{"id":183255,"date":"2021-04-19T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T11:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=183255"},"modified":"2021-04-19T05:23:10","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T04:23:10","slug":"fratelli-tutti-and-the-great-reset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/04\/fratelli-tutti-and-the-great-reset\/","title":{"rendered":"Fratelli Tutti and the Great Reset"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pope Francis on 3 Oct 2020 released at a ceremony at the tomb of St. Francis in Assisi his latest encyclical letter, <em>Fratelli Tutti.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Less than four months previously, Klaus Schwab and his co-author Thierry Malleret launched <em>Covid-19: The Great Reset<\/em> at Davos, under the auspices of the World Economic Forum (WEF).<\/p>\n<p>In some ways their authors might appear to share a common worldview.\u00a0\u00a0 Schwab\u00b4s 2020 Manifesto, <em>The Universal Purpose of a Company,<\/em> is studded with phrases borrowed from the social doctrine of the church.\u00a0 Regarding Covid, <em>The Great Reset <\/em>writes that the storm will accelerate disturbing trends that have been building up for a long time. \u00a0Somewhat similarly, Pope Francis writes that the storm of the pandemic has only made it more urgent that we rethink our styles of life, our relationships, the organization of our societies, and the meaning of our existence.<\/p>\n<p>In the World of Pope Francis,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThe storm has exposed our vulnerability and uncovered those false and superfluous\u00a0\u00a0 certainties around which we constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities\u2026 Amid this storm the fa\u00e7ade \u00a0of those stereotypes with which we camouflaged our egos, always worrying about appearances, has fallen away, revealing once more the ineluctable and blessed awareness that we are part of one another, that we are brothers and sisters of one another.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In the fury of the storm we come to realize not just with our brains but with our whole beings that our true selves are not wholes but parts.\u00a0 We are kin in living networks for which over the ages no better words have been found than \u201csister\u201d, \u201cbrother\u201d and \u201cfamily\u201d. Saint Francis in his Canticle of the Sun sang of\u00a0 brother sun and sister moon, brother fire and sister water.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStorms\u201d can be and often are moments of truth; they can be times when we see who we are and who we want to become. Storms can transform our souls and commit us to service.\u00a0 The present pandemic offers many examples.<\/p>\n<p>Other popes have also provided articulate leadership when society has faced existential physical challenges.\u00a0\u00a0 Consider Pope Gregory the First.\u00a0 Gregory formulated the seven deadly sins still recognized by the Catholic Church and by several protestant denominations.<\/p>\n<p>When Gregory became Pope, the city of Rome had changed rulers repeatedly since 376 when hordes of ungovernable tribal peoples first entered the Empire.\u00a0 Many were dying from recurrent plagues; indeed, Gregory became Pope in 590 when his predecessor, Pelagius II died of the plague. \u00a0Rome had nominally been reconquered by the Roman Empire, but the seat of the Empire had been moved to Byzantium. The byzantine Emperor Theodosius, occupied by threats closer to home, was unwilling to send troops to reinforce the garrison at Rome.<\/p>\n<p>The new Pope found Rome filled with homeless and hungry refugees fleeing from wars farther north.\u00a0 His immediate and constant preoccupation was to be sure they were welcomed and fed. \u00a0\u00a0It was said that he would not eat himself everyone else in what was left of Rome had had their meal.\u00a0 To guarantee the food supply, Gregory organized agricultural production on lands ceded to the church.<\/p>\n<p>As a thought exercise, without underestimating the importance of virtues and joys, I suggest thinking of Pope Gregory\u00b4s list of seven deadly sins as a creative adaptation of human culture to its physical, emotional, and spiritual functions. I will write just a very few words regarding each sin, leaving it to the reader to add to them or subtract from them.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Pride:<\/strong> More humility, less violence<\/li>\n<li><strong>Greed:<\/strong> Create surplus for the purpose of sharing it (Acts 20:30-35)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Wrath:<\/strong> Less wrath, less violence, less fear<\/li>\n<li><strong>Envy:<\/strong> Less envy, less violence, more joy<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lust:<\/strong> Less lust, less fear, fewer mouths to feed<\/li>\n<li><strong>Gluttony:<\/strong> Consume only as much as you need, so there will be enough to go around<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sloth:<\/strong> Work is a call to service<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Let me compare the similar Worlds of Francis and Gregory to those of Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret.