²⁹ In another context, he shares the same idea differently;

All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbour³⁰^.

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25 Acts 15:1-9

26 Acts 10:9-16, 28-29; 11:4-12

27Galatians 5:l and 13; 3:28

28 I Corinthians 7:21-24; II Corinthians 3:17; Colossians 3:11

29 I Corinthians 8:1, 7-13

30 I Corinthians 10: 23-24

Peter had asserted the same truth strongly, “live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil.”³¹ In the name of freedom, it is possible to promote slavery or slavish people. Thus as much as justice needs love to be authentic justice; freedom also needs love to be genuine freedom for all. Freedom of the rich can be the bondage of the poor. The early followers of Jesus did not only talk or preach about love, freedom and justice but practised it in their regular, daily lives. They were willing to experiment with their own kind of socialism although that philosophy or ideology was not in vogue then. They did not encourage private property, everything was held in common, there was not a needy person, because the apostles sold land and houses given to them and distributed to each according to the need.³² Such was their life and work. They were setting an example in their own time and context. This was an attempt to relate faith and action; grace and the law of love.

In concluding this section, we may recall the words of St. John the Divine towards the end of the first century. He saw the vision of “a new heaven and new earth”;

[God] will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more’ for the first things have passed away. And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”³³

Such is the assurance and determination; anticipation and expectation of the apostles.

GOSPEL TRUTH

God in Jesus came in the flesh, lived as a human being among other human beings, preached and practiced love, freedom and justice in the society of his time. In the process, he got into trouble with the religious and the secular authority of the time. He was accused of blasphemy and claiming to be the

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31 I Peter 2:16; see also ll Peter 2:19; Eph. 4:13-15; I Cor. 13:11

32Acts 4:32-35

33 Revelation 21:l-2, 4-5a

‘King of the Jew’. For this he had to die a horrible death on the Cross of Calvary, outside the gate of Jerusalem. But, according to the early testimony, Jesus rose on the third day and lives among us in spirit even in this third millennium. This is God’s good newt for all people everywhere, without discrimination or prejudice - good news about God’s justice, love and freedom.

God’s identifies fully with the people particularly, the poor and the underprivileged. Jesus was not a ghost or a phantom but a real person. It is interesting that the fourth gospel identifies Jesus with the word, logos and affirms that it becomes flesh, sarx.³⁴This is a way of saying that God is not indifferent or insensitive but in Jesus, we have a caring, compassionate God, who feels acutely the pain of the poor. He is born in the small village of Bethlehem, in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.³⁵ According to the narrative of Luke, it is the shepherds, the outcasts, who come to pay homage to Jesus.³⁶ Jesus is rendered a refugee at birth because King Herod was afraid of another ‘king’. There is a massacre of children aged two years and under.³⁷ Jesus is hounded, haunted, hunted from his birth till his death - from the womb to the tomb. Such is the story of solidarity of God in Jesus.

Jesus and justice; faith and freedom; love and action are integrally related. He inaugurated his ministry by saying;

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the Oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.³⁸

This was not only a declaration but also a deed for Jesus in terms of the total life and work of his community. For nearly thirty years he studied the long Jewish history and heritage. Only after that he could become a Jewish

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34 John 1:l4

35 Luke 2:7

36 Luke 2:8-17

37 Matthew 2:1-18

38 Luke 4:18-19 taken from Isaiah 61:1-

Rabbi, a teacher. He was fully aware of the story of the Exodus and Exile’ of the anawim traditions and of the Sabbath and the Jubilee systems. By the time of Jesus, the Sabbath system had become rigid, legalistic and mechanical, losing it’s original intention to promote and strengthen love, freedom and justice. Therefore, Jesus opposed the religious people, the Pharisees for their idolatry of the Sabbath. He healed, fed, ate at the altar and taught on the Sabbath day,³⁹ and finally affirmed, ‘The Sabbath was made for human beings, and not human beings for the Sabbath’.⁴⁰

With regard to POWER, Jesus was explicit in his life and work, in his words and deeds. Consistently, he refused to align himself with the ‘powerful’ people of the time, both religious and secular. He demonstrated the weakness of much-vaunted power and the real power or strength of the much-maligned weakness. As a result there was a constant confrontation with the status quo or the established power. For Jesus, power is to empower people who have their own potential and abundant resources. Power is not for the purpose of rendering people powerless, leading to decline, debility and even death. He declared, “The son of man came not to be served but to serve, and give his life a ransom for many.”⁴¹

