Wealth Poverty and the Role of Government

Over at Homebrewed Theolgoy last week there was a post on this report by the Heritage Foundation, which questions the Federal definition of poverty, because poverty should be limited to those who can't provide at all for the necessities of life for themselves and their families. Warren Buffett also wrote a piece last week calling for more taxes for himself and the wealthiest Americans. Today on NPR there was this discussion on Welfare 15 years after Clinton signed into law a major overhaul of the welfare system. And also today Harvey Golub has a rebutal to Warren Buffett's piece saying he pays plenty in taxes thank you very much.

There are a flurry of claims and counter claims here. There are statistics, some very disturbing like the amount of wealth held be smaller and smaller percentage of Americans, and yet Harvey Golub claims he still pays 80% to 90% of his income to some form of taxation.

There are I competing assumptions and presuppositions hidden in all of this.  On the one hand there are those that simply assume that it is the role of Government to provide for and take care of the poor, ie the Nation as a whole through the operations of the State. There is the assumption that money I earn is mine and most if not all of it should be at my disposal to do with it as I see fit or desire.  Taxation itself flies in the face of this, but one can of course argue that an entity like a nation and a government creates the stability necessary to be able to live and work without being robbed and ensuring agreed upon standards of business and law etc.  So one pays through taxation into this stability that allows one to earn money.  A government could care about the poor and provide for them to further ensure said stability.  By this view though there may be reason to limit aid to poor, if it is seen that this aid keeps people who should be in the workforce from entering it.  This was one reason given for the Clinton Welfare Reform.   But what about when there isn't a robust economy and there are fewer jobs than there are people who want to work?  But should everyone be in the workforce?  and might the Government have an interest in supporting people who are doing work that doesn't earn them the money they need to live on?  But why should those who are working and/or in positions to earn vasts amounts of wealth through taxes and the State support those whose life work does not earn them a living? Or more to the point should this form of support come from other segments of society than the State?

Unfortunately our discussion on these issues tends to either be Statist (or State collectivist in some fashion) or individualist and opportunist.  Also, these discussion divide the world up between Employers (the wealthy) and the employed (everybody else).  We seem to  be unable to conceive making a living that doesn't involve either making money off other people or receiving a paycheck from those who are making money through being employed.  Granted that is what we are dealing with largely, but few in my experience find this situation ultimately fulfilling.

This is rambling, because I'm attempting to get at something that is obscured.  There is a tendency among Christians both liberal and conservative when talking to the Middle Classes in comparison to the rest of the world that they are incredibly wealthy (granted liberals and conservatives say this to elicit differing responses, for liberals it is to drum up support for the State taking care of the poor, and for conservatives it is to drum up donations to help alleviate poverty).   But (and this was my own reaction to the Heritage Foundation report) when someone suggests that maybe most poor in this country are in comparison to those who can't provide for the necessities of life quite well off, it is offensive.  Eugene Cho today is talking about downward mobility and simplicity. He has a point, but if he can ask and continually ask what is needed to live in our context as a pastor and someone of the Middle Class (?), why is it wrong to ask about at what point should the government step in and provide aid to people?

And yet I can't help but think that when you ask "Well if their poor, why to they or their children have X." this is asked from a place of privilege and out of  a resentment based upon an assumption that the poor are poor because its their own fault.  People are wealthy not on the backs of others but because of their hard work.  But what if this isn't either or.  What if both are actually true?  And what if hard work isn't always rewarded and what if welfare does at times reward irresponsibility?

I also wonder if as much effort and energy went into attempting to reform the current system and funnel peoples greed into altruistic paths through the bureaucracy of the State went into people seeking to create alternative ways of being and living if we'd find that we don't need solutions to poverty just alternative ways of living.

Or to put it another way: I'm not convinced any longer that biblical and eccelsial teaching on care for the poor  is about getting any particular state to so care for the poor.  Rather it is the people of God, those gathered out of the nations who are to be a light to the nations, showing forth an alternative to the ways of the world and the realms humans continually create in their own image.  Just a thought as we rightly wrestle with wealth, poverty and the role of government.

"..you have ample goods laid up for many years..."

The above quote is from the Gospel for this past Sunday August 1: Luke 12:12-21. These are the words of a person Jesus calls a fool, a rich fool. I was struck that if we (most classes in the U.S) allow ourselves to be identified with the rich man of this parable we can see that the rich mans attitude is the expectation and/or desire of most if not all classes of people. Our sense of the good life and a just society is one that would provide for all a job that allows everyone to store up ample goods for many years in the form of retirement plans of various kinds, homes, cloths, cars etc. This is of course complex for the inability of many to store up for themselves something is an issue of injustice and exclusion from the centers of economic power. So the expansion of this ability to lay up goods for many years and allow one to stop working at a certain age was and still is a matter of justice. And yet Jesus' words here challenge such a sense of economy, prudence, and justice. I would say Jesus' words even critique state run versions of the rich mans individual safety net.