\u00a0 I read the latter as striving to transcend orthodox economics, but not yet succeeding.<\/p>\n<p><em>Covid 19: The Great Reset <\/em>is first described by its authors as<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u00a0\u201can\u00a0 attempt to identify and shed light on the changes that are ahead, and to make a modest contribution in terms of delineating what their more desirable and sustainable forms might resemble.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There follow grand claims that appear to be inconsistent with the modest aims just stated:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201c\u2026 the possibilities for change and the resulting new order are now unlimited and only bound by our imagination. You get the point:\u00a0 we should take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity to reimagine our world, in a bid to<\/em><em> make it a better and more resilient one, as it emerges on the other side of this crisis.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What would that better world be like?\u00a0 The authors state a first premise on page 78:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cFirst and foremost, the post-pandemic era will usher in a period of massive wealth redistribution, from the rich to the poor and from capital to labour.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Continuing, they suggest that neoliberalism is over. Solidarity is back.\u00a0 Government intervention for the sake of social welfare is back.\u00a0 Now is the time to enact sustainable environmental policies.<\/p>\n<p>While making dazzling points like \u201c<em>our<\/em>\u201d opportunity to create a better world has arrived, the WEF authors invariably revert to a cautious \u201c<em>on the other hand<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 For example, they say a focus on the environment might gain traction during the pandemic, but on the other hand, when the pandemic fades the focus on the environment might fade too, because:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><em>\u201cGovernments could decide that it is in the collective best interest to pursue growth \u00b4at any cost\u00b4 in order to cushion the impact on employment.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>\u201cCompanies will be under such pressure to increase revenue that sustainability in general and climate considerations in particular will become secondary.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>\u201cLow oil prices (if sustained, which is likely) could encourage both consumers and business owners to rely even more on carbon-intensive energy.\u201d <\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Let me suggest that this list 1 to 3 of \u00a0reasons why formal commitments to\u00a0 saving the environment\u00a0 made during a crisis are likely to be unreliable is one of many passages revealing that it is typical of the WEF to proclaim <em>fraternit\u00e9 <\/em>and then to default to the mental models of orthodox economics.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0As Keynes famously wrote,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThe\u00a0 difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Economic mental models remain normal for millions of people even when they know that their World is unsustainable because it is incompatible with physical reality.<\/p>\n<p><em>Fratelli Tutti <\/em>is a message from a Catholic Christian addressed to believers, convinced atheists, nonbelievers, and people to whom the word \u201cGod\u201d means nothing at all. It must be so.\u00a0 Today`s barque of Saint Peter can only contribute to global transformation by reaching out to everyone else, sharing insights, and collaborating.<\/p>\n<p>I must be right when I argue that an unsustainable option, like sacrificing ecology to please shareholders in the short run, is not an option at all. It can only be a temporary illusion.\u00a0 But I need to strengthen my argument for saying that Francis and Schwab think in different Worlds.<\/p>\n<p>To that end, let us consider what follows the passage from <em>The Great Reset <\/em>just quoted.\u00a0\u00a0 The text proceeds \u201c<em>on the other hand<\/em>\u201d to give four reasons why, after all, a post-pandemic ecological disaster might not happen.\u00a0 They are:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Enlightened leadership<\/li>\n<li>Greater risk awareness<\/li>\n<li>More ecologically conscious behaviour<\/li>\n<li>Activism<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>A first way to interpret why the authors say ecocide might not happen \u00a0would say \u00a0that workers might\u00a0 accept unemployment, shareholders\u00a0 might accept lower or no profits,\u00a0 buyers might pay more for energy, and everybody might accept the market economy slowing down or stopping, if 1 -4 persuaded them to give first priority to saving the biosphere.