What role does local community play in our pursuit of doing business as Christians?
A community economy is not an economy in which well-placed persons can make a 'killing'. It is an economy whose aim is generosity and a well-distributed and safeguarded abundance. -- Wendell Berry
In our last discussion it was noted that "Jesus did not teach economies of scale. He taught intimacy and community." I have to agree with this. Before we start going off on the benefits of economies of scale and free market capitalism we need to start with where we are--literally--with place. We all find ourselves in local communities in which we are most likely mediocre participants. We think globally, buy globally, and work globally at the cost of disintegrating what is local. In fact, I would argue that we cannot see ourselves as members of a global community until we see ourselves as members of a local community. The implications for this are widespread as we go about discerning what it means to do business as a Christian.
We are all part of a community, but the difference between local and global cannot be understated. We are all connected in business but the more global, the more "economies of scale" we become, the more we lose sight of those connections with real people. Take, for example, coffee. Coffee farmers are often paid market price for their crops without concern to the well-being of the farmer. The wages these farmers make are often not enough to provide the basic needs for their families but we're OK with that because: 1) we get cheaper coffee and, 2) we don't actually know the men, women, and children bearing the brunt of this global model. Galatians 5:13-15 says, "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another."
How can we practice "love your neighbor as yourself" (also in Leviticus 19:13-18, Matthew 22:36-40, Mark 12:29-31, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:8-10, James 2:8) in business?
Wendell Berry has described 17 rules for the preservations of local communities and economies which I would like to make the topic of discussion. I have taken this from his article entitled Conserving Communities, which you can read by following the link.
To find out more about Wendell Berry in order to have a better idea of where he is coming from this article and this webpage should be a good start. I also want to say that he is a committed Christian. Everything he says comes from a worldview that is distinctively shaped by the scriptures and a devotion to Jesus. So I urge you to read carefully some of the words from, as Eugene Peterson describes, "One of our country's wisest guides."
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...We must ask how a sustainable local community (which is to say a sustainable local economy) might function. I am going to suggest a set of rules that I think such a community would have to follow. And I hasten to say that I do not consider these rules to be predictions; I am not interested in foretelling the future. If these rules have any validity, that is because they apply now.
If the members of a local community want their community to cohere, to flourish, and to last, these are some things they would do:
Discuss away...
In our last discussion it was noted that "Jesus did not teach economies of scale. He taught intimacy and community." I have to agree with this. Before we start going off on the benefits of economies of scale and free market capitalism we need to start with where we are--literally--with place. We all find ourselves in local communities in which we are most likely mediocre participants. We think globally, buy globally, and work globally at the cost of disintegrating what is local. In fact, I would argue that we cannot see ourselves as members of a global community until we see ourselves as members of a local community. The implications for this are widespread as we go about discerning what it means to do business as a Christian.
We are all part of a community, but the difference between local and global cannot be understated. We are all connected in business but the more global, the more "economies of scale" we become, the more we lose sight of those connections with real people. Take, for example, coffee. Coffee farmers are often paid market price for their crops without concern to the well-being of the farmer. The wages these farmers make are often not enough to provide the basic needs for their families but we're OK with that because: 1) we get cheaper coffee and, 2) we don't actually know the men, women, and children bearing the brunt of this global model. Galatians 5:13-15 says, "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another."
How can we practice "love your neighbor as yourself" (also in Leviticus 19:13-18, Matthew 22:36-40, Mark 12:29-31, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:8-10, James 2:8) in business?
Wendell Berry has described 17 rules for the preservations of local communities and economies which I would like to make the topic of discussion. I have taken this from his article entitled Conserving Communities, which you can read by following the link.
To find out more about Wendell Berry in order to have a better idea of where he is coming from this article and this webpage should be a good start. I also want to say that he is a committed Christian. Everything he says comes from a worldview that is distinctively shaped by the scriptures and a devotion to Jesus. So I urge you to read carefully some of the words from, as Eugene Peterson describes, "One of our country's wisest guides."
---------------------------------------
...We must ask how a sustainable local community (which is to say a sustainable local economy) might function. I am going to suggest a set of rules that I think such a community would have to follow. And I hasten to say that I do not consider these rules to be predictions; I am not interested in foretelling the future. If these rules have any validity, that is because they apply now.
If the members of a local community want their community to cohere, to flourish, and to last, these are some things they would do:
- Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: What will this do to our community? How will this affect our common wealth.
- Always include local nature - the land, the water, the air, the native creatures - within the membership of the community.
- Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbours.
- Always supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting products - first to nearby cities, then to others).
- Understand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of 'labour saving' if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or contamination.
- Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of national or global economy.
- Develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local farm and/or forest economy.
- Strive to supply as much of the community's own energy as possible.
- Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community for as long as possible before they are paid out.
- Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community and decrease expenditures outside the community.
- Make the community able to invest in itself by maintaining its properties, keeping itself clean (without dirtying some other place), caring for its old people, and teaching its children.
- See that the old and young take care of one another. The young must learn from the old, not necessarily, and not always in school. There must be no institutionalised childcare and no homes for the aged. The community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young.
