FROM THE ARCHIVES: "Awakening Hope" - the Christian Economics of Bob Goudzwaard

PREAMBLE:

Professor Bob Goudzwaard is a Dutch Christian economist who promotes TATA. TATA stands for: ‘There Are Thousand of Alternatives (for peoples and nations who want to act responsibly)’. With this commitment, Goudzwaard recently chaired meetings in Washington and Geneva between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank on the one side, and the World Council of Churches (WCC) on the other. The report of their first meeting (in February 2003) was published by the WCC (edited by Rogate Mshana) and titled, and can be found at the WCC website. Professor Goudzwaard was born in 1934 and hails from Delft in the Netherlands (a city famous for its lovely teapots and crockery). From 1967, at the age of 33, until 1971, he served as a representative of the Anti-Revolutionary Party in the Dutch Parliament. Prior to that, Goudzwaard was educated at the Rotterdam School of Economics and served on the staff of the Abraham Kuyper Foundation, a political research centre sponsored by the party he represented in parliament. In 1971 Goudzwaard became professor of economic theory and policy at the Free University of Amsterdam but remained active in politics in support of Protestant and Catholic political unification. Today, that success can be seen in the Government party known as the Christian Democratic Appeal. Officially retired since 1999, Professor Goudzwaard has nevertheless continued writing and publishing and attending conferences. His English-language publications include (1972); (1979); (1975); (1984); and, most recently (2001). Professor Goudzwaard’s PhD thesis was in political economy and titled ‘Non-Priced Scarcity’. It examined the problems economists face in valuing the environment - ‘for which a neat price tag cannot be found’ as the good Professor put it. ‘The partial answer’, to his doctoral problem was (in his words), ‘that there are more and higher economic values than what can be expressed in a price’. It is this truth which we find persuasive and of particular interest to indigenous Pacific peoples whose culture and traditional worth are constantly and increasingly under challenge by the economic spirit of the age. In this series of three interviews with Fiji’s Daily Post special contributor, Dr Bruce Wearne, Professor Goudzwaard gives us a glimpse of what TATA represents, and the Christian vision that motivates it.

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· Thanks Bob for agreeing to be interviewed, and welcome to the pages of Fiji’s Daily Post! Maybe this series can prepare the way for a visit one day?

Thank you, Bruce. I hope so. I saw Fiji only once - there it was far away below me, as I flew over on my way from Sydney to Hawaii. Seeing Fiji’s islands lying there in the midst of that vast blue ocean I felt a deep desire that one day I should visit. I’m not ‘there’ yet but maybe now I’m on the way. A first step. Maybe you and I should visit together!

· Yes indeed. Bob, let me introduce you to our readers by suggesting that you are a ‘critical’ or ‘alternative’ economist.

Yes, truly so. But my desire is not just to be critical. I am critical and seeking an alternative to the standard economic theories which are simply too narrow to allow the economic aspect of reality to be grasped clearly. Politically I was part of a ‘radical-evangelical’ wing of the political party I was associated with in Holland.

· Tell us about that.

I was part of a post-World War II political movement in the Netherlands that emphasized principled co-operation. The work at that time emphasized norms for economic development. For instance, the first joint-program by the three Christian parties in Holland used a Bible text as its banner: ‘Not by bread alone!’ You see, economic stewardship must involve a careful administration of all that is. And that must include all who are entrusted to us. That implies the need for social safety-nets, but alongside of those conservation and avoidance of waste. So industry - companies and unions - must find ways to co-operate to help protect the creation for the future. We all need a new restrained sense of urgency. We need to learn how to rein in our material desires, to take steps backwards in order to be truly economic, in order to reduce our wastefulness.

· This seems to touch on the notion of justice?

Yes, the judicial norm for economic development is addressed to all: both the powerful and the weak, the rich and poor. It is, moreover, a living norm: ‘Let justice roll down like waters as an overflowing stream’, said Amos, the Old-Testament Prophet. He knew how to look after his herds and his sycamore trees in that parched land. Justice has to permeate the whole of society, and that includes the poor and the rich. Somehow those who are rich and those who are poor have to find their responsibilities for each other.

· In this I hear you saying that people should be brought together.

Yes, and we need to seek creative ways of doing so - otherwise people will remain isolated and alienated from each other. Those who cannot properly fulfill their God-given responsibilities as families, as workers, as communities, need to be given public space in order to be set free. Emancipation is the good and proper word. In Roman law, it referred to the freeing of a slave, usually a son, who could no longer be sold into slavery by his father. He was then accorded adult standing. Economic emancipation implies this same liberation in our time.

· And emancipation reminds us too, of our place in history.

Yes, Church fathers, like Chrysostom (in late 4th century CE), taught that the rich ought to view their property as a social mortgage, as a means of serving their neighbour. We need to develop ways in which poor neighbours can make their rightful claim on us and our property. It’s no use building a society on possessiveness. I’ve come to see that economic theory must emphasize participation and cooperation as social norms.

· Can you enlighten us on your theme of ‘awakening hope – unmasking the idols of our time’ – which is the subject of your next book?

The way to contribute to a better world involves unmasking false hopes and opening ourselves to a new obedience to God-given norms like dynamic justice and faithful stewardship. Paul in the New Testament of the Bible (Ephesians Chapter 3, verse 18) teaches us about the process of learning God’s will. It is only with all God’s people, with all the saints, that we begin to understand something, not everything yet we are still learning, of the breadth and the length and the height and the depth of the Kingdom of God and of the love of Christ. One person or one culture cannot grasp the full glory of that Kingdom which is still on its way to us. There is no monopoly on wisdom; we need each other to know the dimensions, the deep dimensions of the way God has created us.

· You’re saying there is something special about working together?

Yes, I am. I wonder if Fijian choirs are like African choirs? The African choirs I have heard contrast with European choirs. Africans sing as a community, while in Europe, choir individuals sing together and try to produce harmony. The famous orchestras of Europe are known for their conductor - that individual who brings all the other individual musicians together in one symphonic harmony. But who will say that European music is more musical than African? In Africa, music sounds and looks like it has just been born again every day as the breath of a living whole community. The community perspective is a legitimate perspective of God’s creation. The self-perspective is typical of the West, yet it is in communities that we are to show the richness of God’s creation. Even if we do some things ‘on our own’, we’ll soon realise that we needed others just to be ourselves. By the way, I’m looking forward to hearing some Fijian singing some time to keep my imagination alert and alive to new ways of doing things.

[To be continued]