Business & Economics (eBook)

FOREWORDS

In the hyperpaced, global marketplace of the twenty-first century, what can be gained from the writings of a theologian-philosopher who seems preoccupied with critiquing the French Revolution of 1789? And given the sophisticated tools of modern economic analysis, why should anybody care about this theologian-philosopher’s analysis of labor unions, government subsidies, and pensions in the Netherlands over a century ago?

One reason is that this theologian-philosopher, Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920), understood the underlying dynamics of today’s global economy better than almost all of today’s leading academics, analysts, and marketplace leaders. In fact, over a century ago, Kuyper forecast one of the central paradoxes of contemporary economic and social life.

On the one hand, the spread of capitalist narratives, institutions, and practices from “the West to the rest” has resulted in unprecedented increases in income and in other dimensions of human and cultural flourishing. Particularly encouraging has been the impact on poverty.1 Indeed, since 1990 the number of people living on less than $1.90 per day—the World Bank’s poverty line—has declined by more than half, largely due to the benefits of economic growth.2 Furthermore, many global leaders believe that, should these trends continue, it may be possible to lift the entire world above the $1.90 poverty line by the year 2030.3 This massive reduction in global poverty is one of the greatest accomplishments of human history and should give pause to the critics of globalization.

On the other hand, there is a gnawing sense that something has gone terribly wrong in the West. Families are disintegrating, communities are fragmented, and political processes are in disarray. Our minds and bodies can feel it.4 As leading social psychologist Jean Twenge laments:

I think the research tells us that modern life is not good for mental health.… Obviously, there’s a lot of good things about societal and technological progress, and in a lot of ways our lives are much easier than, say, our grandparents’ or great-grandparents’ lives. But there’s a paradox here that we seem to have so much ease and relative economic prosperity compared to previous centuries, yet there’s this dissatisfaction, there’s this unhappiness, there are these mental health issues in terms of depression and anxiety.5

The West is not alone in these disturbing trends. As market expansion has spread economic growth to the rest of the world, similar results have been found for transitional economies, resulting in what some economists are calling the “paradox of unhappy growth.”6

How can Kuyper help us explain the paradox of the contemporary global economy? On the one hand, he would not have been surprised by the benefits of globalization, and he would have been particularly delighted by its impacts on poverty. Unlike many who have viewed the marketplace as outside God’s domain, Kuyper understood economic exchange, business, and technological progress to be rooted in the created order, making them intrinsically good gifts from our creator.7 Although Kuyper was not naïve about the cosmic scope of the fall, his belief in common grace recognized Jesus Christ as the creator, sustainer, and redeemer of the entire cosmos, including the economic domain (Col 1:15–20). In this light, Kuyper viewed business and economics not as something to avoid, but rather as one of many spheres in which human beings are to fulfill their calling to steward God’s creation.8

At the same time, Kuyper would not be at all surprised by the ills that characterize the current economic and social order. In fact, he predicted them. Although Kuyper believed in common grace, he also saw the cosmos as contested terrain in which King Jesus is in “mortal combat” with all would-be usurpers of his throne.9 This fundamental antithesis between warring kingdoms expresses itself in cultural endeavors, as human beings with differing worldviews shape culture in the image of the god they worship, however secular they may claim to be.10

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Kuyper believed the primary conflict in the West was between King Jesus and the god that had emerged from the French Revolution: the modern human being, an autonomous, rational, material creature whose flourishing depends solely on consumption.11 Kuyper saw this as a grotesque distortion of the true nature of human beings; as image bearers of the Triune God, they are inherently relational and only truly flourish when they are in deep communion with God, others, and the world.12

According to Kuyper, the elevation of human beings and their insatiable desire for material prosperity was having devastating impacts on individuals and society:

For the God of heaven is a God of compassion, but the money-god on earth is a god of boundless cruelty. Love of money abases you, dishonors you, robs you of spirit and backbone, and extinguishes in your soul the impulse for high and holy things. Money deprives you of your dignity, even when it gilds your life, your status, your position in society. It is not you that are rich, but it is money that makes you rich. If tomorrow your money is gone, gone is your glory. That is the lie that enters the world through love of money, corrupting everything. Since everything can be bought for money, the love of money won’t stop until it has corrupted everything—through family feuds, usury practices, theft and robbery, breach of trust and deception, and in the end through suicide. What a frightful contrast! Those who choose the Lord as their God receive all lasting good for eternity; but those who put their faith in the god of money are heading for all manner of sorrows. Poor century! This then is your glory, that you have unleashed love of money. You promised us freedom, yet you shackle us in the chains of contempt.13

Now fast-forward one hundred years. Despite its adamant claims to being morally neutral, the neoclassical school of thought that has come to dominate Western economics and business has an implicit ethical standard and a god that it is worshipping. Indeed, neoclassical economics takes it as given that the goal of economic life is to serve homo economicus, an autonomous, rational, material creature whose flourishing depends solely on its consumption.

As an increasing number of scholars are noting, the goal of serving homo economics has come to dominate the narratives, institutions, and practices of the global economy.14 Moreover, even noneconomic spheres are being shaped by the demands of homo economicus, including prisons, hospitals, libraries, schools, churches, and families.15

Of course, homo economicus is none other than the modern human being, the false god that Kuyper denounced over one hundred years ago. And as he predicted, this god would prove to be very cruel. For although the worship of homo economicus has resulted in unprecedented increases in economic growth and consumption, there is very strong reason to be believe that human beings are being transformed into the image of this horrible god.16 Indeed, there is considerable evidence that Americans have become more individualistic and materialistic throughout the postwar era, resulting in lower self-reported happiness, poorer interpersonal relationships, higher levels of anxiety and depression, greater antisocial behavior, and lower health.17 Moreover, there is evidence that globalization is spreading this deformation to other countries.18

At the start of this foreword I suggested that a key reason to read Kuyper’s works on economics and business is that he understood the paradoxes of the current global economy better than most of us do. As he was a social activist and prime minister, not merely a theologian-philosopher, we can observe how he moves between theory and practice. We can see how he wrestles with such nitty-gritty things as operating hours for bakeries, railroad strikes, the role of tariffs, and the plight of the poor. It provides an example of what it means to improvise faithfully the economy of the kingdom of God, which is slowly but surely replacing the kingdoms of this world. Homo economicus’s days are numbered. May we be found faithful when the one true King appears.

Brian Fikkert

Where does Kuyper fit in the dialogue between theologians, economists, and business? His world of the late nineteenth-century Netherlands was of course a very different one from ours. Theology and the church had authority and respect. Economics as an academic discipline was still taking shape and separating itself from theology—a process that was much more advanced in Britain than in continental Europe.19 Business and management disciplines did not yet exist.

Kuyper picks up some of the longstanding themes of Christian engagement with the world of economics. There is great concern about poverty, which is especially scandalous in the Christian community, and about the spiritual dangers of wealth. In his late nineteenth-century context, the “social question” raised by the advance of commercial society and international finance absorbed his attention, as it did that of many other Christian leaders. This was the context of Pope Leo XII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum and the development of modern Catholic social teaching. Peter Heslam and Jordan...