There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken a the flood leads on to  fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea we are now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or loose our ventures. (Julius Caesar, IV, iii)

If you are even a little bewildered about all the economic regulatory changes coming out of Washington these days, here is a seminal work that goes a long way towards making sense out of today’s headlines.  It also touches on a topic that is core to the Biblical worldview of work long espoused here at InsideWork®.

Arthur Brooks is the President of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington D.C. based think tank dedicated to the ideals of entrepreneurship, private markets, limited government and individual liberty and responsibility.  In his new book, The Battle: How the Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future,  Mr. Brooks clearly lays out the stark and momentous sea change that is engulfing the United States.  It is a culture war over the values of free enterprise that have defined the nation for two hundred years.  Nothing less is at stake, argues Brooks, than America’s future as a unique and distinctive beacon of free enterprise, innovation and individual liberty in the world.

Brooks provides a compelling narrative on how “the land of opportunity” has gotten so far down the path to becoming just another government-controlled society.  He starts with a depiction of the U.S. as a 70 – 30 nation.  That is, 70% of Americans embrace the ideals of entrepreneurship, free markets, low taxes, smaller government (not no government), individual liberty, and personal responsibility; while a 30% minority hold to the idea that America would be better off without entrepreneurship at the core of its economic system.  Instead, their guiding vision is one of equality of income achieved through massive income re-distribution schemes (taxation) orchestrated by a large, intrusive government, which operates as an agent for “fairness” in society.

At the moment the 30% minority is at the helm in national policy matters and is making great strides to remake America in their own image.  How this minority has accomplished as much as it has, Brooks argues, is by being more adroit at spinning the tale:  they have a better narrative, a more convincing story to tell the voting public.

Does the U.S. have a housing and mortgage crisis? The fault lies with greedy Wall Street investment bankers, says the leaders of the 30%, and the government can and should fix the matter by more regulation and government control, plus a trillion dollar bailout program.

Does the U.S. have high unemployment? The government is the solution, by spending its way out of this recession in the form of more billions in economic stimulus programs.

Is the U.S. automobile industry on its knees? A multi-billion dollar federal bail-out will preserve American jobs, and is therefore a political imperative.

While the budget deficit numbers are incomprehensibly high, the Obama-led 30% minority argues that the 2008 elections reflected a huge shift in American popular sentiment away from a culture of entrepreneurship and in favor of government control.  To all the clamors of the conservatives, the liberals give a single answer:  “We won the election.”  Brooks argues that the 2008 election was not so much a shift in political sentiment, but rather a result of one factor alone:  the state of the U.S. economy.  As the economy melted down, so also did the McCain presidential hopes.  As the conservatives have been unable to articulate their vision for the country, the 30% minority has won control of both houses and the executive branch.

The 30% narrative about the financial crisis consists of five key claims (each disputed by Brooks):

• Government was not the cause of the crisis  (It was.)
• Government understands and knows how to fix it (It doesn’t.)
• Main street Americans were just victims of the crisis (They exploited it.)
• Massive government spending is the only way to fix it (Stagflation to follow.)
• The middle class will not have to pay for such deficit spending (Right!)

One by one, Brooks explodes each of these myths, laying bare the flawed assumptions and manipulative vocabulary used to implement the 30% minority’s agenda.

At the heart of the housing crisis, he points out, was an administration trying to social engineer more equality:  everyone should be able to afford a home.  So they directed the two federal home mortgage-buying entities (Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac) to lower their credit standards.  The result was that within 7 years both agencies went bust and needed federal bailouts on a scale unprecedented in U.S. history.  This was at ground zero of the financial catastrophe.  The contagion became global, taking down numerous. banking and investment banking firms along the way.  But at its core, the problem was the government itself.

Each of the other five claims is repudiated in turn, with example after example.

Brooks offers, by way of antidote, a set of principles – a credo – by which to guide personal and national policy debate back to level ground:

• The purpose of free enterprise is human flourishing, not materialism
• Fairness means equality of opportunity, not equality of income
• Government policy should stimulate prosperity, not treat poverty
• America can and should be a gift to the world in its political and economic views
• What matters most is principle, not political power

Obviously, the conservatives in the U.S. have hailed the book as a major contribution on their side.  But his book rises above partisan rock-throwing.  Big spending Republicans and big spending Democrats alike are indicted.  The tendency of big business to get into bed with greedy politicians does not escape his critical notice.  And the fault of the “forgotten man” in the streets in all this – borrowing money they knew they could never pay back to buy wildly overpriced homes on speculation – is not overlooked or excused either.

What Brooks calls for is a return to principle.  And what principles would he advocate?  This is where his narrative becomes less historical and more biblical:  a return to a view of work that creates true happiness.  He argues out that Americans respect work, enjoy the sense of purpose and fulfillment that comes with accomplishing excellent work, that (unlike their European counterparts) they view work as an important part of their sense of meaning, even arguing that people quickly become disenchanted with new-found wealth unless it is accompanied by a sense of having created it for themselves.  Wealth, in and of itself, says Brooks, does not lead to happiness.

