Consumer Economy: Discontented and Ungrateful
Photo by Marcus Spiske on Unsplash
In his wise and comprehensive study, Norman Wirzba has this statement of the obvious that is in fact quite remarkable:
Today’s consumer economy trains us to be discontented and ungrateful… In this context it becomes very difficult to live deeply, or with affection and responsibility in the places where we are. The habits of our economic lives point us in the opposite direction: the direction of exile (p. 146).
This comment has caused me to think of consumerism in the Bible, that is, a life that is defined by the pursuit, possession, and excessive valuing of things. These several prophetic texts have occurred to me as manifestations of the endless, unsatisfied, unsatisfying pursuit of more things:
- The most specific and graphic critique of the pursuit of “things” is in Isaiah 3:16-24. The poet offers a rich, full inventory of excessive finery that strains our more familiar vocabulary:
In that day the Lord will take away the finery of the anklets, the headbands, and the crescents; the pendants, the bracelets, and the scarves; the headdresses, the armlets, the sashes, the perfume boxes, and the amulets; the signet rings and nose rings; the festal robes, the mantles, the cloaks, and the handbags; the garments of gauze, them linen garments, the turbans, and the veils (Isaiah 3:18-23).
This exotic list represents the passion of the wealthy in Jerusalem who engage in endless self-indulgence, and eagerly exhibit their wealth and fashion. Before he finishes, Isaiah will mock the strutting women of Jerusalem, the sorry end to which they will come, and their coming reduction to ignoble sadness and slavery (vv. 16-17, 24-26).
- A much more sober articulation of confiscatory greed is voiced in Jeremiah 5:17:
They shall eat up your harvest and your food;
they shall eat up your sons and your daughters;
they shall eat up your flocks and your herds;
they shall eat up your vines and your fig trees;
your fortified cities in which you trust
they shall beat down with the sword (Jeremiah 5:17).
The verb “eat up” four times in the poem is the actual word for “eat” (‘cl) that imagines the insatiable appetite of the invader. The actor here who does the “devouring” is “an ancient nation,” that is, Babylon. The insatiable appetite of invasive imperial Babylon, in its confiscatory reach, is without limit or restraint. The empire is predatory toward smaller, helpless economies from which it seizes and extracts wealth. The reach of Babylon is not unlike the reach of America that treats much of the international community as a weak, helpless colony that serves the appetite of American consumerism.
- The third of the “major prophets,” Ezekiel, offers an even more specific “menu” of the commercial empire of Tyre:
Tarshish did business with you out of the abundance of your great wealth: silver, iron, tin, and lead they exchanged for your wares. Javan, Tubal, and Meshech traded with you; the exchanged human beings and vessels of bronze for your merchandise. Bethtogarmah exchanged for your wares horses, war horses, and mules. Rhodians traded with you; many coastlands were your own special markets; they brought you in payment ivory tusks and ebony. Edom did business with you because of your abundant goods; they exchanged for your wares turquoise, purple, embroidered work, fine linen, coral, and rubies. Judah and the land of Israel traded with you; they exchanged for your merchandise wheat from Minnith, millet, honey, oil, and balm. Damascus traded with you for your abundant goods—because of your great wealth of every kind—wine of Helbon, and white wool. Vedan and Javan from Uzal entered into trade for your wares; wrought iron, cassia, and sweet cane were bartered for your merchandise. Dedan traded with you in saddlecloths for riding. Arabia and all the princes of Kedar were your favorite dealers in lambs, rams, and goats; in these they did business with you. The merchants of Sheba and Raamah traded with you; they exchanged for your wares the best of all kinds of spics, and all precious stones and gold. Haran, Canneh, Eden, and the merchants of Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad traded with you. These traded with you in choice garments, in clothes of blue and embroidered work, and in carpets of colored material, bound with cords and made secure; in these they traded with you. The ships of Tarshish traveled for you in your trade (Ezekiel 27:12-25; see Revelation 18:1-13).
This amazing, tedious inventory includes all manner of rich and exotic items that commercial aggression makes possible and visible. Moreover, the inventory includes mention of “human beings “(nephesh ‘adam) who are reckoned as slaves for commercial predators.
The three prophetic citations together attest to the preoccupation of Israelite society with the accumulation of and desire to exhibit wealth, control, and success. And of course such preoccupation with the possession and exhibit of consumer goods skews all societal relationships. It leads to leverage of owners over debtors, of bosses over laborers. The practice runs all the way from ancient Pharaoh to our current economic reliance on the cheap labor of non-whites in our most affluent economy. Our seemingly limitless appetite for consumption requires cheap goods and cheap labor that inevitably skews all social relationships. The pursuit of more and more consumer goods leads to more discontent and the compelling desire for “the next product” that we assume and hope will bring wellbeing and happiness. But then, we discover, albeit belatedly, that after a certain level of satiation, more consumer goods do not satisfy and leave us simply discontented. And when we acquire the capacity for limitless possessiveness, we begin to imagine it is our doing, so that we can assert that,
My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth (Deuteronomy 8:17).
