This is kind of an odd talk-around way way to do it, but here is a bit more on our discussion of Third World debts and N.T. Wright’s book Surprised by Hope. To sum up my take, Wright wrote a glorious book that had a small atrocious section on global economics. I interacted with that section here at this blog, and an interviewer in the UK has asked the good bishop about it here. Wright has responded to me through him, and now, here, I will respond to that. Got it?
“Wilson’s criticism goes along with the criticism in First Things that appeared in the April issue. (I’ve just today sent a rebuttal against those charges.) Richard John Neuhaus wrote negatively about Surprised by Hope and took some potshots at the Archbishop of Canterbury as well. I think much of it was him basically getting his facts wrong. He didn’t like the politics, so he tried to rubbish the theology as well.”
But I think Wright is missing an important point here. Neuhaus made some good points, but my line of concern was quite distinct. My goal was not to rubbish Wright’s theology (as represented in
Surprised by Hope), but rather to keep Wright from hitching up that magnificent stallion to a little rickety cart with square wheels. If we are going to bring Jesus into global politics, as Wright and I both agree we must do, then we have to be careful to keep our proposals from being mayhem-makers. I can only imagine one thing worse than destroying people, and that is doing it in the name of Jesus.
“Part of the difficulty is that those who have embraced something approximating a normal, right-wing political stance on various issues find it very difficult to hear what I and many other people around the globe are saying as anything other than anti-Americanism. I want to assure people that it has nothing to do with anti-Americanism.”
Actually, I haven’t picked up a hint of animus from Wright over “Americanism,” and don’t have any problem accepting his assurances here. He is not a strident shriller at all. And I am probably more at odds with the American government’s way of doing things than even he is — and as he points out, that doesn’t make me anti-American. I love my country deeply. I mean, look at Congress. I love every bone in their heads.
But by the same token, Wright needs to understand that criticism of his economics can proceed from something other than Americanism, or right-wing partisanship. I thought it was striking that he just assumes “right-wing.” I don’t believe water flows uphill, but I don’t think that because I am an American. I certainly don’t believe that you can require bread to be sold for less than what it costs to make and still have bread. But I don’t think that because I am right wing. I think that because I think. I am not an empire rah! kind of guy. I am not carrying any water for any right-wing agenda. I haven’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate for many years. So, once we have dispensed of the Bulverism in both directions, we can get to the point at issue, which is the question of whether Wright’s proposals will actually help anybody.
“But when I find people at the right of the spectrum saying, ‘Oh you just can’t apply the gospel like this!’ I want to reply, Wait a minute. It would be really nice if even for one teeny little moment, people who take that sort of position could see themselves as others see them, and could actually see what the recent actions of the present American government in the wider world actually look like, and the way in which the economic policies of the Western world as a whole (including my own country) have actually kept millions of people enslaved.”
But the issue for Christians should be “what will actually
help.” The issue must not be what many people will
perceive as being helpful. The issue is not whether or not to apply the gospel. The issue before the house is whether we apply the gospel, in Wright’s words, “like
this.” If Wright wants us to
see how “the economic policies of the Western world as a whole . . . have actually kept millions of people enslaved,” then he will have to
show us. That has to be demonstrated, not just asserted. And when he shows us, there really needs to be a question and answer session afterwards. Because I have some questions.
I can think of many situations where the very thing that will be genuinely helpful will be perceived as singularly unhelpful by those who need to repent of their self-destructive economies. Their perceptions are not the point. What I would like to get to here with Wright is agreement in principle. If a country full of poor people who are economically literate objects to economic bullying from a stronger power, then their perceptions should be factored in because they are true. But if a country full of economic illiterates perceives abuse because they don’t understand how the price of bread got so high, the perception problem is a problem, but it is a rhetoric and educational problem. It is not a question of justice, or economics. So, the question again is what is the truth of the matter?