Two of Jesus’ closest disciples, James and John, were ‘lobbying’ for a favourable power-equation. Obviously, at least those two disciples did not know what they were asking and more importantly they did not understand Jesus and his mission. Consequently, Jesus himself had to clarify his attitude to power,

Are you able to drink the cup (of sorrow and sacrifice) that I drink, or be baptised with the baptism (of the cross) with which I am baptised? . . You know that among the gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.⁴²

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39 Matthew 12: 6-8; Luke 13:10-16; 14:1-5; Mark 3:2-4; 2:23-28; Luke 6:1-5; John 7:23

40 Mark 2:27

41 Mark 10:45

He referred to the powerful Herod as a ‘fox.’⁴³

Jesus sought for freedom, justice and love for the poor. For this reason, he actively engaged in feeding the hungry, healing the sick like the lepers and even raising the dead. So when John the Baptist expressed doubt, Jesus responded,

Go and tell John what you have seen and heard s the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.⁴⁴

He is so caring and compassionate that even when he is in the midst of a thick crowd, he feels a touch that is particular and special. He asks, ‘who touched me?’⁴⁵ It may be remembered that in the Magnificat or the Song of Mary⁴⁶ Jesus’ ministry is anticipated in terms of scattering the proud, bringing down the mighty from their thrones (power) and filling the hungry with good things and the rich are sent away empty. This seems to be an echo of another ancient song, sung by another woman, Hannah.⁴⁷ Indeed, from the Song of Hannah to the Song of Mary, God’s message is justice and freedom using an ideological-political language.

For Jesus justice and freedom were for all segments of the society in which he lived. Therefore he had to question and challenge seriously the gender discrimination of his time, the temple structure that had turned it into a market place;⁴⁸ laws of the land that perpetuated inequality⁴⁹ and consequently injustice. As a Jew, Jesus was raising fundamental questions about his own society, religion and culture. He did not conform - he did not reconcile.

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39 Matthew 12: 6-8; Luke 13:10-16; 14:1-5; Mark 3:2-4; 2:23-28; Luke 6:1-5; John 7:23

40 Mark 2:27

41 Mark 10:45

Finally, a few words about Jesus’ foundational teaching about the Kingdom of God. Basically, it is a reign of justice, freedom and love. Various illustrations and parables of the Kingdom make explicit the supreme sovereignty of God in our pursuit of justice. God cannot be replaced by anything or anyone. It is both the rule and the realm of God. So the constant prayer on our lips is, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”⁵⁰. In conclusion it is important to remember,

I [Jesus] came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!... Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No I tell you, but rather division’⁵¹

In another context, he makes this clear by using the analogy of the salt,

For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another⁵²

This means that we must be ready to identify without losing our identity. We must learn the division between injustice and justice; between what is truly loving and not loving; between freedom and bondage or captivity. That is the challenge of Christianity. That is the good news of God in Jesus.

THEOLOGICAL-ETHICAL AFFIRMATION

Obviously, the Bible does not address the issue of the MARKET directly. It would be naive or simplistic to apply the Bible to the nature or the dynamics of the modern market. In fact the Biblical corpus as a whole is pre-industrial. In such a situation we have attempted to look briefly at some Biblical indicators or criteria that are conducive towards comprehending the nature or character of the modern market - what it should or ought to be? In our quest, we have discovered that the Bible affirms clearly that God is a God of justice, love

and freedom. Consequently, God demands the same values or goals. Anything else or anything less is a deliberate refusal to respond positively to the values and vision; the ideas and ideals of the Bible.

From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible fully endorses divine priority and perspective. It unanimously upholds freedom and justice for the economically poor and the exploited. There is no way to spiritualise the traditions of the Exodus, Exile and the anawim. In fact the Bible does not encourage dualism between the spiritual and the social; body and spirit; faith and action. So the Bible is the historical-spiritual pilgrimage of an ancient people. The prophetic denunciation of the established market is unequivocal. They refused to compromise with the cheating and stealing that was going on in the market place. The symbol of the plumbline represented their divine demand for justice for the downtrodden. Jesus, Peter and Paul perpetuated the prophetic proclamation for the poverty-stricken people in terms of fuller liberty and life.

Shalom in the Old Testament and “abundant life” in the New Testament have come to represent the definitive Christian affirmation about God’s goal and direction for humanity in particular and creation in general. Such an emphasis is a reminder and a warning that we should not reduce the good life to the goods of existence. Thus the modern market-economy is engaged in falsifying reality. Shalom stands for fullness or wholeness of life with all its diversity or plurality. Globalisation is a process of homogenisation of the people living~ in completely different context. The Bible stands for unity in the midst of diversity or more important celebrating diversity while seeking for certain unifying principles or goals.