<\/p>\n<p>A second, more plausible,\u00a0 interpretation is that because 1 \u2013 4 will generate enormous motivation to solve the problems illustrated by 1 -3 above; because they will make the millions of Prince Charleses, Greta Thunbergs, and Al Gores \u00a0already passionately committed to building a green world even more numerous and even more passionate, then even though the authors of<em> The Great Reset <\/em>\u00a0propose no viable path to making harmony with nature compatible with dignified employment for all and the creation of wealth for society, somebody will.<\/p>\n<p>It is significant that as the market economy has slowed, because of the pandemic, we have seen remarkable improvements in air quality, reversal of global warming, death rates exceeding birth rates, and encouraging numbers for other measures of ecological sustainability.\u00a0 We have seen remarkable human solidarity with volunteers staffing food banks and frontline caregivers risking their lives to save others.\u00a0 We see books, like the two here considered, rethinking the fundamental premises of the global economy now dominant.<\/p>\n<p>Francis and Schwab agree that the World is broken.\u00a0 How can we fix it? \u201cFirst and foremost,\u201d says the book from the WEF, by a mass redistribution of property, from the rich to the poor, from capital to labour.\u00a0 \u00a0It is as if the winners of the economic game, the owners of the World, had come to realize that by winning they have lost.\u00a0 They have created a world that cannot sustain them or anyone else.<\/p>\n<p>But as <em>The Great Reset<\/em> proceeds, it becomes clear that the authors do not argue that anything they say is necessarily right or true.\u00a0 They throw out for discussion massive wealth distribution and many other tentative ideas for \u201cresetting\u201d the modern world-system &#8211;for economic, financial, societal, geopolitical, environmental, technological, industrial, individual, moral, and mental health resets, among others.\u00a0\u00a0 The WEF authors do not articulate a key idea that identifies a root cause of today\u00b4s multiple problems and prescribes a method for solving them.<\/p>\n<p>Pope Francis does.\u00a0 The key idea is \u201cculture of encounter.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0While firmly grounded in the theology of an institution older than capitalism,\u00a0 \u201cencounter\u201d strikes chords of contemporary ethics grounded in the writings of many feminists, Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida \u00a0(in his last phase) and many others. In the maelstrom of today`s chaos, the voice of Pope Francis affirms that a culture of encounter brings enduring stability.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cTo speak of a culture of encounter means that we,\u00a0 as a people, should be passionate about meeting others, seeking\u00a0 points of contact; \u00a0building social friendship becomes an aspiration and a style of life.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(I include with \u201cencounter\u201d a cluster of similar ideas that Pope Francis expresses with similar words: rebirth of a universal aspiration to fraternity, building common horizons that unite us, \u00a0and the careful and conscientious cultivation of fraternity.)<\/p>\n<p><em>Fratelli Tutti <\/em>also considers another question on which <em>The Great Reset <\/em>(although not some other works by the same authors) is silent: the question what property <em>is<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Concerning private property, <em>Fratelli Tutti<\/em> is dotted with passages like this one:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cBusiness abilities, which are a gift from God, should always be clearly directed to the development of others and to the elimination of poverty, especially to the creation of diversified work opportunities.\u00a0 The right to private property is always accompanied by the primary and prior principle of the subordination of all private property to the universal destination of the earth\u00b4s goods, and thus the right of all to their use.\u201d<\/em><em> \u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Pope quotes the Bishops of South Africa:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cTrue reconciliation is achieved proactively, by forming a new society, a society based on service to others, rather than the desire to dominate; a society based on sharing what one has with others, rather than the selfish scramble by each for as much wealth as possible; a society in which being together as human beings is ultimately more important than any lesser group, whether it be family, nation, race or culture.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Francis`s line above <em>\u201cespecially to the creation of diversified work opportunities\u201d<\/em> does not only mean, <em>it cannot only mean<\/em>, hiring more and more people to produce more and more goods for sale.