Or to take Pharaoh as the supreme “owner,” he could declare:
The Nile is my own;
I made it (Ezekiel 29:3).
The illusion of being “self-made” means that we do not recognize that we are on the receiving end of “all good gifts that are sent from heaven above.” We readily assert an ultimate autonomy of the self that is accountable to no one for anything. The outcome, inescapably, is that the strong can devour the weak, the haves can exploit the have-nots, and the “winners” can dismiss the “losers” as of no account and without any social claim.
The wisdom tradition of ancient Israel reflected, long and deep, upon the destructive impact of such foolishness, and upon the daily practice of wisdom that refuses the world of accumulation, greed, and restless satisfaction of endless appetites. I could readily identify four proverbial teachings that reflect upon the matter and that counter the foolishness of endless satiation.
- For our purpose the most important proverb I could identify is in Proverbs 15:17:
Better is a dinner of vegetables where love is
than a fatted ox and hatred with it.
As is characteristic of such “better sayings,” the wisdom tradition does not explain or tell us why this is “better” than that. We are left to deduce this from our experience. In this proverb the tradition imagines that “fatted ox,” that is, great luxurious, indulgent dining, may indeed arrive through social conflict, or dispute, or usurpation. That is, such luxury that is not widely shared arises from the rough-and-tumble of competitive effort through which some win and some lose. This particular proverbial teaching cannot imagine that such affluent food would be available without such “hatred,” dispute, and conflict. The alternative food is not the food of satiation. It is rather the food of adequate sustenance… in the form of vegetables. The proverb can anticipate that such “peaceable” food need not evoke affront or conflict because it may be situated in a context of social harmony and generous sharing. (Witness the endless circulation of zucchini squash in a rural neighborhood when it is in season). The proverb is in fact a shrewd discernment of the kinds of social production that makes for irenic communities, and, conversely, the kinds of production and distribution that result in conflict and eventually inequality between those who have too much and those who lack access to life necessities.
We may, moreover, notice that King Solomon in all of his extravagant dining embodies the foolishness that eventually results in social conflict and disorder (I Kings 4:22-23, 12:1-19). The proverb of course does not reflect on environmental issues, but it is an obvious extrapolation from the proverb that “fatted ox,” that is, beef in the long run quite destructive of the environment, whereas gardening (even on a large scale) that produces vegetables does not rob the soil of its life-giving capacity. Such eating makes less demand of the environment than a daily diet of meat. Thus our diets inescapably affect the capacity of God’s good earth in its generous offer of food. The Psalmist can readily imagine that in, with, and under human effort it is God, the creator, who is the source of our food:
These all look to you to give them their food in due season;
when you give it to them, they gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things (Psalm 104:27-28).
The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food in due season.
You open your hand,
satisfying the desire of every living thing (Psalm 145:15-16).
There can be no doubt that acknowledgement of God as the ultimate source of our food provides a check on our endless appetites. The more we trust the generosity of the creator, the less need we have to devour everything upon which we can get our hands. The matter pertains most directly to our food, but eventually it pertains to all of the provisions required for our life together.
- A second “better saying” is in Proverbs 17:1:
Better is dry morsel with quiet
than a house full of feasting with strife.
This parallelism is very close to that of 15:17. On the one hand there can be the “quiet” of serenity, peaceableness, and good order. (The Hebrew word here is likely shalom). On the other hand, there can be disputatious competition over who gets what, who has the right to “extra servings,” and who must manage only with deprivation. Thus the contrasting circumstances of eating provide a mapping of generosity and greed, of common life and private accumulation. The wisdom tradition has no doubt on which is “better.” It is “better” because it is in harmony with the intent of the creator, and in sync with the way in which the gifts of creation are on offer, given in abundance, but an abundance that is designed for sharing and in which there is no restless accumulation or monopoly. It may be that we can learn from other creatures:
Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap or gather into barns, and yet our heavenly Father feeds them (Matthew 6:26).
- The wisdom tradition, in its positive nurture, intends to evoke “good persons”:
From the fruit of their words good persons eat good things,
But the desire of the treacherous is for wrongdoing (Proverbs 13:2).
The proverb does not delineate a “good person,” but clearly has in mind the kind of generative, generous person who readily enhances the wellbeing of the community. The saying is in parallel with that of the Psalm:
It is well with the man who deals generously and lends,
who conducts his affairs with justice…
He has distributed freely,
he has given to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever;
his horn is exalted in honor (Psalm 112:5, 9).
Such persons are willing and able to live a modest life, without excessive appetites, and without any compulsion to covet what is not theirs.
- In a fourth proverb, the wisdom tradition ponders systemic usurpation through practices of injustice that skews all food production and distribution:
The field of the poor may yield much food,
but it is swept away through injustice (Proverbs 13:23).
