Why do we need money?

The Greek Philosopher and scientist Aristotle explained in his Politics in c 330BC why money had been invented. The art of acquisition, he said, for which a currency was required, arose out of the simpler barter of goods, and he saw this as quite natural and healthy. But when ‘The supply of men’s needs came to depend on more foreign sources, as men began to import for themselves what they lacked, and to export what they had in superabundance: …in this way the use of a money currency was inevitably instituted,’he wrote.
But Aristotle made the distinction, between essential and therefore laudable expenditure for the daily needs of food, shelter and clothing, and the acquisition of money for acquisition’s sake by profit associated with retail trade. The latter he censured,

"because the gain in which it results is not naturally made, but is made at the expense of other men. The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which currency was meant to serve. Currency came into existence merely as a means of exchange; usury tries to make it increase."

Aristotle did not trust money because he could see that it could feed an insatiable desire way beyond what was necessary for our needs and he saw this as unethical.

In addition to life’s basic survival necessities of warmth, clean air, medicine, clean water, food and housing, all human beings worldwide have a need and a human right to be free, to be respected as equals, able to choose their own destiny and to fulfill their full emotional, intellectual and spiritual potential. We are all entitled to the five basic human justices, of monetary and social justice, economic and environmental justice and of the right to peace.

I believe that to really achieve such justice in our world we need to allow the healing qualities of compassion and vulnerability and spirituality to infuse our lives and our actions in our financial housekeeping.

In later posts I shall reflect further on this and on where and why our present economy is flawed. Meanwhile Rediscovering Values, by Jim Wallis, is a good place to start reading. (also mentioned in a previous blog).

© 2010 Eleanor Stoneham

Why we need the Sabbath

The Sabbath is a Quiet Antidote to Web Chatter.
This was the title of Jonathan Sacks’ column in last Saturday’s Times.

“The soul needs its silences,” he wrote, “in the midst of the web chatter and the electronic noise.” He was writing of the Jewish Sabbath, a time for putting technology aside, a time to spend with family, to focus on the important things in life, on relationships, building communities, strengthening marriages, giving parents and children, he writes, undistracted time with one another. Time that we tend to call “quality time.” And this time is becoming ever more precious, as we all become slaves to Twitter, Facebook, E Mails, and all the other distractions we face every day.


But it is not just technology we need a break from. Mass consumerism is equally insidious, with its effects on our planet, our pockets, our sanity.

Last Sunday we went to have lunch with some of our family in London. We would have gone by train, but we drove because we needed to pick up some heavy and bulky essential DIY materials at one of those huge stores in a shopping mall on the way.
We had started the day by going to our early Eucharist service in the local church: essential nourishment for the soul. But my peaceful state of mind was soon shattered by the sheer awfulness of the frenetic shopping we experienced all around us when we entered the store. And I was reminded of another weekend, a half term weekend many years ago when our boys were still young.
It was a rain soaked Sunday, and we had the misfortune to visit another large shopping mall outside town to return some goods and get our money back.
All those years ago the elder of our two boys was in a religious studies lesson at school. They were discussing Sunday Trading. “It is just wrong,” he said. No reason was needed – it was simply wrong!
Ever since it was introduced I have abhorred Sunday trading, and actually I also loathe those big soulless monuments or temples to consumerism and materialism we call superstores and shopping malls. But as I said we needed to change something and thought we could save gas by calling in on our way to visit a local house and garden of historic interest with the kids. Again, I had completed my morning duties at the Sunday service in our local parish church. This trip to the shop was meant to be incidental only, en route to our traditional Sunday afternoon family excursion, this time to Down House, the country home of Charles Darwin for the last 40 years of his life until he died in 1882.
Now I realize that for many Christians who like me abhor Sunday trading the mention of Darwin and his views on evolution may itself open up a fairly passionate discussion about The Origin of the Species and his theories of Natural Selection. I’ll take that risk, but that isn’t the point of this story.
The car parks around the superstore were practically gridlocked, cars jostling for the scarce, almost nonexistent empty parking spaces, tempers were frayed, and families with their children were pouring into and out of the store, those on the outward home bound journey pushing trolleys loaded high with consumable goods. There were several thousand cars there, with perhaps 3 or 4 or more in each car. The arithmetic is simple and the disquieting effect on my previous feeling of spiritual calm was very real!
The damage to the environment inflicted through our collective behaviours around that one store on that one day must have been colossal. It doesn’t bear contemplation to multiply the effect by the number of other similar stores around the country presumably displaying the same patterns of greed and consumerism! These places have become for many the new religion, shopping malls replacing the church as the Sunday venue of first choice.
At least I was trying to economise that day and avoid two car trips where one could suffice; and our shopping trip was intended to be fleeting! And my sense of spiritual uplift and sustenance nourished by the liturgy and Christian fellowship of the morning’s church service, was in no real danger of being permanently destroyed by that retail experience. But let’s consider the shoppers themselves. For how many was this outing their main Sunday family entertainment? Next weekend how many of those same families will be burdening our already overflowing landfill sites with the goods displaced by their latest retail bonanza? What sort of long term satisfaction do they obtain from their shopping frenzy, from their obsessive accumulation of material goods? Such behaviour is simply not healthy or sustainable and certainly does not make for any lasting and real happiness. On the other hand, as soon as we could we escaped the gridlock and the obvious tempers and aggressions of many of the trapped drivers, and the onward drive to Down House, not more than a few miles away, took us through some of the most beautiful autumnal colours in the Kent country lanes, a spiritual joy to behold, and food for the soul. How sad therefore that during that whole day, a half term weekend, we were informed by the staff that Darwin’s house, with all its interest and artefacts, its gardens and greenhouses, and brilliant exhibits of his life and work, with plenty of child friendly diversions and so close to the conurbation that is Greater London, had been visited by only an estimated 150 people! Yes, 150 people in the whole day!
I have been reading again the book by Jim Wallis, Rediscovering Values – on Wall Street, Main Street and Your Street. Part Two, How We Got Here, writes of our culture of greed, not need, of self- interest without the restraint of ethics, of it being “all about me,” of mass consumption and consumerism being a part of the American identity (and it is no different in Britain I can assure you). He explains how such behaviour has brought us to where we now find ourselves, struggling out of the Great Recession.
He writes of the loss of values within our modern economy and suggests that the financial Market, with a capital M, is our “idol of ultimate allegiance,” the modern day equivalent of the Golden Calf that Moses found being worshipped when he came down from Mt Sinai with his Tablets. He argues that the market, without the capital letter, must serve us, not the other way around. The first commandment of The Market, he writes, is “There is never enough.” This, he emphasizes, must be replaced by “the dictum of God’s economy; namely, there is enough if we share it.”
This book is a call to us all to rediscover values in our lives, as individuals and together, to work for an economy that is for the “common good,” not just for Me. This book has a strong and sound message for us all.

