capitalism

“I wanted to write a book that looked at what happened when you forced individuals and communities, as well as the environment, to kneel before the dictates of the marketplace. The best way to do this was to go to the nation’s sacrifice zones, those poorest pockets of the country that had been exploited first, to show what happens when you allow the marketplace to rule.”

Arkansas’ evangelical culture enabled Wal-Mart to grow without its employees having any power to negotiate for better working conditions. But as it grew to become the world’s largest retailer, it expanded into urban and other areas with markedly different cultures—a transformation that looks to be changing the balance of power.

The Reagan era was supposed to have ended in November 2008—killed off by 30 years of flat wages and capitulation to Wall Street leading to a colossal financial crash. But today the Reagan era is enduring in stranger forms than ever.

But what is the question?

Human rights, the role of the Church, and politics aren’t the whole story.

Yes, your colleagues would laugh if you went out to protest. Marie Antoinette laughed too, until she found herself smiling up from the bottom of a wicker basket.

So-called “workplace spirituality” teaches people that the anxieties associated with global capital are inevitable, even part of the natural order of things. Under the highly deregulated conditions that prevail in the twenty-first century, individuals struggle against constant job insecurity. In this socioeconomic stew, workplace spirituality offers the individual a stable community where ultimate meaning and purpose become anchored to his or her place of employment. Workers feel more fulfilled and empowered on the job, and, therefore, will freely work harder and more productively, the theory goes, while ignoring more material concerns such as declining wages and diminishing benefits. Workplace spirituality neatly legitimates globalization while muffling its psychological effects.

Many liberal religious activists, Rev. Merritt said, remain stuck in the 1960s in how they frame and address economic issues, yet have abandoned protest strategies in favor of the model of maintaining a Washington office whose purpose is to lobby members of Congress. Other religious activists are too focused on “events-oriented things” like staged arrests, “where they’ve pre-negotiated the thing, which is not to me civil disobedience.”

As largely secular protests to “Occupy Wall Street” advance in fits and starts, capitalism and church negotiate to bring the best of both to bear on the world’s most intractable problems. Except, not quite.

In Dave Ramsey’s plan, God looks an awful lot like a libertarian with a conservative American protestant streak.