Theology and Economics: Making Stewards of the Absolute Poor

The idea of steward (oikonomos, "household manager") means control over resources by a steward. It is not ultimate control. It is control subject to the will of the one who appointed the steward in the first place. But it is control that is relatively free from interference by other persons or entities. Otherwise, the steward can neither truly develop the resources entrusted nor be held accountable when there is failure. Let me highlight again that stewardship is not equated to our spending, consumption, or conservation of resources. This is a part of stewardship. Like the stewards in Jesus' parable about the talents, God expects a return on his investment with us. Let us not over-spiritualize this "return" to apply only to spiritual matters. Jesus said to love God with all our "strength," which better translates to everything we have at our disposal.

I wrote in an earlier post that the only two relationships we can have with material resources are stewards or forgoers. As stewards, we can be good stewards or bad stewards. The defining difference is the degree to which we handle the resources according to the desires of the one who entrusted the resources to us. Forgoers can be people like monks or nuns who devote themselves to some special purpose and choose to go without material resources. However, more typically, forgoers have been denied control of resources.

Some totalitarian governments insert themselves as the owner of all resources, and to the degree people own anything, they do so as stewards of the state, not as God's stewards. What is entrusted by the state can be withdrawn by the state. What is produced by individuals can be taken without justification. Individuals have no control or ownership and therefore are not truly stewards. Even softer forms of government control, like democratic socialism, create some of the same effects.

A similar situation is a society where there is rampant corruption and anarchy. Bribes, arbitrary decisions by authorities, and unclear property rights discourage risk-taking or long-term investment. This discourages any attempt by people to exercise their stewardship mandate because they have no reasonable assurance that they can get a fair price for the product of their labor. They simply work to get by from day to day.

Therefore, someone living in absolute poverty or a totalitarian society has been denied the opportunity to answer God's call to stewardship. The question becomes how people in absolute poverty can be transformed into stewards.

From a Christian standpoint, I think the place to begin is with the message of the Word. People need to know the story that God is unfolding in history and his call to each of us for creation stewardship, Kingdom service, and employment of gifts. They need to know that what is, is not what always must be. In other words, they need hope for a different future. Someone must deliver this message. When people have fully embraced this message, watch out! Care for neighbor emerges. Demands for justice arise. Grace is extended. All create an environment of hope, improving well-being.

Very few people in developed nations live in absolute poverty. They are overwhelmingly located in nations where corruption (i.e., anarchy, tribalism, and totalitarianism) exists. The first and primary focus should be getting governments to develop and enforce property rights and facilitate business formation. Where you or I can go to the city clerk's office and get a business license for a minimal fee and open up a business in one day, many of the poorest nations have processes that take weeks and months to complete, often with fees and bribes built in all along the way that prevent all but the wealthiest from legitimately going into business. That means that a majority of interaction is done outside the law. This makes the development of credit institutions impossible. Well-defined and easily transferred rights to property and legitimate business arrangements are essential for prosperity to take root.

Increasing widely shared prosperity starts a cycle of demands for other changes. When people have enough property at stake to be concerned about its loss, they demand property rights, just legal systems, and democracy. They become more concerned about their natural environment and working conditions when prosperity increases. This leads to greater health and productivity, increasing demand for quality-of-life improvements. Increasing prosperity tends to be the engine that drives the demand for all the other institutions and social arrangements that we take for granted in our developed nations. Pressure should be applied to developed nations and institutions like the World Bank to do what they can to get nations to set this upward spiral in motion. Technology transfers and financial aid for building infrastructure can also help advance growing prosperity.

Developing economic and democratic institutions is something developed nations have had a long history with and can help advise developing nations. However, this only holds when a commitment to the rule of law and ending corruption is in place. Too often, aid from developed nations has propelled and rewarded corrupt leaders instead of generating this upward cycle of prosperity.

Microfinance, the practice of making very small loans to businesspeople, might be one way to jumpstart the road to prosperity. Organizations like Opportunity International have been doing this for some time. Just last year, an organization called Kiva started that allows any individual to make loans to people in developing nations through the Internet and PayPal.

Another key aspect of developing prosperity is literacy. People who can read, write, and do math can independently equip themselves and learn new things. They can also better monitor and understand what authorities are doing and hold them accountable. Transfers of technology like organizations like One Laptop Per Child and Green Wifi are just a couple of innovative ways to increase access to knowledge. These efforts must include women and girls.

Poor communities also need clean water systems, reliable energy sources, vaccinations, and something as simple as mosquito netting could radically reduce mortality rates in tropical areas. When it comes to Africa a cure for Aids is desperately needed.

We need to work on developed nations to end protectionist policies of their own that prevent developing nations from competing in the markets where they might have the most to contribute. Free trade needs to be expanded, and we must find ways to integrate developing nations into the world economy more effectively. However, this goes back to the rule of law and property rights issue. Until a commitment to these practices emerges, these nations will not prosper from being connected to global markets.

This is a representative list, not a comprehensive one. Yet a common piece that ties them all together is respecting property rights and the rule of law.

For Christians, it is not enough to merely redistribute wealth to poor people. This falls into the trap of seeing poverty as only a material issue. It isn't. Poverty is a profoundly moral and spiritual issue. The world is filled with material resources, but the most precious resource of all is the stewardship potential of each human being on the face of the planet. Denying billions of people the opportunity to develop this potentiality is our day's greatest "environmental" disaster. The mission of the Church must not become reduced to "saving souls." It is about the redemption and transformation of every person into creation stewards, Kingdom servants, and the employers of gifts that God has called them to be. It is about becoming God's eikons filling the earth.