- Account for costs now conventionally hidden or externalised. Whenever possible, these must be debited against monetary income.
- Looks into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded loan programmes, systems of barter, and the like.
- Always be aware of the economic value of neighbourly acts. In our time, the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighbourhood, which leaves people to face their calamities alone.
- A rural community should always be acquainted and interconnected with community-minded people in nearby towns and cities.
- A sustainable rural economy will depend on urban consumers loyal to local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive.
Discuss away...
posted by The Dude at 1:11 PM
7 Comments:
Where does the Bible say that economies of scale cannot be intimate or develop a community? Are you saying Wal-Mart is sinful?
Isn't there a way to radically think within the modern global economy without shutting down efficiency for the sake of "community"?
Hey Craig,
In response to your comments, let me start by saying you bring up some good questions. I will do my best to answer your questions.
1) Where in the Bible does it say that economies of scale cannot be intimate or develop a community?
Answer: It doesn't. But the bible also does speak directly to most of the issues that you and I would think are important today. Thoughtful Christians over the last 2000 years have had to interpret the scriptures and think through hard issues and come up with Christian responses to them. Nuclear war, abortion, art, the Trinity, care of the Earth. None of these things are actually spelled out in scripture. It is through examining the scriptures in which we come to conclusions about what we think is right and good and in line with the Kingdom of God.
2) Are you saying Wal-Mart is sinful?
Answer: I don't think this was said anywhere. I will say that my personal opinion of Wal-Mart is that it destroys local community for the sake of low costs, high product choice, and high margins.
3) Isn't there a way to radically think within the modern global economy without shutting down efficiency for the sake of "community"?
Answer: I would pose the question back to you, "Is there a way to radically think within the modern global economy without shutting down community for the sake of "efficiency"? I think that 'radically' rethinking this issue would begin with questioning whether the model we are currently working with is viable. Not to say that it is not but we must be open to that possiblity.
Let me bring us back to Wendell Berry. On the local and global economies he has this to say:
Today, local economies are being destroyed by the 'pluralistic,' displaced, global economy, which has no respect for what works in a locality. The global economy is built on the principle that one place can be exploited, even destroyed, for the sake of another place.
I will point you to another article by Berry originally published in the book, Sex, Ecomony, Freedom, and Community.
http://www.crosscurrents.org/berry.htm
Please feel free to respond to any of this.
"Is Wal-Mart sinful?" I think it's tough to characterize any organization as sinful as it is comprised of individuals but I would say yes, I think those individuals have made many decisions that are sinful.
Wal-Mart exists to make money. To that end, there are a couple of classic models: high profit, low volume or low profit, high volume. The have clearly chosen the latter. In fact, almost all of the growth Wal-Mart has enjoyed over the past few years has been from opening new stores. They are not winning more customers or realizing higher margins in their existing stores, so they have to continue opening more and more locations to grow. This is not a sustainable model.
Wal-Mart is a great example of economes of scale at work. Some of the real-life consequences of this model are:
1) Loss of local business -- the mom & pop general store where the owners know your name no longer exists because of intentional practices employed by Wal-Mart (including real estate manuevering and setting prices below cost for individual stores because the chain can bear the expense until the local competitor is gone).
2) Loss of culture -- with the loss of local business comes the loss of unique, local culture as Wal-Mart introduces a standardized product line across its ~4,000 US stores (although they are trying to change this). In response to the concerns in #1 & 2, many cities and states have passed "big box" restrictions to keep Wal-Mart from moving into their communities.
3) Employees -- with 1.8 million employees globally, it is impossible for Wal-Mart to make decisions about their employees as individuals; they are viewed as a cost-center or, at best, an asset. But not as brothers and sisters. If Wal-Mart truly cared about their employees more than they did about profit, these stats wouldn't be true: 48% of employees are covered by company health insurance, part-time workers must wait for 2 years before becoming eligible for insurance, and as a result, turnover is 50%. In response to these statistics (and the resulting burden on the state to cover these health care expenses), many states have passed laws setting minimum health care coverage standards.
4) Suppliers -- Wal-Mart is famous for its ruthless dealings with suppliers. They will do anything to drive cost out of the supply chain to enable their low price strategy. In sourcing many of their products abroad at the lowest possible cost without regard to the well-being of the workers in that country, Wal-Mart is exemplifying what Wendell Berry said about global business: it "is built on the principle that one place can be exploited, even destroyed, for the sake of another place."
I could go on and on, but the bottom line (pun intended) is this: as soon as the focus shifts to money, it ceases to be on the greatest commandments -- love God and love your neighbor. Economies of scale exist for efficiency's sake. And love is rarely efficient (1 Corinthians 13).
My problem is figuring out how this applies practically...I just got back from buying our groceries at the Neighborhood Wal-Mart down the street.
One thought (and I think this is a "radical" idea with our modern global economy) is a concept I call "community globalization." The basic concept would be to take advantage of the cost-effectiveness of global production without exploitation. An example would be a local coffee shop sourcing all of its beans from one farm in Guatemala. The employees and patrons of the coffee shop (the local community) would essentially adopt the Guatemalan community -- they would come to know and love the Guatemalans, helping them to develop a sustainable economy thereby addressing both their physical ("teach a man to fish") needs and their spiritual needs (sending missionaries to their community).
