10 Perils of Prosperity

Fan though I am of the free market and economic development, it’s still important to remember we live in a fallen world. Here’s some good reminders of that from John Teevan on Acton PowerBlog. Take a look.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

So Why is Sustained Prosperity a Peril? Nearly everyone on earth prefers a life free from poverty and from the need to focus on survival. Call it liberty or call it comfort, everyone prefers this life. Now nearly 2b people enjoy that level of living thanks to the growth of economic freedom. But there are problems.

1. People think that nothing can go permanently wrong.
   
   Money cures everything and there is plenty of it and always will be. Period.


2. People think that all moral issues are irrelevant.
   
   Ask Miley Cyrus…the latest casualty who is also a Disney role model: see #9.


3. People think that they can afford anything and suddenly want everything.
   
   So the richest people on earth fuel their lives with even more debt financed stuff.


4. People are dissatisfied with life and find it boring. They are also ungrateful.
   
   Mental illness, substance abuse, and suicide are ever increasing.


5. People think that all who lived before their era were deficient or foolish.
   
   In olden days people had to work hard, be moral, and watch out…what idiots!


6. People think that it is not necessary to learn, work, or stick to it to have a comfortable life.
   
   If I get a job I like, fine, otherwise I’ll just move back home with my folks. Big deal.


7. Governments believe the economy can be taxed to pay for any government program.
   
   If the rich just paid their fair share we’d all have comfortable incomes; spread it around.


8. People forget what a life of discomfort was like and are ‘spoiled’.
   
   OK, I broke the blender, but the jerks at Walmart wouldn’t take it back.


9. People adopt a new value system that is narcissistic and worships the self.
   
   How can I go to work today? It’s my birthday. All drama–all the time, for many.


10. Governments believe that the welfare state is the only compassionate use of such prosperity.
    
    Even a single dollar of reduction of social security will leave grandma out in the cold.

We must be very careful of prosperity. It has a way of deluding us into thinking that we can afford anything and that we can absorb any shock. For seven decades this has been true. But now we have changed our thinking and our planning and our savings as we ignore the possibility of real economic disaster: Beware.

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What’s caught my eye…: “Job Gentrification”

As wages go up, workers with greater skill, human capital, and experience start to compete for these jobs, and, being better workers, they will beat out the kind of workers who are currently getting Walmart jobs. Call this phenomenon job gentrification. If Walmart increases its wage significantly, this will be very good for the people who end up working at Walmart. But that doesn’t mean it will be good for the kind of people who currently are getting the low-paying jobs at Walmart.

Read the rest here.

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What’s caught my eye…

From Pastor Douglas Wilson comes this…

One last thing. I would like to address a few words to those evangelicals who have been seduced by leftist economics, or who are in some way flirting with leftist economics. You may have cannonballed into the deep end, like Jim Wallis, or you may just be sidling sheepishly in that direction, with some cover provided by distributist literature. You think that the language of compassion is more biblical, and the idea of communitarian sharing makes you feel warm all over. You think that businessmen who know how to add and subtract are those who are in the grip of mammon-lust. You don’t like the hard lines of clear thinking, and the blinking sums on their calculators do nothing but harsh your mellow.

Do me a favor, and look at Detroit. Look at the failure of all the compassionate nostrums. Look at the collapse of real integrity. Look at the grasping and demented idiocy of the unions. Look at the abandonment of government’s true functions. Look at the wreckage of human lives. Look at the ruin of a once great city. Look at what aching greedlust does. Behold the handiwork of your compassion.

Look at what mammon in sheep’s clothing can do.

Read the rest here.

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What’s caught my eye…

From Pastor Douglas Wilson comes this…

One last thing. I would like to address a few words to those evangelicals who have been seduced by leftist economics, or who are in some way flirting with leftist economics. You may have cannonballed into the deep end, like Jim Wallis, or you may just be sidling sheepishly in that direction, with some cover provided by distributist literature. You think that the language of compassion is more biblical, and the idea of communitarian sharing makes you feel warm all over. You think that businessmen who know how to add and subtract are those who are in the grip of mammon-lust. You don’t like the hard lines of clear thinking, and the blinking sums on their calculators do nothing but harsh your mellow.

Do me a favor, and look at Detroit. Look at the failure of all the compassionate nostrums. Look at the collapse of real integrity. Look at the grasping and demented idiocy of the unions. Look at the abandonment of government’s true functions. Look at the wreckage of human lives. Look at the ruin of a once great city. Look at what aching greedlust does. Behold the handiwork of your compassion.

Look at what mammon in sheep’s clothing can do.

Read the rest here.

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Honorable Work

Does work matter? Yes and for more than purely pragmatic reasons. Take a look:

In honorable work we produce not only products for bodily consumption but virtue, heavenly treasure, for our souls. In our distribution, that is, in the purpose for which we exchange the products or wages of our work, we broaden our interests to include the common good and the kingdom of God, especially hope for those who live in darkness. And in our exchanges themselves we remember that the goal is mutual benefit and service, shunning the immorality of monopolistic, one-sided, and anti-competitive advantage, remembering that the commandment, “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15), has broader implications than literal burglary.

Now go read the rest here.

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