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The
bubble of materialsim has burst or is it the bubble of
capitalism? The call by big banks and corporations for
help from governments and some governments’ seeking to
intervene in the economy proves that government
regulation becomes inevitable.
‘Erosion, desertification, and pollution have become our
lot. It is a weird form of suicide, for we are bleeding
our planet to death.’ –that was the kind of warnings we
used to receive regarding the plundering of our planet
by the human species in the sixties. The earth is sick
and polluted and hence human health will continue to be
a problem. Subsequently we also had been warned about
the prospect of being wiped out of existence by AIDS.
Now another threat looms large on the horizon: the
global economic crisis.
According to the International Labor Organization, 50
million jobs will be lost in 2009, causing more people,
especially in the developing world, to fall into
poverty. The World Bank says 53 million will drop into
poverty, of those 46 million will try to exist on less
than $1.25 ( U.S. ) and 7 million will earn under $2 (
U.S. ). The Bank also estimates that 2000,000 to 400,000
more children will die if financial conditions continue
at this pace into 2015.
Mere data does not covey the extent of misery caused
when a bread winner is thrown out of job, small time
investors incur loss of all their savings and
institutions declare bankruptcy rendering benefactors
into beggars.
In the light of the crisis which started in developed
nations like the US, experts are out to confesss that
for many years, the people have gone on living beyond
their means recklessly using credit cards. At one stage
it was the escalating oil prices that seemed to bring in
shadows of doom.
Real estate speculators, greedy bankers, big
corporations –whoever caused the catastrophe, only
proves that the present level of prosperity is not
maintenable unless man takes corrective steps
Also it is now being increasingly realised that the
capitalist system has elements of greed, arrogance and
the lust for power .Also that the government must step
in to correct the evils though there can be no quick fix
solutions.
In its craze for consumerism, the West has long ago
abandoned all thoughts of thrift and an Italian
philosopher Adriano Tilgher (1887-1041) commented: ‘I
may be a pessimist but the philosophy of anti-thrift
just now coming into being, seems to me the greatist
danger to peace in the world.
‘What we know about the global financial crisis, ‘says
the well known economist, is that we don’t know much.’
Be that as it may, there have been many observers of the
Western economy like the late Malcolm Muggeridge, who
predicted that the Western society, in its unbridled
pursuit of happiness, is driven by a death wish. What he
wrote several decades ago seems more and more sensible
and relevant in the light of recent developments.
He had contempt for the notion of progress bandied about
in his time: that happiness lay along motorways, and
well being in a rising Gross National Product. That
birth pills, easy divorce and abortion made for happy
families and so on. He wrote that a civilisation must
have been possessed by a death wish which so assiduously
and ingeniously sought its own extinction –physically by
devoting so much of its wealth, knowledge and skills to
creating the means to blow itself and all mankind to
smithereens; economically, by developing a consumer
economy whereby more and more wants have to be
artificially created and stimulated in order to take up
an endlessly expanding production; morally by abolishing
the moral order altogether and pursuing the will-o-the
wisp of happiness through satiety; spiritually by
abolishing God himself and saetting up man as the
arbiter of his own destiny.’
However the crisis has many lessons for the Christian.
It is being proved again and again that he should not
trust uncertain riches. Money can take wings . He has to
conserved his resources, spend wisely and live frugally
so that something is left for sharing with others in a
spirit of compassion..
Humbled by the bursting of the econmic bubbles, the
Christian learns to be moderate in all things. Recall
the prayer of the psalmist: ‘Two things I ask of you, O
Lord, do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and
lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have
too much and disown you and say, `Who is the Lord?' Or I
may become poor and steal, and so dishonour the name of
my God…’ See also Matthew 6:11.
Not only individuals but groups and nations at times pay
a price for their greed. It is well to bear in mind the
admonition of St Paul in his first letter to Timothy: ‘
Now Godlienss with contentment is great gain. For we
brought nothing into this world , and it is certain we
can carry nothing out.And having food and clothing ,
with this we shall be content. But those who desire to
be rich fall into temptation and a snare and many
foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in
destruction…’ How true! The news of many a suicide and
killings demonstrate the folly of going after too much
wealth.
Currently we with our huge Malls, metros and
entertainments halls are imitating the West more and
more. Our pursuit of happiness is not through the
pathways shown by the Lord but through worldly ways
beset with many pitfalls. These are not evident to even
practising Christians. The late Malcolm Muggeridge, who
began life as an agnostic and socialist has rejected the
western pursuit of happiness and wrote as follows:
'As I have realised the fallacy of all materialist
philosophies and the materiualist utopias and of the
politics of utopianism, so U have come to feel more and
more strongly that the answer to life does not lie in
materialism. In seeking the other transcendental answer
I have inevitably and increasingly been driven to the
conclusion, almost against my own will, thjat for a West
European whose life and background and trandion are in
terms of Western European Christian civilisation, the
only answer lies in the person and life and taching of
Christ.’
Perhaps the bursting of the materialist bubble is a call
to examine our own lives. It was said long ago that life
does not consist in the abundance of things a man
possesses. That message is brought to us afresh by the
global crisis.
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