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A Sane Economy Is A Compassionate Economy

Address by Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane at the South African New Economics Foundation, 25th June 2002

My predecessor, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, once famously said: "I am puzzled about which Bible people are reading when they say that politics and religion don't mix". Perhaps I may extend the analogy to economics. Economics is about the way that resources are produced and divided between people; in other words how people relate to each other over income and wealth. Who makes what and who consumes what. What could be closer to the subject matter of religion?

From the Jewish Prophets of the Old Testament to the teaching of Jesus Christ, from the injunctions of the Prophet Mohammed to the teachings of the Hindu and Buddhist leaders ­ all these religious teachers have put economics at the heart of the way people should relate to each other and to God. If you take the subject of money and its division between people out of the Bible, it would be a very thin document.

In the Bible, for instance, there are several thousand verses about wealth and poverty. In the New Testament one in sixteen verses is about poverty; in Luke it is one in seven. Wealth and poverty ­ that is, economics ­ is the second key topic in the Old Testament after idolatry, And many of us would recognise that the pursuit of money is itself a form of idolatry.

I am very happy therefore to be a Patron of the SANE Foundation. We urgently need new thinking about economics in our country. We achieved our liberation from apartheid politics just when the world economic system seemed to be most damaging to the wider aspirations of our people. Political liberation must be accompanied by economic participation if it is to mean anything. It was what we were expecting to happen throughout the struggle years, even though we knew it would not be easy.

What we did not predict was the impact that the world system of trade and capital movements would have on the ability of our own widely supported government to move towards equality of income ­ closing the gap between the wealthy and the poor.

Indeed, as we know, in some respects it has got worse. Despite the improvement in housing, and access to electricity and water and education and health care in remote areas, which have been achieved in a remarkably short time ­ many people are poorer. That is because unemployment has risen from previously high levels to even higher ones. If people don't have income, if whole areas are cashless, if whole communities are destitute, then access to services is almost useless. Especially if, as seems to be the present practice, they are expected to pay ­ even for services that used to be free, like water.

Obviously we have to direct our efforts to achieve change to our own government. But we also ought to accept that the government operates in a world system, which is doing the same kind of damage everywhere. The three richest men own more than the twenty poorest countries. In the United States the average pay of a Chief Executive Officer is 519 times the pay of the average American worker. So we are not talking about inequality and poverty in South Africa, or Africa, alone. It is a world phenomenon; and therefore one that our government has been sucked into pretty well willy-nilly.

So in a sense SANE is at the South African cutting edge of a world movement to restore economic justice. SANE is not alone, of course. Across the world people are gathering to find new ways for wealth to be produced and distributed. Civil society, as well as groups within governments and oppositions are uniting in a global opposition to the global forces that produce poverty.

Which is a reminder that globalisation is not in itself good or bad. Some things obviously should be globalised. Cross-cultural understanding, travel, hospitality, knowledge, information ­ all these things enhance our lives; and no one would say isolation is a good thing in itself. And obviously some kinds of production must happen on a global scale, because not every country can produce its own ­ like minerals, ships and steelworks. And as I say international solidarity between poor people is a blessing.

These movements are spreading ideas about how to resist the damaging effects of the unfettered free trade in everything from shoes to textiles to apples ­ which have rendered so many of our people unemployed. Perhaps even more important they are exchanging ideas on new ways to make economies work for people. It is not only about going back to old ways of protecting employment. I know that SANE is busy researching and advocating new and benign forms of taxation to replace VAT and other taxes that damage people. And new ways to limit the damage done by speculative capital that comes in and out of countries, causing uncertainty and leaving havoc in its wake.

And, of course, new ways to distribute incomes. The real problem of modern economics is not production or productivity, as some would like to persuade us. Modern technology can produce as much or more of everything humanity needs, The question is how to get into the hands of unemployed people the means to buy that output. As technology replaces people it also diminishes the ability of people to buy what it produces.

That is one reason why the Basic Income Grant, or BIG, is being advocated world-wide. It is the most direct way to get buying power into the hands of people who have been displaced by the modern economy.

As everyone here know, a BIG is a grant given unconditionally to every citizen from cradle to grave. It is not means-tested so it doesn't eat up the time of an army of bureaucrats trying to establish who is entitled to what. And it doesn't involve the frustration and humiliation for poor people of trying to prove their need.

Above all, the BIG is a practical sign and application of a nation's compassion. A nation which determines to find the money for a BIG is declaring its solidarity with, and compassion for, people who are poor. It is saying that it is actually wrong and unacceptable for some people to have much, much more than they need, and others to suffer the cries of hungry children. It is saying that economics should be in the service of compassion and civilised values. It is saying that there is no intrinsic value in the accumulation of money and possessions; and that these are positively harmful to humanity's spirit if they coexist with poverty.

It would be a fine thing if our government were to become the first in the world to introduce a Basic Income Grant. Following the recommendations of the Taylor Committee on a Comprehensive Social Security System, the government is seriously considering how to implement a BIG. Many other governments are also being asked to do so. Wouldn't it be wonderful if South Africa were once again to give the lead ­ this time in the field of a new and civilised economics.

The truth is that economics is at the root of what we mean by "the Kingdom of God." In the Parables which Jesus used to try to convey to his followers what "the Kingdom of God" was like, he usually used everyday work and money situations. The man who hired workers for his vineyards, the planting and harvesting of seeds. And so on.

More than that economics is also linked to the kind of people a society produces. A compassionate economics produces compassionate people. A highly competitive economics can produce insecure, frightened people hoarding their possessions, or aggressive people who win at the expense of other people.

So this is a time for people of all faiths and none to focus on new ways for humanity to produce and distribute the abundance that God has given us. SANE has a prophetic voice, and it is a voice that needs to be widely heard in South Africa.



http://www.earthrights.net/docs/saneeconomy.html