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Comments

[thebizofknowledge]

I stumbled upon this site as I was in the process of doing some online research. Having lived for years outside the U.S. it is appalling how little understood the poor's truest needs really are. Needs/Wants are so confused in this culture.

[Michael Kruse]

"...how little understood the poor's truest needs really are."

I would be curious to know from your perspecitve on what the truest needs are.

[Ted Gossard]

Michael,
Good thoughts. And great last paragraph. Frames it helpfully for me. Excellent point!

[Michael Kruse]

Thanks Ted.

[Ka]

I read your post with great interest and I have to say that you have a very good understanding of the subject area, and make some valid points. I am inclined to agree in particular with you on the framing of laws that protect and enshrine property rights. But there are just as many very pertinent issues that you do not mention as well - such as a fairer global trade regime. Finally, I have to say the religion angle kind of leaves me a bit cold and don't really understand why religion is particularly relevant to this issue.

[Michael Kruse]

Thanks Ka for your critique!

It was not my intention to play down the need for change in global trade arrangements. By mentioning things like ending protectionism in developed nations I was intending to be suggestive of the need for just these types of changes. I probably could have hit this a little harder.

Part of my hesitation is my own ambivalence over the free trade vs fair trade debate. In many cases those advocating fair trade are emphasizing that more developed nations have erected barriers that keep the rest of the world out of the market, thus the need for “fair trade.” By my definition, if the developed nations are erecting these barriers, they are not practicing free trade. So the answer is more free trade, which is the only fair trade.

“Finally, I have to say the religion angle kind of leaves me a bit cold and don't really understand why religion is particularly relevant to this issue.”

I appreciate your honesty here and I regret that I may have put you off. The context of these posts is a series (which I began last February) to explore the relationship of Christian theology to economics. The audience I have had in mind as I write these has been Christians who are struggling with how to relate their faith to economic issues. Thus, the theological angle.

When I was in MBA school not quite 20 years ago I was in a class where read a book that was collection of case studies in economic development efforts among the poorest of the poor. It was depressing. It was case after case of well thought out plans that failed. A whole semester of this. Then the prof basically said, “Okay. Now go out do economic development.”

One of the common themes I saw then and I have seen from others I know who do economic development is lack of vision by the poor. Economic development requires the ability to imagine a different future and then working toward making that future a reality. The poor have no vision beyond the immediate present. For those who have some glimpse beyond the present, they have zero hope of anything ever changing. Only by coming into contact with some transcendent reality who is at work in the world and champions a vision other than the “eternal present” the poor live in, can they begin to dream dreams and see visions.

I want to make clear that the aim is not transform the world into participants in Western Christendom. My point would be that whether the poor we work with ever give one whit about our religious beliefs, we are still under obligation to work for a world that empowers them to be the stewards God created us to be. I also believe it is important that I share why I am motivated to participate in their lives and why I see a different future for them. Whether the poor embrace that message is entirely up to them but the Church’s obligation to serve them is not optional.

I would also say that much of the argument I make here could be made from natural law and if may audience included a great many who are of other faith traditions (or no tradition at all) that is the more likely basis I would emphasize.

People are motivated by a host of reasons to engage in the efforts I listed and Christians need to link hands with all kindred spirits in this regard. My point is that by linking hands and engaging in these actions, Christians are living out the core of their faith.

I don’t know if this makes any sense but hopefully it sheds a little light on my frame of mind.

Thank you again for your observations!

[Ka]

Michael, Thank for the feedback to my comments. Your reply helped me understand where you are coming from. I want to start by saying that you did not put me off, maybe the words I chose were a bit stronger than what I actually feel. Maybe when I was younger I would have been more apprehensive of the religion angle, but I am more open to peoples beliefs now. Particularly if the beliefs can be a force for good. I take your point about the poor maybe needing a vision for the future. It may well be that religion can give them the faith to envisage a different future. I shall certainly reflect on that a bit more. It raises an interesting point about the nature of religion and its effects on economic development - I suppose this could fall into the "social capital" category of economic theory.

[Michael Kruse]

Thanks Ka. I really do appreciate your feedback.

I would add one piece that I did not fully articulate and that is that in addition to no vision there is often a tremendous sense of powerlessness in the face of tyranny and powerful social forces. To be tapped into the transcendent reality of an eternal God who stands with you can give incredible strength to stand in the face of seemingly hopeless opposition.

I recently read Rodney Stark's "The Rise of Christianity," which is largely a sociological analysis of how Christianity came to be. He points out that in 169, and again in 250, epidemics hit the Roman Empire that killed 25-35% of the population on each occasion. Most people fled the cities when the epidemics hit and abandoned anyone who developed the symptoms. The Christians stayed and took care of the sick and dying in a joyous spirit often going to their own deaths. The non-Christians witnessed this and reflected on the inability of their own gods to inspire such a response. Similarly, when Christians were executed for their faith, they did so with such fearless joy that it literally unnerved the authorities. As a totalitarian power, what do you do with people who are giving selfless care to others and are absolutely fearless, even joyous, in the face of death? I think the answer eventually became “join ‘em.”

Yes. I think the “social capital” idea is a good description from an economic perspective. Having the spiritual resources (social capital) to withstand and overcome odds.

Thanks again!