Since, our economy tanked and we uncovered numerous problems with our economic and financial system based upon accumulation of wealth through investments dependent upon the actions of financiers and gaining the largest possible return on ones investment, I have personally been puzzled and struggled with the general attitude to locate greed only in the bankers financiers and professional investors while excluding from greed the middle and lower classes who have been hit so hard by the failure of the financial system. I struggle with this because part of what allowed greater access to mortgages, high yeild investments for retirement was in part the invention of new ways to make and accumulate wealth. I have wondered at our continued faith in this system shown by our demand that it be controlled by more government regulation. Few if any have asked if there is perhaps something simply ethically flawed about the whole system tightly regulated or not. It seems that what we want as an American people to one degree or another is the expansion of who gets to live as though they are wealthy. We are seeking to expand this storing up that allows one to have a disposable income to spend on investments that if it pays off (and we want the guarantee that it will) will ensure that we will after a certain point in life have no worries about our financial well being.

This seems like a good, and yet here is Jesus saying that that attitude is that of the wealthy and foolish person, who has no understanding of what the Kingdom of God is and will find that when God comes calling that said person will not even know it, and will have lost their soul.

We'd like to say that those other peoples forms of wealth accumulation and creation are greedy. Thus the average American who has been hit deeply and fallen on hard times was not greedy, only those financiers and investors who took risks and invented new and ever more risky ways of making money and increasing their own but also that of the average American's portfolios, it is those people labled "Wall Street" who are the only greedy and unethical ones. Even I would like to say that I am exempt from this parable, that I who have no investments or pension fund, who left aside 7 years ago now seeking to only accumulate things and space for my wife and I and our family alone am free of this. And yet, if I am honest I too when and if a financial windfall comes want to store that money and goods up. I have many things that I have for some future that may never come, for a future I may not be called into. I seek to acquire things that may have nothing to do with God, or what God requires of me. My own denomination requires that its clergy store up for themselves with the denominations pension plan.

The good news here I think is that Jesus is talking about true liberation and true security, which we should know now can't come from our government nor the financial and economic institutions that set themselves up as necessary for our ability to survive and live and thrive. Also, what allows me to be prepared for the future or for that moment which is now to render to God's what God requires of me which is my whole being my soul, is God's own invitation in Jesus Christ. Also it is that the moment is always now, God continually comes and asks us to follow and as Bonhoeffer says bids us come and die. Our soul is always required of us and the grace I know is that God accepts the amount of ourselves we understand to give. The challenge of this parable is to seek to be one who seeks to have no possessions as the one who seeks to have them. However, it seems to me that our entire culture is bound up in the attitude of the foolish rich man, and so to answer Jesus' call we must begin by letting go of the values of a culture that says security and prudence are found in storing up so that one may at some point when old have more than enough to survive without needing to work.

Tripp has preached something similar .

In this passage Jesus refuses to be the one to decide how and who gets what they are due, rather he calls all to abandon the search for the accumulations of things and wealth. We are to have our attention elsewhere, we are to trust that there will be enough,that there is enough. When God provided manna in the desert for the people of Israel, it could not be stored up even for a day except before the Sabbath. The year of Jubilee undid all accumulation of wealth and in fact the whole cycle of sabbath years and Jubilee does seem to indicate that wealth creation and accumulation takes place at the expense of others: if one has surplus of something it means another has less off it, such disparities are reversed in the year of jubilee. We on the other hand seem to believe quite the opposite: we believe that everyone can have a surplus without someone else having less or less than they need. But the issue isn't simply justice, or rather justice isn't simply about liberation and freedom from oppression but living according to the call of God, the claim of God on us each one. justice is then ultimately to place us in that moment where we can receive God's call and claim on our souls, our whole beings. Justice is not an end in itself, but a means to true communion with God. So, if we work for economic justice in our system of wealth creation and accumulation, of the need for economies to grow without end, or slip or stall, we must understand that the system itself could be just by our standards (perhaps) but fail to open us up to the call of the Totally Other, who has an absolute claim on our lives. In the End Jesus says gaining entrance into wealth and the supposed security of having enough to sustain one without worry, will hide us from the truth of life.