Abstract
Theology and Economics presents a collection of essays written by Christian economists and theologians aimed at bringing the disciplines of economics and theology into conversation around the topic of the common good. Cultivating a conversation between the two disciplines is a timely concern. As editors Jeremy Kidwell and Sean Doherty observe in their introduction, there is a ‘broad consensus, among both religious and non-religious scholars that the profusion of crises in the last decade with prominent businesses and economies is in many ways a moral crisis’ (p. 1, italics original). Unfortunately, the dialogue between the two disciplines is marred by mutual incomprehension. For the most part, the essays in this volume exemplify this difficulty, despite the fact that the authors gathered together twice in order to advance mutual understanding. The disparate takes presented in the twelve essays and three responses that comprise the book might make one despair of the possibility of finding a coherent approach to theological economics. That said, some of the essays taken together do point to a path forward.
In the volume’s first essay, Andy Hartropp, who is both an economist and a theologian, asks ‘why is engagement between Christian economists and theologians difficult?’ (p. 11). He identifies three primary reasons why their conversations tend to be unproductive and these can serve as a template for evaluating the rest of the essays with respect to the degree to which they advance or hinder the dialogue.
First, Hartropp observes that too frequently theologians pronounce on economics in a way that suggests they are unaware of the chasm between theological and economic discourse. In particular, they tend to center their discussions on questions about the distribution of wealth without seeming to recognize that such issues are inextricably linked with questions about production. In the next essay, ‘What do Theologians Need to Know about Economics?’, Michael G. Pollitt, an economist, presents a list of propositions about economics that he wishes theologians understood. Included among these is a greater appreciation for the role that markets have played in reducing poverty, the fact that economists are well aware that markets can fail and have thought deeply about how to remedy those failures, and correlatively the fact that governments can likewise fail. As Hartropp suggests, theologians tend to look at the big picture whereas economists are more concerned with the details. The difficulty is that by focusing solely on the big picture, theologians tend to be highly critical of the market economy in a way that does not do justice to the more complex view of markets on offer by economists (p. 19). Hence some theologians’ critiques can be naïve, and economists are not wrong to be dismissive of them.
Fortunately, this particular difficulty only surfaces a few times in the remainder of the volume. In his reply to the first group of essays, Malcolm Brown, a theologian, attempts to rebut Pollitt’s criticism of the economic illiteracy one often encounters in theological economics, but in doing so he simply repeats many of the errors. Most notably, he conflates the description of mainstream economics on offer from Pollitt with the Chicago school, which does indeed tend to promote a laissez-faire approach; Pollitt had barely finished saying that economists are well aware that markets can fail and sometimes need governmental intervention. Sean Doherty’s essay, ‘The Kingdom of God and the Economic System: An Economics of Hope’, serves as an example of the tendency of theologians to look at the big picture, in a generally critical way. As Doherty puts it, ‘many people instinctively judge that Christianity and capitalism cannot be squared with one another. This is a judgment with which I agree’ (p. 144). Doherty goes on to offer theological arguments for offering criticisms of capitalism that might sound ‘utopian’, without spelling out precisely what those criticisms might be. It is not clear how one can do a serious theological appraisal of ‘utopian’ approaches without first establishing that such approaches are reasonable in some sense even if they sound ‘utopian’. Presumably there are utopian-sounding approaches to economics that make good theological sense; but it is equally likely that there are utopian approaches to economics that are premised on a misunderstanding of the genuine drawbacks of capitalism.
The second obstacle to productive conversation that Hartropp identifies lies in the fact that economics is a secular discipline. As a result, there is no place in the structure of economic thought for deep theological intervention. While topics like just wages or the need for more altruism can be and often are accommodated in economic thought, theological takes on economic life that appeal to concepts like eschatology or the divine economy are simply unintelligible to economists given the secular horizons of their discipline’s underlying world-view. The richest contributions theology could make to economics almost certainly lie in thinking through how economic analysis would have to change to accommodate such concepts. But to do so would require that one be well versed in economics, so that one could more readily identify exactly where the deeply secular assumptions that undergird modern economic thought impact economic analysis. None of the essays in this volume is sufficiently bi-lingual to undertake such a task. Instead, the theological contributions to the book tend to engage in intramural theological discussions that would be unintelligible to any Christian economist thinking about how her faith should impact her way of doing economics.