If perceptions govern, and we in the West are therefore greedmeisters, then isn’t turnabout fair play? Why can’t we factor in our perceptions of them, to wit, that they are a bunch of lazy bums? Wright would say that we can’t do that because those perceptions are false. Okay. I would answer that it appears we agree in principle then. Let’s settle what is true or false first, and then worry about perceptions. I can name any number of places in the world where proposals that would usher in economic sweetness and light would be received by a large number of people as having come from the heart of an orc. But the fact that medicine tastes bad doesn’t keep it from being medicine, and tasting good is not sufficient for something to become medicine.
“Of course, it’s not all directly connected to the World Bank and the IMF, etc. However, there are many countries suffering, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, under a debt burden which was run up by crazy tyrants (and I know that there are all sorts of wickedness and iniquities, etc.). A country can’t go bankrupt. If you or I are in a huge debt, we go bankrupt. There are ways of doing that. You can start over. People can build up a business again. A country can’t do that. The compound debt goes on mounting up. The people who are bearing the burden are the people who are forced to grow their own crops and the people who are forced to do things to service the debt, rather than having the national product going to housing, medicine, education, etc.”
And this was a main line of my criticism of Wright’s position. When Wright objects to the debt burdens run up by “crazy tyrants,” I want to know how many well-meaning Christians
at that time were insisting that our duty as Christians involved propping those crazy tyrants up. How many tyrants are being propped up
now? As in, right this minute? Now if the effectiveness of our giving to those nations is affected by the presence or absence of tyrants, as Wright here acknowledges, and we have a duty to help these nations, as Wright argues, then we also have a duty to prevent those tyrants from getting established, and to despose them if they do get established. But this cannot be done unless we pick up the burden of neo-colonialism again. So either Wright’s position involves neo-colonialism or it involves irresponsible generosity from the West — which we have already done way too much of.
So, if we forgive the debt, what structures will be in place to keep the same thing from happening again? Do we say, “We forgive the debt, period.”? Or do we say, “We forgive the debt under the following conditions . . .” If the former, then we are subsidizing the tyrants. We are continuing to sin against these people. We are feeding tyrannical armies in the name of Jesus, so that they can have full bellies as they head out to the villages to rape women and chop off their arms. But if any Christians in the West object to this kind of debt forgiveness based on the likelihood of such problems, Wright reacts as if we don’t really care what happens to people. If the latter, if we attach conditions that we actually enforce, then we have drifted back into a low-impact colonialism. Low-impact, that is, until some high-impact conflict starts. We can’t be involved and not involved at the same time. So if we are involved, we have to be involved responsibly and all the way. And that means — whether we like it or not — that we have to be willing to send the Marines if necessary, and not just the money. Is that what we really want? Is that what Wright wants? I can’t believe so, but what he is urging requires it.
(I am leaving out of this whole discussion the question of what debt forgiveness would do to the average citizen here. When “we” forgive the debt, whose money is it? How should we make that decision? This is a crucial aspect of the discussion that we have to pursue another time.)
“This injustice is actually the sort of thing about which the Old Testament prophets had a great deal to say. Some have said to me, ‘Go read the works of F.A. Hayek because he will show you that actually giving handouts to the poor just encourages a dependency culture and that’s not the way to go.'”
The Old Testament prophets (and New Testament writers as well) did have a great deal to say about fraud and oppression. When the rich grind the poor, it is fair to say that neither Amos nor James approve. They denounce it fiercely. When the poor turn on their beds like a door on the hinges, Solomon, it turns out, doesn’t approve of that. When a man wants to eat without working, Paul disapproves of that. We do not have the privilege of saying that Amos was bringing his charge against Abraham or Job, those stinking rich oppressors. We do not have the privilege of saying that the poor man sold for a pair of shoes in Amos was actually a lazy slug and deserved what he got. The Bible’s teaching on wealth and poverty
is not simplistic. So when we try to sort things out by making application, we have to make sure that we get our facts straight. This is something that Wright has not done.