Whatever our faith, or none, how about we all set aside one day of "quality time" at the weekend with our families as a quiet antidote to the chatter and noise of technology and consumerism.

Roots and walls and the Great Recession

There are two primary spiritual responses to what in America is being called the Great Recession; to build walls around us, out of the weakness of fear, or to put down roots to give us strength and hope. So writes Tim King, assistant to Jim Wallis, in Jim's book Rediscovering Values: on Wall Street, Main Street and Your Street (A Moral Compass for the New Economy). The former response of fear comes from the "Greed is good, it's all about me," "I want it now" camp. Too scared to share, too scared to show vulnerability, these people build ever bigger walls around themselves and their ever more "valuable" assets, trying to buy security and happiness. but of course it won't work in the long run.

On the other hand, we can have hope, and grow roots to give us the strength to live by the maxim that enough is enough, we're in this together, and we will look after the interests of the generations coming after us. Roots dig under the surface, reach to the source, give us the strength to meet the challenges ahead - with such a sound source of strength we are not afraid to share, not afraid to be vulnerable, and we can make the world a much fairer and better place.
This is a good book. Even though it is primarily written for the American reader it is just as relevant and accessible for any English speaking audience - the recession has after all been global. But all will be wasted if we don't use this opportunity to change things - don't just go back to the same economic and spiritless behaviour that got us in this mess in the first place. We need real change of heart and mind, and we need spirituality. Tim King recalls the sound wisdom of sharing so that all may have enough, passed down from his great grandmother to his grandmother. I am reminded of an even older wisdom in a passage in Alastair McIntosh' wonderful book Soil and Soul:

McIntosh recalls how Tom Forsyth, a crofter from the Scottish West Highland community of Scoraig, would say: ‘it’s not good enough to do your community-development only at the grass roots. So much of the grassroots are just at the level of spectator sport, television, cigarettes, drink and consumer culture. No, you’ve got to get down to the taproots…that are rooted in the ‘ancient spiritual bedrock.’’ This is where change has to start.
Amen

Rediscovering Values

This half term week reminds me of another half term; it must have been many years ago - my boys are now young adults. It was a rain soaked Sunday, and we had the misfortune to visit a large shopping mall outside town to return some goods to one of those internationally known super stores.

All those years ago the elder of our two boys was in a religious studies lesson at school. They were discussing Sunday Trading. “It is just wrong,” he said. No reason was needed – it was simply wrong!

Ever since it was introduced I have abhorred Sunday trading, and actually I also loathe those big soulless monuments or temples to consumerism and materialism we call superstores and shopping malls. But as I said we needed to change something and thought we could save petrol by calling in on our way to visit a local house and garden of historic interest with the kids. I had completed my morning duties at the Sunday service in our local parish church. This trip to the shop was meant to be incidental only, en route to our traditional Sunday afternoon family excursion, this time to Down House, the country home of Charles Darwin for the last 40 years of his life until he died in 1882.

Now I realize that for many Christians who like me abhor Sunday trading the mention of Darwin and his views on evolution may itself open up a fairly passionate discussion about The Origin of the Species and his theories of Evolution and Natural Selection. I’ll take that risk, but that isn’t the point of this story.

