Consumerist Economy or Kingdom of Life?

A couple weeks ago, I was sent this outstanding article about Mr. Obama's recent speech at Georgetown University addressing issues of the economy. Below are several quotations that convey much of the meat of the argument. I believe that this author (a professor at Georgetown) has "hit the nail on the head" in his analysis of our collective problems in the US.

Yesterday our President spoke at length about the economy at the school at which I teach, Georgetown University. A nominally Catholic University, it might rightly have been the place where a new vision for a humane economy might have been advanced. It might have been a stage on which the great teachings of the Catholic tradition about an economy that is subordinate to concerns about commonweal based upon a true understanding of human nature and natural limits might have been advanced - rather than a stage on which the symbols of Jesus Christ were obscured so not to disturb the viewing audience from any inconvenient symbol of the actual Messiah.

Widely touted as an opportunity for the President to lay out a new vision for the economic future of the nation, instead it was a commitment to do more of the same, albeit with more centralized control and command, with an aim to “restoring” an economy whose sole purpose is to generate a wasteland of consumerism, debt-driven distraction, endless hedonic opportunities and the destruction of human communities everywhere in the name of efficiency, meritocracy and opportunity...

...We have replaced an actual economy with this “bubble” economy because of a deep, pervasive, and wholly unjustified expectation that we deserved to live as well or better than that “greatest generation” who happened to live in a time of extraordinary and exceptional (and temporary) national wealth. In that decade or two after World War II, America attained a remarkable position in the world, with its industrial machinery wholly intact and ready to roll, a national and worldwide market poised to buy American goods, and a resource base that appeared to be limitless...

...And so, we are told, our current economic crisis is due to a few bad loans made by a few bad eggs who work on Wall Street. What is neglected in this explanation is a broader and deeper perspective: our current crisis is due to the fact that we have, as a civilization, refused to live within our means - and the means afforded us by the natural world - over roughly the past 50 years. Mistaking a temporary glut of post-war wealth and resource plenty as a permanent condition, we are told by our leaders - indeed, we demand of them that they tell us - that we can continue to have it all, costless plenitude. Yet these past thirty-odd years of our “economy” have been one in which we have maintained our wealth simultaneously by transferring the accumulated national wealth abroad, importing oil and debt, while refusing to face the mounting costs of this exercise...

Might there be an alternative to continuing the cycle of greed, self-indulgence and dissatisfaction? Pray God that they Church may cry aloud: "Yes! the very symbols of the Cross and IHS (that were concealed while the President spoke), they point us toward a more excellent way!"

It wasn't just corporate greed that got us here. It was just plain greed. One of the seven deadly sins according to the Christian tradition...but then traditional religion is just some pre-modern backward way of thinking with no relevance to the real world...or so we thought.
Yes, our collective greed has led to this crisis. We, 'the People', are responsible: we have been living above our means for years, and we have been listening to one commercial after another that tells us that it is somehow our 'right' to do so. Maybe we should critically re-examine the meaning and use of that word.

So given that our debts are totally out of control already, I wonder if "getting the banks lending again" is just what we really need? I mean is taking on even more debt going to help us get out of this crisis?

Maybe we should try something else: Joy

I believe we Christians are called in these circumstances to a renewed commitment to simple living, and to finding and sharing deep joy and freedom - not from stuff - but in prayer and communion with the living God and his people.