The undiscussable assumption
Rule, James B.
FAITH & ECONOMICS: GROWTH AS ECONOMIC AXIOM
The undiscussable assumption JAMES B. RULE O NE MANIFESTATION of the rightward trend in American public life has been the decline in serious...
...Published by Winston Press...
...either we have it, or we don't...
...At the same time, however, the use in Christian ethics of the From Toward a Chrislian Ethic by Prentiss L. Pumberton and Daniel Rush Finn...
...Tlaese were the attacks on the values of materialism as the standard of private and public good--often launched by the young of precisely those strata which had devoted themselves most fully, and most successfully, to the gods of rising con- sumption standards...
...A topic of spirited debate in the 1960s and early 1970s, today the growth of the economy is a subject once again mired in economic clichds and socio-political ob- fuscation...
...Perhaps never before had material prosperity been subjected to systematic scorn by such a broad and articulate sector of Americans...
...Americans increasingly saw that the growth of industrial capacity had its ugly side, that what economists disregarded as "externalities" could amount to unusable rivers, unsightly countryside, real hazards to health, and other environmental atrocities...
...But the sixties brought some still more damning indict- ments...
...2. The only way of raising the economic level of the worst- off groups in society is by steps which make the best-off still better-off...
...More than that...
...Thoughtful believers have long ago ceased ignoring the social or natural sciences simply because they are "secular...
...Again, prosperity and economic growth were deeply implicated...
...Used with permission...
...Within the discipline of economics it is usually assumed that while economists as ordinary citizens have their own values and convictions, when they act as scientists they are only supposed to describe what is going on in the economy...
...the most the rest of us can hope for is to share --however modestly --in their gains...
...The differences in wealth and earnings between the most and least privileged Americans --extreme by the standards of many Western democracies --deserve critical public debate, no less than the national debt or policies for reducing interest rates...
...B ONALD REAGAN'S political successes have stemmed largely from his ability to convince people that the forces he represents may again start up the growth machine -- if only they are given full charge...
...If things really were this simple, life would be a lot easier...
...Americans seemed to be asking anxiously, "Will I get mine...
...The middle seventies brought something new...
...the only thing worth debating, it would seem, is whose policies are more likely to produce it...
...On the contrary, we need to reopen the question of what kind of growth we want and need...
...The growth machine faltered...
...It means looking critically at the distribution of benefits of economic growth throughout society...
...And finally, we need critical examination of the likely costs and benefits of different kinds of growth in terms of the world environment...
...People began to conceive of the earth's bounty as a zero-sum resource, and to view the limits of industrial expansion within fixed possibilities...
...Increasingly we hear that the 1980s resemble the 1950s --as Americans allegedly turn cautious, conservative, worried about their own and their children's futures, and above all narrowly materialistic in their personal aspirations...
...Copyright 1985, Prentiss L. Pemberton and Daniel Rush Finn...
...In- stead of debating how fast the world's poor countries could be propelled into the world of industrial development, some JAMES B. RULE teaches sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook...
...The fifties were a period of economic growth, with the incomes of most American families gradually rising to unprecedented heights...
...Along the way, Americans have all too willingly accepted the nostrum that a rising gross national product offers the only hope for a more decent life for those at the bottom of the social heap...
...Nowhere has this been more evident than in the presidential campaign...
...FAITH & ECONOMICS: GROWTH AS ECONOMIC AXIOM The undiscussable assumption JAMES B. RULE O NE MANIFESTATION of the rightward trend in American public life has been the decline in serious thinking about economic growth...
...Economic growth on the old pattern --growth on any terms, at any cost --is at most a palliative to the most profound hazards and conflicts or our age...
...as social scientists, they want to leave to others the choice about what to value...
...In short, we need to reject both the blanket scorn of growth and consumption of the sixties, and the mean-spirited, crudely materialistic thinking prevailing in the last few years...
...3. Hence the only important question is what policies will make the rich richer...
...We must again have growth --do what it takes, no questions asked...
...The unending flow of cheap oil, life-blood of an industrial economy, suddenly could no longer be as- sumed as a given...