The car parks around the superstore were practically gridlocked, cars jostling for the scarce, almost nonexistent empty parking spaces, and families with their children were pouring into and out of the store, those on the outward home bound journey pushing trolleys loaded high with consumable goods. There were several thousand cars there, with perhaps 3 or 4 or more in each car. The arithmetic is simple and the disquieting effect on my previous feeling of spiritual calm was very real!

The damage to the environment inflicted through our collective behaviours around that one store on that one day must have been colossal. It doesn’t bear contemplation to multiply the effect by the number of other similar stores around the country presumably displaying the same patterns of greed and consumerism! These places have become for many the new religion, shopping malls replacing the church as the Sunday venue of first choice.

At least I was trying to economise that day and avoid two car trips where one could suffice; and our shopping trip was intended to be fleeting!

A Fragile Economic Recovery

"When the last tree is cut, the last river poisoned, and the last fish dead, we will discover that we can't eat money..." (words on a Greenpeace banner)

 I am reading Jim Wallis’ latest book, Rediscovering Values – On Wall Street, Main Street and Your Street (A Moral Compass for the New Economy) and I was reminded of an article I wrote back in 2008 – and thought it was worth repeating – a little updated.

Do let me have your views.

I wrote this as global stock markets were in turmoil, rocked by the credit crunch and the banking crisis. Whilst stock markets may be a little stabilized, the situation is still clearly fragile. And many still feel the recession gnawing at their financially precarious lives, whilst bankers yet again take huge bonuses. Isn’t more of the same sort of economy just going to get us in the same mess again later? Is this not another warning to us all about the non-sustainability of our economic policies as fuelled by our individual behaviour?

The predominant "free market" system of finance capitalism that operates in the world today is perhaps not what it seems. Many believe that it is seriously flawed. It relies on the creation of fiat money by the banks and a crippling compound interest loan system. It does not value the person, it is fuelled by profit motivation, and it ignores the ancient wisdom of the Old Testament land and debt laws at its peril. It contributes to the malaise of the world, both internationally and at local and national level, by fuelling injustices, increasing the rich/poor divide, failing to protect the environment and helping to destroy probably the most important contribution to trust and security and happiness once a basic standard of living has been achieved – sound personal relationships at family and community level. Strong words I know, and maybe controversial!

But pause and think. Would we as individuals eat everything in our own fridge and leave our elderly and young, our disabled and disadvantaged, all those living under our same roof, without any food and care? Of course not! But that is what we are doing. Because that is the reality of the world today. It is one global household, and we should behave accordingly.
We have to find ways to live more sustainable lives in a world where we can be sure that our good fortune is shared, where everyone has their basic human needs met, where both extremes of wealth and poverty become history.

We have lost our simple values, the art of love and respect and reverence for all living beings, animal and plant and human, the ability to understand ourselves as being part of a finely balanced world wide ecosystem, that together with the Earth we live on, we call Gaia. The economy of the world has to mimic the natural world and be totally cyclical and sustainable and environmentally sound. In nature everything is recycled – everything has a further use. Only if we behave with full understanding of our place within the living world, and build our economy accordingly – build it on principles of sustainability and justice for all – I believe that only then can we hope to heal this fractured world.


So what can we do?


We must support any initiatives that help people get back on their feet. We should support genuine Fair-trade, Traid-craft and other similar schemes wherever we can. We should curb our over consumption and wasteful behaviour, and use local charity shops, the Internet Freecycle facility and our recycling facilities wherever possible.


And we can and must fight to bring ethical trading in from the bottom up – enquire where our goods are produced and in what conditions - eschew all cheap goods where we know that unethical working practices are present. If the information is not available, demand it.

Be responsible shareholders, employees, employers and consumers. Many of us will own stocks and shares in some way, even perhaps without realising it in our pension funds. Some of these shares may well be in companies that operate unethical work practices, deal in weapons, or otherwise demonstrate behaviours that we would not support or condone in our own families. Look for ethical investments before profit motivation and ensure that any financial advisers know your views.
As Employees, Board Members, Non Executive Directors, Trustees, do we take a stand, perhaps against strong opposition, for that which we know to be right? Or do we allow practices to persist that we are uncomfortable with? Do we know what our employer really does – not just at the superficial level of our daily employment – but also at grass roots? Are we absolutely comfortable with its trading practices, its markets, its environmental footprint?
And if not, what are we doing about it?

It may often seem that the individual does not have a voice. But we can have our say – we can influence others – it needs knowledge and courage, and the support of other like-minded people.

And we should all give our support to any movements that are working towards a fairer, safer and happier world for all. Visit for example the website of The Global Justice Movement and support its aims. "Global justice grows from within. It starts with endogenous money and ends with peace."


Finally remember the parables of Jesus in Luke Chapter 12. Do not store up surplus for the future, do not worry about how you will be fed and clothed. In the words of the well-known hymn by Karen Lafferty, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you, allelu, aleluia." This is not saying that we should not work to feed and clothe ourselves, but it is warning us of the dangers of materialism and all that this implies in our world.


This really only scratches the surface of a huge topic – let's have your views.


Eleanor