This saying recognizes that the poor may indeed grow a great deal of food. They may be both wise and diligent in their garden work. But the poor are always preyed upon by the ruthless and the powerful, and so may be deprived even of their own produce. The narrative of Naboth with his modest vineyard is a case in point (I Kings 21). We may assume that Naboth was a peasant farmer, perhaps poor, but in any case vulnerable. He had no chance when confronted by the lethal, ruthless force of the crown that does not blink at “injustice.” Thus what might have been for him a modest but manageable life is terminated by the rapacious seizure of his property.
We can only imagine that the royal indulgence of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel mirrored the luxury of Solomon, benefitting from the produce of Naboth’s vineyard. There is more than enough food; but it is “swept away” through economic leverage, through military usurpation, or through political manipulation. The outcome, as in the proverb, is that the poor remain poor while the predators benefit from their produce. Thus we have come full circle to insatiability. Ahab and Jezebel embody such indulgence and have no hesitation in seizing what belongs to the vulnerable peasant farmer. The Bible—in the Torah, in the prophets, and in the Proverbs—sees clearly (a) how creation provides abundance and (b) how that abundance is skewed by acquisitive exploitation of the strong against the vulnerable. What is played out with narrative specificity in the Bible is performed systemically in the affairs of the nations. Not unlike Solomon—or Ahab and Jezebel—the United States has become the great usurper of the labor and resources of more vulnerable economies. The insatiable appetite of US capitalism requires that such confiscatory capacity should be uncurbed and undeterred in its futile hunger for more and more and more.
In a series of compelling studies, Michael Hudson has delineated the way in which the wealth and resources of the global economy are all arranged to flow to the United States:
The net flow of foreign exchange over time is not from the United States to aid-borrowing countries, as implied in the modern connotation of the term “aid,” but from the borrowers to the United States, the feudal connotation…Viewed in its broad outlines, U. S. foreign aid has provided short-term resources to the recipients in exchange for long-term strategic, military, and economic gains to the donor (Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of the American Empire (1969), 132-133).
Matt Kennard, The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs the Masters of the Universe (2015) even more frontally notes the way in which US economic leverage “loots” the world economy:
The American elite that has grown fat from looting abroad is also fighting a war at home. From the 1970s onwards, the same white-collar mobsters have been winning a war against the people of the US, in the form of a massive, underhand con. They have slowly but surely managed to sell off much of what the American people used to own under the guise of various fraudulent ideologies such as the “free market.” This is the “American way,” a giant swindle, a grand hustle. In this sense, the victims of the racket are not just in Port-au-Prince and in Baghdad; they are also in Chicago and New York City. The same people that devise the myths about what we do abroad have also built up a similar ideological system that legitimizes theft at home; theft from the poorest, by the richest. The poor and working people of Harlem have more in common with the poor and working people of Haiti than they have with their elites, but this has to be obscured for the racket to work. Many actions taken by the US government, in fact, habitually harm the poorest and most destitute of its citizens. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a good example. It came into force in January 1994 and was a fantastic opportunity for US business interests, because markets were opened up for an investment and export bonanza. Simultaneously, thousands of US workers lost their jobs to workers in Mexico where their wages could be beaten down by even poorer people. The inevitable conclusion is that our entire world is at the mercy of an elite business community who run it in secret (p. 7).
Kennard cites Honduras as a case in point for US exploitation:
The profits are repatriated to the US and other western capitals, while the Hondurans spend their money in their restaurants. In this sense, Honduras is one of those unfortunate places where many facets of US imperial power converge—the neoliberal economics, the support for the military institution, the hysterical anti-leftist ideology (172).
Kennard draws the conclusion:
A class war is being fought and the poor are losing. The racket based in the West has the money and power to extend itself globally, and so workers are fighting each other for work across borders (54).
The capacity to resist the predatory potential of the powerful is an immense challenge. Thus Kennard cites, as a case in point, the daring, determined work of Dina Meza who runs daily risks in Honduras:
When you travel around the world investigating how the US has uniformly tried to stub out popular movements through the most heinous and brutal programs, people like Meza also pop up everywhere. These are people who refuse to become just another statistic buried by the US media, people whose names will never be known beyond their communities, but who continue to fight every day, at great risk to themselves, positioned against the most powerful state and military in the history of the world (165).
The boldness of such resisters is always risky and uphill. Given such risk, we may cling to the deep conviction that the claims of the usurpers are decidedly penultimate. In the long run, such willful exploitation of God’s creation cannot be sustained. We say and sing with no misgiving:
This is my Father’s world, O let me ne’er forget
that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world, why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King, let the heavens ring! God reigns, let the earth be glad!
(“This is My Father’s World” The United Methodist Hymnal, 144).
Any who seek to usurp our common good, generously given by God, for their own private usage will soon or late come to failure and futility. Thus the disciplines of restraint that evoke gratitude and generosity toward hungry neighbors are in glad response to the generous will of the creator God. The faithful, over and over, discover that shared food offers joyous abundance not given through indulgent private hoarding.