The first principally theological essay in the volume, by Eve Poole, identifies one reason why theological reflections on economics are often oriented towards other theologians rather than economists. Unlike economists, who despite their disagreements about a variety of economic matters share an underlying sense of how the questions in their discipline should be framed and studied, theologians are deeply fragmented. Poole offers a neat typology of these fragmentations, wherein theologians disagree both on how to understand the relationship between Christ and the world, and on how to engage their audience. Depending on how one counts, there would be at least fifteen distinctive approaches to theological economics, with many disagreements among them. Poole’s catalogue of the various theologies one might bring to a conversation with economists could have been enhanced by an attempt to map those approaches onto the somewhat analogous distinction economists make between positive economics (largely descriptive) and normative economics (consideration of what would be desirable). A tendency to substitute intramural arguments about which theological approach best enables engaging economics for actual engagement with economics characterizes the essays by Mark Chapman, Hans Ulrich and Martyn Percy. All these explore topics that could fruitfully be brought to bear on economic analysis, but none of them would be particularly accessible to an economist.
Hartropp’s third major obstacle to conversation centers on the economic model of human choice, which assumes that individuals calculate rationally how best to deploy scarce resources in order to achieve their ends. The twin assumptions of rationality and self-interest are both problematic and widely misunderstood. One misunderstanding involves conflating self-interest with selfishness. For an economist, a rational economic agent is required simply to pursue well-defined preferences. But those preferences could as well be those of Mother Teresa as those of Bernie Madoff. A second misunderstanding involves the use economists make of models of rational choice. Economists do not intend these to be taken as comprehensive descriptions of the human condition. The art of modeling involves stripping away complexity in order to focus on the interactions that work themselves out through markets and other institutions. For an economist, such models are successful if they yield testable predictions that bear up under empirical scrutiny. Critiques that focus on the lack of realism of such models miss the point of economic methods. That said, as Hartropp further suggests, although economists argue that they are merely attempting to describe or predict behavior, the models themselves might well end up shaping behavior. These are widely taught to undergraduates and business students, and it seems likely that students who hear that rationality involves a calculated pursuit of whatever ends one has chosen will conclude that they ought to make their own decisions on that basis. The essays that pursue this problem are among the best in the book.
First, economists Donald Hay and Gordon Menzies offer a lucid account of the origins of the rational choice model and deflect the naïve criticisms that are often directed to it. They go on to survey the more penetrating critiques of the model that have surfaced both within economics and from outsiders. The rational choice model cannot distinguish between lower-level preferences and higher-order judgments, thus treating a choice between vanilla and chocolate as formally equivalent to a choice between pursuing wealth and promoting social solidarity. Studies of decision-making in controlled settings have shown that individuals frequently act in ways that are ‘irrational’ by the narrow definitions of the rational choice model, but that can be better understood in light of social norms. And finally, the rational choice model simply compares badly with a consideration of human decision-making in light of virtue ethics, suggesting this approach is better suited to the complexities and uncertainties of human life. Economist Andrew Henley’s contribution offers a strong argument for rethinking economic choice in light of virtue ethics. As both essays suggest, moving past the narrow view of ‘rationality’ embedded in most economic models would allow us better to understand human behavior. Moreover, recent empirical work suggests that thicker models do a better job of describing important features of modern life than does the standard economic model. This is a promising arena for further conversation between economists and theologians.
Although pushing beyond the set of issues raised by Hartropp with respect to the rational choice model, two of the strongest essays in the volume likewise focus on the essence of human choice, raising questions about how we should order goods. Nicholas Townsend, in his extraordinarily lucid and helpful contribution, first observes that we should take care in how we deploy the word ‘capitalism’. It can be used to refer to the set of institutions we call the market economy. But it can also be used to refer to the idea that the overriding purpose of firms is to maximize their profits. It is the latter sort of ‘capitalism’ that lies behind the intuitive sense that capitalism and Christianity are not easily reconciled. As Townsend also suggests, the conflation of the two has led to a largely unhelpful focus on institutional questions: could the evils of capitalism be avoided if we socialized private property? If, however, the real problem is thinking about life as an exercise in maximizing economic productivity, socialism will continue to subordinate human to economic ends. Hence the real conflict between Christianity and capitalism is in relation to that second form. Any approach to life that fails to think about how economic goods should be ordered to genuine human flourishing, including a proper orientation to God, is likely to lead to a set of political/social outcomes that are unjust or unstable. Townsend’s essay thus points to a central tension between economics and theology. Economic models are premised on the very maximizing behavior that is difficult to reconcile with a Christian life that pursues a relationship with God and the cultivation of human goods in this life. Jeremy Kidwell’s essay, discussing the social ethics of John of Chrysostom, likewise concludes that the central issue is not so much about institutions as it is about our ability properly to value economic goods, in light of the higher goods they are meant to support. A theological economics that began with these sets of concerns would likely produce a clearer understanding of the disorders of our current economic culture, along with a clear message about the role theological reflection can and should play in helping us work towards a more humane and well-functioning economy.