People are the focus of God’s attention and compassion. Market-driven economy must encourage a market of the people - they must be the source. Market by the people - they must be its means and methods. Market for the people - they must be its purpose and objective. In the Bible, God responds to the actual needs and aspirations of the people in their particularity, and so to must the models of modern market economy.

QUESTIONS FOR GROUP DISCUSSION

· How does the modern market adversely affect your economy particularly in terms of local initiatives and resources?

· What kind of values or goals are encouraged by Privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation of your national/regional market’ Is it conducive towards the values of the Kingdom of God?

· Mow does the globalised market respond to the basic needs of the poorest section of your community?

FIELD STUDY

Select carefully one type of industry (e.g. Toy industry) in your country/community and make an empirical study of the impact of the MNCs/TNCs in terms of local innovation, employment, wages, cost of production and distribution etc.

QUOTATIONS FOR PERSONAL AND GROUP REFLECTIONS

Free-market cavaliers are unconcerned; what is euphemistically known as ground reality is no part of their paraphernalia. The procedure they recommend will somehow lead to the optimum use of inputs and therefore epitomizes economic efficiency...As if the workers are not a constituent factor of production and Adam Smith had not commented on the waywardness of private employers. Idealised free market is a fiction . . . Give up all regulatory controls, let the factors of production be free to move in and out of different markets, let demand be similarly liberalised, let government activism be limited to maintenance of law and order and defence. Untrammelled private sector will be progenitors of efficiency and growth. In the calculation of efficiency, the point of view of the working class is of course not taken into consideration. Additionally, not taken into account is the consequence of allowing nation’s

limited investment resources drift into areas and sectors, which contribute little or nothing to the wealth and welfare of the majority of the national population. Survival of the fittest is the mantra. That means that the vulnerable sections have no right of survival. It is the survival of the ‘freest’!

What globalisation brings is a new ideological shift. In this era trade unions have been laid low and along with it the emphasis on production and producers as the main planks of economic thought and policymaking. In their place the consumer has stepped in and has become pivotal to all calculations. Today, consumers get the first preference. This is what makes the consumer king in the age of globalisation. It is no longer material if the production of those consumer goods brings about unemployment, greater economic dependence, or lack of trade union privileges. National wellbeing and economic sovereignty are not critical issues in the modern makes. Cars of a certain kind, or colour televisions and washing machines would not be produced in the past because that would have Jeopardise a country’s economic self-reliance. Decisions regarding production were closely tied to national development and sovereignty. Production techniques are now geared to meet the demands of the elite. Thus we have super-specialised hospitals, but the existing national health care systems are in serious trouble. Likewise with educational institutions and transportation systems. Globalisation creates an ideology that is so consumer-oriented that it ends up in actually undermining citizenship by taking away the concerns for the truly underprivileged. A consumerist-globalised approach takes the edge off national considerations for the underprivileged. The slogan is, ‘If you cannot buy it, it is not good for you.

It is an urgent task of theologians today to oppose an individualistic moralistic abuse of the Bible as a source book for a repressive morality. ...The new life ‘in Chris’” is not a vague moral or spiritual ideal, but a concrete new social

reality, tried out in the messianic congregations of the saints. . . The radicalness of the Biblical outlook becomes clear when we perceive how the concern for social 3ustice is part of the critique of idolatry. Idolatry is not what others do but it is everywhere. Idolatry ascribe to things, products of human activities ultimate importance, as that which gives meaning to their existence, and they spend their lives in service of those idols . . . Jesus spoke of one idol that opposes the God of the Kingdom. MAMMON is the accumulation of wealth as highest value and purpose in life. Mammon is a corporate reality, a power that orders society. It is the power that turns society into an order of anxiety, of struggle for survival. Jesus confronts that kingdom of mammon as the basic obstacle to God’s kingdom. You cannot serve God and mammon.

REFERENCES:

Dietrich, Babriele, The Impact of New Economic Policy on Women in India And Feminist Alternatives, ECC’ Whitefield, Bangalore, 1997.

Kurien, C.T., Global Capitalism and the Indian Economy, 1993

Parmar, Samuel, ‘The Politics of Development’ in One World, World Council of Churches, July/August, 1976.

SEDP & YMCA Publication, Globalisation: Trends and Impact-Challenges and People’s Response, Calcutta, 1997.

Wlelenga, Bastian, Labour Serving God or Mammon? 1987.

World Council of Churches, Christian Faith and the World Economy Today, 1992.