So it is not appropriate for Wright to assume what he needs to prove here, which is that something as large as the “third world” is encompassed by the former prophetic denunciations of grasping merchants and not at all by the latter scriptural observations of the impact of laziness and ignorance on the wealth of a people. In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith predicted that North America was going to be wealthy and that South America was going to be poor. He did not say this because he had access to the bwa ha ha board meetings of North American corporations. He was looking at something else. What was that? And can we look at some of it now?
“Very well. Imagine the parable of the Good Samaritan. Here comes an economist and he looks at the poor man, but he realizes that if he helps him, he is actually going to increase a dependency culture, so he passes by on the other side. Sorry. That’s just not good enough.”
Fine. Exactly. That’s not good enough. Nobody is saying that’s good enough. What I am arguing is that when the Samaritan goes to help the guy, he mistakenly (and with the best of intentions) is about to apply acid to the man’s wounds instead of oil. Another man sees the mistake and rushes up to intervene. “That’s acid,” he says. “But I am doing this in the name of Jesus,” the Samaritan answers. “And futhermore, this is my parable. It’s named after
me. Go get your own parable, Hayek.” “I know, friend, and I am not objecting to you helping this fine gentleman. I just couldn’t help but notice that you opened the wrong case by accident.” “But the point of this parable is to help this poor man. You are slowing me down.” “Exactly. I am
trying to slow you down. Believe me, acid
won’t help.”
To this modification of the parable, we can only add that acid won’t help any more than it did the last fifteen times we tried it. We keep insisting on being Good Samaritans, and the beat-up guys keep dying on us.
Wright wants to construe this as a question of whether we help. But the debate is not over whether to help. The debate is over what constitutes help. We are not talking about whether to cross over to the other side of the road or not. We are talking about offering genuine help, help that lasts, help that actually helps.
“I’m making a plea for mercy. It’s not rocket science. It’s not macro economics and Ph.D-level complicated. It’s just asking, ‘What’s wrong with this picture of the way the world is working at the moment?’ And I hear Doug Wilson and others as saying, ‘We don’t want to listen to that question.’ You might not like my answer to the question, but please listen to the question.”
Two things. Actually, I
did listen to the question. I have read and appreciated much of what N.T. Wright has written. I have read Wright more carefully than he has read me. I read this section of his book carefully. So I have listened to his question, and have answered it in what I believe was a thoughtful way. But he is responding to me as though I were just spouting some “right wing” responses, which is not the case at all. At the beginning of this interview, Wright acknowledged that he didn’t really know what I said. “I’ve seen this but have not yet had time to read the critique.” So it seems to me that Wright’s plea here at the end should really be reversed. I want to listen to his question, and I want to offer an answer. I have done so. Is he willing to hear the answer and engage with it?
Now in saying this, I do need to insert an important qualification. I believe my criticisms of Wright’s position are cogent — otherwise I wouldn’t have offered them. But my sense of self-importance is not swollen — I am kind of amazed that Wright even remembered having met me. The source of my concerns (being just me) are not at a level of importance that would require the good bishop to drop everything and answer me. If he were to ignore me completely, it wouldn’t surprise me, and I wouldn’t blame him a bit. I am sure he has better things to do. I am not that important, and ignoring what I said would be just fine. But I do think that ignoring what I said and answering what I said don’t really go together.
Last point, and this sums up the whole thing. Wright said, “It’s not rocket science. It’s not macro economics . . .” But that is exactly what it is. It is macro-economics. And it is far more complicated than rocket science. The mirage that floats before all collectivists who want to regulate economies, or reformers who want to fix them, is the mirage of simplicity. “How hard could it be?” they ask. But getting a box of cereal at the grocery store is a problem of staggering complexity. Only God is up to it. That’s why, when we pour ourselves a bowl, we should always bow our heads and thank Him. He’s the one who got it there.