He points out that at the heart of things, and despite their rhetoric of fairness, equality, and social conscience, the 30% minority is actually very materialistic in its world view.  They believe that equality of incomes will produce happiness, in other words, that money alone can satisfy.  Brooks argues – from study after study – that happiness for man is a matter of earned happiness – successful accomplishments, and that money (after a basic modicum of needs are met) is merely a kind of score-keeper rather than a true source of human happiness.  It is the 70% advocates of entrepreneurship that recognize the dignity of work and individual satisfaction that comes with controlling our own work lives.

In this last insight, Brooks aligns himself exactly with the Biblical view of work.  After the creation narrative describes God as skillful worker putting together the world, God calls man into being in His own image (as a worker), giving him work to do organizing, categorizing, managing God’s creation:

“Then God said, ‘Let U.S. make man in our own image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.’  (Gen 1: 26-27, The New International Version)

Work, seen is this biblical light, is inherent in human nature and was meant to be a source of great personal satisfaction and fulfillment.  (The subject of a biblical view of work is much broader than can be treated here.  Please see the Scriptural Roots of Commerce, particularly Module 5, the Meaning of Work, on our website.)

The battle of these two visions for the future of America is enjoined.  The outcome is very much in doubt.  Brooks has defined the stakes and provided a primer – in clear logic and example – of how to proceed if America’s core economic system is to be privately led or state controlled.

The time to act, Brooks call, is now, before the tide changes and the ideal that was at the heart of the U.S. economic and social venture is swept away with the flood of fear and materialism that the 30% minority is playing to.

This creative rap anthem from EconStories provides some insight into the worldviews that are in conflict in the debates about the economy today, largely divided into the school of thought developed by John Maynard Keynes and an opposing school by Frederich Hayek.  Enjoy the video and reflect upon the debate that you hear  today and upon the debate inside your own head.

Scott Soshnick of Business Week writes,

“I can’t help but wonder what some of the guys at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which is facing a fraud lawsuit from U.S. regulators, would have done had it been them instead of Davis that day.“

“Maybe a friendly game of golf is the best litmus test for anyone seeking an investment bank with which to do business. Think about it. Before entrusting your money to someone, wouldn’t you like to know whether he’s the kind of player who kicks the ball into the fairway or neglects to count a whiff as a stroke?”

The incident above happened in April at the Verizon Heritage golf tournament while Brian Davis was playing against Jim Furyk in a sudden death playoff. After the officials reviewed the video, it was determined (only after looking at slow motion replays), that a single reed was moved during the backswing.

Brian conceded the hole and the tournament after being assessed the penalty stroke.

He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much. 
(Luke 16:10, The New American Standard Version)

David Wooldridge, Dan’s brother writes over at Sports Inspired

Joshua Cooper Ramo
The Age of the Unthinkable – Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It, (p. 5-6), Little, Brown and Company, 2009
As a perplexed Alan Greenspan confessed to Congress about his own thinking in 2008 … “I have found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by the fact.” The congressman questioning him asked, “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right. It was not working?” Greenspan replied, “Absolutely. Precisely. You know that’s precisely the reason I was shocked. Because I have been going for forty years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.”

Romans 12:2
The New International Version
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

My favorite response came from Omnicom Media Group’s Colin Gottlieb:

I’m not trying to be clever but when you asked how people keep up with the changing digital world, it seems to me you then expected us to list stimuli, but didn’t raise the question of creativity. For me creativity is the ability to successfully connect one abstract thing with another to create something extraordinary. The ability to make these connections depends on many things but perhaps the most obvious is the desire (not the discipline) to observe the world around you. You see stuff, you like it and you store it for the moment the penny drops. The stimuli is not one thing or another — it is everything around you and everywhere you go. Executives in our business have the opportunity to ‘touch’ tons of stuff. They are paid to then make the connections. So, the answer to your question is attitude. You either have the hunger to make the connections or you don’t.”

Now that’s worldview formation – an attitude of open-eyed curiosity that is always looking for connections, always seeking to understand, always making meaning – and it’s a key difference between thought leaders and everyone else.

• Even if you believe you don’t have time to read more, watch more or listen more, does that mean you don’t have time to be alert for connections in what you are reading, watching and hearing?
• Are you confident you’re reading the most useful things, watching the most stimulating and illuminating content, hearing from and conversing with the most challenging voices?

At the risk of prying this passage from its context, look at the way Eugene Peterson renders the words of Jesus in Luke 11:33-35:

“No one lights a lamp, then hides it in a drawer. It’s put on a lamp stand so those entering the room have light to see where they’re going. Your eye is a lamp, lighting up your whole body. If you live wide-eyed in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. Keep your eyes open, your lamp burning, so you don’t get musty and murky. Keep your life as well-lighted as your best-lighted room.”
— Luke 11:33-35 The Message Bible

• Consider a vacation for your mind. Forego the familiar for a few days to visit mental places you haven’t been before. Revisit places you haven’t gone for ages. Read or listen or talk to someone you need a translator (literally or figuratively) to understand. Look around until you encounter something that causes you to live wide-eyed in wonder and belief and fills your body with light.

