THE ECONOMIC STATE WE’RE IN: CAN THE ECONOMY WORK FOR EVERYONE? Ulrich Duchrow
the
world, people’s organisations All increasingly resisting key question
and churches are ’the economic state we’re in’. They raise the of this paper: ’Can the economy work for everyone?’ I approach this question in three steps: analysis, biblical orientation and search for alternatives. over
I. Analysis: Property
Money - Power 1. The present neo-liberal capitalist economy does not work for everyone. Hearing the cries and seeing the misery of the people and the earth is the starting point for a biblically oriented perspective on the economy not the abstract models and ideologies of the ’experts’. -
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The Consultation on Reformed Faith and Economic Justice in Kitwe, Zambia, organised in 1995 by the South African Alliance of Reformed Churches, heard the cry of the African people in the midst of suffering and despair. It perceived the power of the global market to subjugate and enslave people workers, peasants and consumers - to production processes and market forces. It declared, ’All the signs of the times lead us to conclude that Africans live on a crucified continent as people to be sacrificed ... The sacrifice of humanity on the altar of the global economy is intertwined with the sacrifice of nature.&dquo; What the Africans identified at this consultation has become a global reality. Moreover, what can be seen most clearly and sharply at the margins of today’s world is penetrating even rich societies. It is not necessary to repeat the symptoms over again. Everybody can see them: the exclusion of a growing number of people by unemployment, the worsening of working conditions sold as -
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South African Alliance of Reformed Churches, ’Reformed Faith and Economic
Justice’, Kitwe, Zambia, 1995. 25