Deep Economy and the Economy of Jesus

Yesterday I needed a new stapler. Simple item, simple solution: I drove down to the local Stuff-Mart, found the stationary section and grabbed the cheapest one out of a selection of about ten. I turned it over in my hand and paused for a fatal moment. Imported by Wal-Mart Canada, it said. Made in China.

And I started thinking about how strange a world we live in, one where we can drive down the street and, for the price of about 10 minutes labour, satisfy our slightest need, buying some whimsical item that a faceless stranger snapped together in a place we’ve never seen, and more faceless strangers shipped thousands of miles to us from somewhere we have absolutely no connection to, to be set on a shelf next to ten others just like it. We take this arrangement for granted, but when you compare it to the overall history of human economy, this is one of the most bizarre and unnatural systems our kind has ever set up. (I stood there for a second, trying to imagine the actual hands working monotonously in some huge factory somewhere in China, assembling this particular stapler—and then imaging it actually sitting in a cargo crate on a ship somewhere in the middle of the Pacific coming to Moose Jaw—sort of gives you shivers).

It’s bizarre and unnatural. I just finished this book, Deep Economy, by Bill McKibben, who claims that it’s also unhealthy and unsustainable. McKibben critiques Western culture’s “economy of growth,” documenting the dehumanizing consumerism, the ever-growing pile of junk, and the environmental exploitation that goes along with it. He argues pretty lucidly that what we need most of all, for the health of our planet and our souls, are economic practices that intentionally build rich community, not an ever growing pile of stuff. And the whole time I read it, I kept thinking over and over about the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus might point us to Matthew 6:19-34 and say: “I told you so.”

McKibben’s call for economic practices that emphasize community and human-scale over the unsustainable myth of unlimited growth, is forcing me to imagine what a Christian economy might look like. The vision is still pretty hazy, but I’ll try out some concrete details here: simplicity—we’d live on less and stop buying stuff we don’t need; human scale—we’d share more, lend more, repair more, grow more and create more of the things in our lives; connectedness—we’d start buying local as much as we can, and develop meaningful relationships with the actual flesh-and-blood hands that supply us our food, furniture, clothing, entertainment and so on; community—we’d live in homes and neighbourhoods and market-places that made room for life together, not just cavernous spaces for our piles of stuff.

As the world tries desperately to stimulate a flaccid economy, maybe the Church has a vital opportunity to speak prophetically, by pointing people to the economy of Jesus. If only we could figure out how to live it ourselves.