...Increasingly aware of the pro- found failures of the Eastern European centrally-directed economies to ensure material well-being, people who should know better draw a crude and desperate conclusion: let us turn our economic affairs over to the most unreconstructed forces of private enterprise...
...We experienced the ravages of stagflation, that hybrid from the economic bestiary of two evil creatures which had never been expected to mate...
...If the economy is not going to produce more for everybody, what can I do to ensure that I, at least, will get a better-than- average cut...
...It is no more true today than it has ever been that a decent living for those at the bottom of the social heap must walt on the extravagant self-enrichment of those at the top...
...Most economists see themselves as providing descrip- tion, not prescription...
...Yet from the tenor of public debate, one might conclude that all these propositions were received wisdom...
...This is an ungenerous mood, and it is still with us...
...These problems turn not on questions of how much wealth will be ours and what is the most promis- ing way to get it, but of what kind of society we want to be and what kind of world we want to leave to our children...
...They are supposed to leave to others the use of that description in judging whether what is happening ought to go on...
...There is no reason to accept the stultifying either-or vision of growth presented above...
...The protest movements of the 1960s turned the values of the 1950s on their heads...
...At the personal level, material con- sumption was the key indicator of success and self-fulfillment...
...If we foster more growth, we will all be better off...
...Jnst as opponents of a more generous society have sought to convince us that gov- ernment programs to assist the poor have always been foredoomed, they would have us believe that only capitulation to the declared needs of big business can ensure economic well-being...
...FAITH & ECONOMICS- GETTING BEHIND THE CONCEPTS Economics & Chri s ti an v alu e s [TISS L. PEMBERTON NIEL RUSH FINN I T IS QUITE natural that in dealing with economic problems Christians should depend heavily on the discipline of economics for a description of the situation...
...The counter.culture, with varying de- grees of seriousness, demanded simpler, less ostentatious ways of life, and greater concern with the quality of non- material things...
...if not, we will lose ground...
...This means taking a hard look at different economic policies in terms of their capacity for generating employment, and the quality of the work and other social relations so generated...
...Now people con- fronted the prospects of zero-sum economic possibilities with a new sense that the era of virtually automatic economic growth might really be over...
...He is a co-author of The Politics of Privacy, and at work on a history of theories on civil violence...
...We must not simply assume that to have better pre-natal care we must accept acid rain, or that to find ways for the third world to feed itself we must accept the unlimited domination of agribusiness...
...I people began to worry whether the closed system of "space- ship Earth" could absorb the global expansion of industrial activity that planners were projecting...
...Among college students, interest in business careers plummeted...
...Disdain for economic growth and personal affluence promptly evaporated...
...Part of the attack came in ecological and technological terms...
...Simultane- ously, social critics raised questions about economic distribu-tion forgotten in more conservative eras...
...Appar- ently we have lost the ability to discriminate among kinds of economic growth and to reflect on the principles underlying distribution of the fruits of economic achievement...
...insights of economics is not so simple and straightforward as most economists believe...
...But the economist's usual understanding of the relation of economic science and human values runs into difficulties on two levels...
...And yet the 1960s were also a time of continuing real growth in the economy...
...At the most obvious level, a problem is posed by the fact that on a large number of important issues economists as scientists...
...Any skepticism about the basic premises of American political economy had to withstand what were seemingly self-evident lessons in the country's worldwide political and economic ascendance...
...consumption was held to be the root of all social evils rather than a source of well-being...
...These assumptions are so outrageously simplistic that perhaps no one would defend them in this form...
...These dreary conclusions are embodied in a lock-step series of assumptions: 1. That economic growth is of a piece...
...For both Reagan and Mondale --and before them, Hart --the primacy of growth has been an unquestioned goal...
...American economic prowess was seen as tan- tamount to a kind of divine favor that went along with new world responsibilities...
...Wouldn't we all have enough, people asked, if only the material bounty of Ameri- ca's incredible industrial capacities were shared more de' cently...
...All right, reserved...
...What people could take for granted, apparently, they felt safe in assailing...
Vol. 111 • November 1984 • No. 19