\u00a0 There will never be enough customers, buying at cost-covering prices, to provide dignified employment for all.\u00a0 And if there were, it would be an ecological disaster.\u00a0 Fortunately, there are innumerable other ways to create diversified work opportunities.\u00a0 Public employment, and the small family owned and operated firms \u00a0that exist to support a household (not to make profits) are two obvious ingredients for a social recipe that will add up to ending poverty.\u00a0\u00a0 A third major ingredient is the large firm that does make profits.\u00a0\u00a0 Profits can and should be channeled to the public purse (and from there to employment) and to fund non-profits (and from there to employment).<\/p>\n<p>There are innumerable other ways to create diversified work opportunities, prudently sharing gifts. (1 Corinthians 4:7) The key to ending poverty is <em>to want to. <\/em>In Gregory`s terms, it is to purify the will of greed and sloth.\u00a0 Pope Francis affirms cultivating authentic relationships with other human beings, growing into cultures of encounter, as a methodology for creating\u00a0\u00a0 pro-social attitudes.\u00a0 Call it, if you will, a methodology for creating mental health, in a world that is growing every day more insane.<\/p>\n<p>There is, I suggest (while making no claim to originality) a fundamental reason that Schwab and Malleret struggle to reconcile economics with humanity.\u00a0\u00a0 It is that the bedrock foundation of economics, and consequently its ramifications into every corner of our minds and into every norm of our institutions, is <em>inhumane<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Adam Smith put the matter in colloquial terms when he wrote that to obtain our daily bread, we appeal always to our baker\u00b4s self-interest, never to our needs or to his humanity.\u00a0 Recently, Andr\u00e9 Orl\u00e9an has spelled out the details in more technical terms, showing that economics rests on the prior existence of a social structure he calls <em>s\u00e9paration marchande <\/em>(commercial separation).\u00a0 Where pure markets reign, nobody owes anybody a free lunch. The only way to obtain from another what you need is to excite in someone else a desire to sell it to you. \u00a0\u00a0In economics, a need is not effective demand.\u00a0 Money plus willingness to spend the money is.<\/p>\n<p>Hence, although I know there are many good and intelligent people who do not share my view, I concur with E.F. Schumacher that anyone who is serious about reforming economics must reform souls, beginning with his or her own.<\/p>\n<p><em>_____________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Howard_Richards-2-300x300-1.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-179159\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Howard_Richards-2-300x300-1-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Howard_Richards-2-300x300-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Howard_Richards-2-300x300-1.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><\/em><em>Prof. Howard Richards is a member of the\u00a0<\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/\" ><strong>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/strong><\/a><\/em><em>. He <\/em><em>is a philosopher\u00a0of social science who holds the title of Research Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College, Indiana.\u00a0 He was educated at Redlands High School in California, Yale, Stanford, University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Toronto, Harvard and Oxford. His books include\u00a0<\/em>The Evaluation of Cultural Action, Letters from Quebec, Understanding the Global Economy, The Dilemmas of Social Democracies, Gandhi and the Future of Economics, Rethinking Thinking, Unbounded Organizing in Community,\u00a0<em>and<\/em>\u00a0The Nurturing of Time Future.<em>\u00a0He currently teaches in the University of Cape Town`s EMBA programme.\u00a0 His new book, written with the assistance of Gavin Andersson, <\/em>Economic Theory and Community Development: Why Putting Community First Is Essential for Survival <em>is scheduled to be published in July of 2021.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pope Francis on 3 Oct 2020 released his latest encyclical letter, Fratelli Tutti. Less than four months previously, Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret launched &#8216;Covid-19: The Great Reset&#8217; at Davos&#8211;the World Economic Forum. In some ways their authors might appear to share a common worldview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[232,1778,1829,1868,2229,1864,1670,380,1802],"class_list":["post-183255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","tag-capitalism","tag-conflict-analysis","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-great-reset","tag-pandemic","tag-pope-francis","tag-solutions","tag-world-economic-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}