2008 March 08, 07 Ala, 164 BE
Having read so much in "Disaster Capitalism" about the baneful influence of the libertarian economist Milton Friedman and his "Chicago school" of economics, I was interested in a discussion of Friedman's religious views by Christian preacher John Lofton. According to Lofton, before Friedman's death he grew curious about the great economist's belief in God and in a letter asked him, "Do you believe in God? And what, if anything, does God have to do with economics?" Friedman answered,
"I am an agnostic. I do not believe in God, but I am not an atheist, because I believe the statement, `There is a god' does not admit of being either confirmed or rejected. I do not believe God has anything to do with economics. But values do." (An Exchange: My Correspondence With Milton Friedman About God, Economics, Evolution And Values, http://www.theamericanview.com/index.php?id=736)
The good pastor was not satisfied and wrote Friedman again, asking "What is the distinction you make between agnosticism and atheism? And where do these values you say you believe in come from?" Friedman responded,
"Agnosticism, `I do not know.' Atheism, `I know that there is no god.' I do not know where my values come from, but that does not mean I do not have them, (or that) I do not hold them as strongly as you hold your belief in God. They turn out -- not accidentally, I believe -- to be very much like those held by most other people whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, agnostic, or abstract. Which leads me to believe that they are a product of the same evolutionary process that accounts for the rest of our customs as well as physical characterizations."
Lofton goes on to debate Friedman's agnosticism in terms of his own exclusivist quasi-fundamentalist agenda. Some of his arguments are admittedly quite good. He offers a couple of quotes from St. Paul that I am sure I will find useful when I return to the atheism debate later on. In spite of his agnosticism, a Baha'i would agree with Friedman more than Lofton. Yes, morality is evolutionary and contextual. Yes, there is little to choose between values as grown by the various traditions, even as Jesus said, "By their fruits ye shall know them." But, as Klein points out, the fruits of Friedman's economic ideas have proven very lucrative for a corporatist elite, but in terms of the economic benefit of the vast majority of humans, these are bitter fruits indeed.
Hmm, maybe God does have something to do with economics after all, not to mention with the values of freedom for individual and free enterprise that Friedman so ardently upholds in his economic theories.
To see and pay homage to One God is to be inspired by a sense of awe. This reverence teaches love of humanity as a transcendent unity in diversity. It accepts both individuals and collectivities, not as polar opposites but as harmonious aspects of one truth. God teaches us to desire and accept universal law and promote cosmopolitan patriotism.
When U.S. President Harry Truman was attending the inauguration ceremonies of the United Nations after the Second World War, he kept in his pocket these lines from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's 1837 poem, Locksley Hall,
"For I dip't into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be;
... Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lap't in universal law."
Inspiring as is the poet's vision it is not prophetic; or, at least not as much as that of the philosopher. We have gone over in detail on this blog the prescient sketch for a perpetual peace that philosopher Immanuel Kant drew up in the 1790's. Kant all but wrote the constitution for the Federation of the world some forty years before Locksley Hall.
Two hundred and twenty years of procrastination later, global warming, the threat of war and nuclear proliferation and a thousand other dangers are forcing many to stand up for a truly representative democracy, something like what Tennyson calls the "common sense of most" holding a "fretful realm in awe." The stunted democracy we are stuck with is designed to assure the reverse of common sense; instead it uses "elite sense," fractured shibboleths devised by the wealthy few, backed by force, to hold most in fretful fear.
As Naomi Klein points out, if there were anything like true democracy the poor majority of the human race would immediately vote to redistribute the world's wealth into their own hands. Safe to say, the proposition, "Be it resolved that 95 percent of the world's wealth shall be held in the hands of 5 percent of the population," would not pass in a democratic plebiscite. Yet that is exactly the way things are, and that is because our almost universal attitude is pure agnosticism, just like Friedman's. "Do not know, do not care," liberty like the animal's, "I do not know, so leave me free to follow my instincts as I please." Such ignorant apathy is the reverse of the wonder and mystic reverence that God inspires.
The old world order, inequity and greed backed by violence and terror, explains why we put off the new world order, why the election of a parliament of man remains anathema, even in the face of global warming and global climate destabilization, why the very idea of a global democratic government is never mentioned in the press or seriously entertained in any public forum that I am aware of. The booty is just too enticing, the plunder of world resources too tempting to allow ownership to pass into the hands of all. Once the masses taste the sweetness of their birthright and the meek inherit the earth, once most know the joy of justice and peace, "... the kindly earth shall slumber, lap't in universal law," there will be no going back. Love will be unleashed as soon as universal justice takes the reins, for God is love.
That is why God -- the Inspirer of awe and reverence -- has everything to do with economics, for our economic relations are the result of common faith, an attitude that will bring a new divine world order into reality. As the Universal House wrote in its Peace Message,
"Clearly, a common remedial effort is urgently required. It is primarily a matter of attitude. Will humanity continue in its waywardness, holding to outworn concepts and unworkable assumptions? Or will its leaders, regardless of ideology, step forth and, with a resolute will, consult together in a united search for appropriate solutions?"
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