Richardig,
I appreciated your comments as well. You use the word 'successful' a few times. May I ask what you mean by that word? I only ask that because, as related to the other comments above, I think we tend to overemphasize and mis-define words like 'success' and 'efficiency'. What does a 'successful' Christian business look like? Is it one that succeeds monetarily by increasing shareholder wealth, or is there some other criteria we should be using? What goals should Christian businessmen(and women) have?
To take this one step further, how do you define a successful church? That is a hard one for me. All i know is that there is much more too it than high membership numbers and a big budget. I hope this can help us think through how we define 'success'. Any thoughts?
Matthew,
In light of all the bad things that Wal-Mart (and other economies of scale businesses) has done to destroy local cultures and hurt community building, what should be the Christian response to Wal-Mart? Like it or hate it, Wal-Mart is not going anywhere any time soon. Does that mean we stop buying from there, refuse to work there, protest, or something else? Since the reality is that the business world we live in is based on economies of scale, would it be more radical (and realistic) to work one's way to the top of Wal-Mart and make changes from there?
Craig,
Great questions. If I knew the right Christian response to a Wal-Mart business world, I could stop being such a hypocrite. But that is one of the primary reasons for this blog -- for all of us to talk about these issues and maybe figure out what God is calling each of us to do.
I do have some thoughts about your questions, though, so maybe this will jog ideas in someone else who can tell us the solution.
I believe you are essentially asking "How can we as Christians affect change in today's business world?" My opinion (and I would be very interested to hear what the dudes in ministry have to say about this) is that change must happen on both a macro and a micro level. The environment (macro) must change to the point that individual change is possible. But personally, I don't think macro change is our problem. I think the problem is us (micro). To change the world, we don't need people who can spread a message thin to affect surface level behavior modification in thousands. We need to examine our own hearts and engage the few men around us on a very deep level. Too often we skip past so many things in our own hearts and wonder why the world is not changing around us. Change has to come heart by heart and it has to start with us.
So to try to answer your question specifically about Wal-Mart, I think we have three options for change:
1) Internal -- we can "work our way up," praying daily for the strength to resist the temptations of doing business for money's sake and for increased responsibility so as to affect change. But I have one major objection to this approach: it requires compromise. It would be an "ends justify the means" approach. I am living that approach in my job right now and it drives me crazy every day. If worked for Wal-Mart and hoped to climb their ladder, I would compromise my beliefs every day that I contributed to the business practices I outlined in my previous comments. And in the end, the best I could hope for with better business practices is to affect some kind of physical, surface-level change...behavior modification, not redeemed hearts. The best way to illustrate what I'm trying to say may be this: Jesus never went with Zaccheus on his rounds to rip people off. He met him where he was and called him out of that deceptive business practice. Jesus hung out with sinners, but He did it through conversation over dinner, not by engaging in sinful business.
2) External (macro), indirect influence -- I don't think macro change is bad, I just think it's ineffective if not coupled with changed hearts. As individual men reading this, we can participate in macro change by doing some of the things you mentioned: protests, boycotts, lobbying city/state governments for intervention, etc. But, again, to use the analogy Jesus so often uses when talking about redemption -- this is just plowing the field, turning the soil that a seed might take root. It's necessary but not enough.
3) Create a competitor -- change the game from the outside by providing other, Godly options to consumers and employees. We can stop shopping at Wal-Mart but without a good alternative, we will simply exchange one mass merchandiser for another. I think the purpose of business, and our lives, is to know Jesus and make Him known. If even one business truly operated this way, I think astounding change would be possible...I just don't know how to get that started without money...ah, irony.
OK, one last thought: Jesus hung with about 120 people of which He was tight with about 72 of which He walked daily with 12 of which 3 were His boys. He went deeper and deeper with fewer and fewer. And those men changed the entire world. How? Because they were so committed that they would (and did) die for their ideals. I'm afraid of my co-workers thinking I'm strange. I think we have to fight three battles: 1) defining those ideals, 2) examining our hearts to see what's holding us back, and 3) finding a group of men to do it with.
"It is not that the Christians are not where they should be, the problem is that they are not what they should be right where they are." -- Os Guinness
To add on to Matt's comment. His last point, "Create a Competitor" (which I would call "Create an Alternative") hits on what I think to be one of the most important ideas in Christianity facing us today.
The church [is] called to be a colony, an alternative community, a sign, a signal to the world that Christ has made possible a new way of life together unlike anything the world had ever seen. - Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon, Resident Aliens
and this,
I don't mean to say, of course, that all corporate executives and stockholders are bad people. I am only saying that all of them are very seriously implicated in a bad economy. Wendell Berry
I am seriously implicated in a bad economy. I can either say that it is 'inevitable' and there is nothing we can do, or I can open up to the possiblity that God desires us to live differently. What the church is about is about creating an alternative to the destructive options we have today.
Many times that might mean working within the system for redemption. Many times that will mean that we must discard what we are working with in order to imagine and create some new way of doing things.
But we must use our imaginations.
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