Now, along comes the remarkable sociologist Rodney Stark, acclaimed historian of religion and science, and author of numerous books that, among other things, aim to demonstrate that the above storyline is nonsense. Were there problems, religious conflict, and sickness in medieval times? Sure, but to say that the “Dark Ages” were dark is a historical lie, says Stark.

He pulls no punches and minces no words as he labors to restore the truth to a story that has been wrongly revised to promote an atheistic view. Here’s what he writes about those who invented the Enlightenment concept: “I show it to have been conceived initially as a propaganda ploy by militant atheists and humanists who attempted to claim credit for the rise of science,” he wrote in his book For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery (Princeton University Press, 2003, p. 123).

Stark is open and honest about problems within Christian history, but he thoroughly documents how the so-called “Dark Ages” boomed with technological invention, the establishment of the first universities, the rise of true science, and the beginnings of major economic advances. All this, he says, would not have happened had it not been for the dominance of the Christian world view in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire.

One of Stark’s boldest books, about the history of business and capitalism, is titled The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (Random House, 2005). In this book, Stark shows us how capitalism (not just simple commerce) blossomed from a Christian perspective and the work of devout Christians beginning about the ninth century.

The word “capitalism” today has many different connotations. It is often equated with greed, avarice, ecological destruction, and corruption. But Stark shows that early Christian-based capitalism aimed to improve life for people through the ethical use of capital. It did not always succeed, but the overarching ethos was that wealth should produce long-term and ongoing benefits to society with a hired workforce, and relatively little state control. It was more than simple day-to-day commercial transactions and it was inspired by the Christian ethic of love for one’s neighbor. It did not aim to limit the growth of wealth, but rather reinvest wealth to bring about additional social benefits. At the same time, it sought to limit corruption and greed, and to promote the value of work and frugality (long before Puritans and the Protestant Reformation).

Surprisingly, the rise of this type of capitalism started with the monastics. We normally think of monks as people who disengage from the material world to meditate and chant. The monastics did their fair share of that, but Stark shows this to be an incomplete portrait.

After Constantine, asceticism in the church diminished. As agricultural techniques advanced, the monastic estates were no longer limited to subsistence farming. Soon they had surplus products that they could sell for a profit. The monastics began to reinvest these profits to increase productive capacity.

“As their incomes began to mount, this led many monasteries to become banks, lending to the nobility,” writes Stark. (p. 58). This growth gradually established the economic foundation for the emergence of new towns and cities. As the cities popped up, trade between the cities increased, which in turn gave rise to specialized management strategies and the shift from bartering to a cash economy. Such was the life of many medieval monks! They were in fact profitable business leaders who gave birth to a flourishing European economy.

“In this way, the medieval monasteries came to resemble remarkably modern firms—well administered and quick to adopt the latest technological advances,” writes Stark (p. 61).

At the core, says Stark, the dramatic progress achieved during the medieval age happened because of what Christians believed about God and the origins of the world. “Because (in the Christian perspective) God is a rational being and the universe is his personal creation, it necessarily has a rational, lawful, stable structure, awaiting increased human comprehension,” he writes. “This was the key to many intellectual undertakings, among them the rise of science” (p. 12).

For Christians, this emphasis on a reasonable world created by a reasonable God meant it was possible for people to make real strides forward in every area of life—knowledge of the natural world, moral understanding, economic activity, and the general quality of life. Reason was not seen as a substitute for God, but an integral component of faith.

This emphasis on reason within the context of a moral ethic of love for one’s neighbor, says Stark, was the groundwork for the rise of religious capitalism in medieval times.

Unfortunately, many contemporary Christian views about money have lost touch with the historical roots of capitalism portrayed by Stark, not to mention the essence of what the Scriptures teach about capital and wealth.

The December 2009 cover story in The Atlantic Monthly is titled “Did Christianity Cause the Crash?” Hanna Rosin’s article in fact deals not with Christianity as a whole, but with how one prominent and unfortunate theological strain known as “prosperity theology” bonded with America’s widespread hyper-consumerism to feed the recent economic crisis. It is a well-written and fair appraisal of how far some preachers and churches have strayed from solid, historical biblical thinking about money and wealth. I’m glad the magazine published the article.

However, it is important to read and remember what Rodney Stark researched and wrote about Christianity’s positive influence on Western economies. The capitalism that “crashed” in the past couple of years is largely an Enlightenment capitalism that needs to regain the moral framework the early monks sought to establish in the ninth century.

Glenn McMahan is InsideWork’s man in Brazil. Glenn is the author, with David Russ and Jim Petersen, of More Than Me: The 4 Essentials of Relational Wholeness.