CLASS WAR
A Labor Day Sermon
James Ishmael Ford
5 September 2004

Text
Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord?
Who shall walk on that holy ground?
We are the only ones. There is no one but us.
We bring all of ourselves.
Unfinished and incomplete.
Hurt and broken ourselves.
We come fearful to the task, our power too puny and our vision too small.
Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord?
We also bring our experiences of hope and possibility.
We bring our intellects and our passions
And our deep knowledge that there is a universal love
Which has never broken faith with us and never will.
Annie Dillard

The significance of all the various theories of economics tends to evade us. At least this is true for me. My colleague Art Severance once outlined what I thought a pretty good theory of economics when he observed, “by the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.” Experiencing those moved ends is part of the human condition. Theorizing about it is economics.

Turns out if you do a web search theories of economics and economists are the butt of quite a few jokes. Based on this inclination I was going to invent a definition of economics as the only field in which proponents of diametrically opposed theories can share a Noble Prize. But it turned out to actually have happened. So instead I return to my favorite summation of the two great economic theories that dominated the twentieth century. Please forgive my continuation of masculine-by-preference usage here, but somehow it seems appropriate. While under communism man exploits his fellow man, under capitalism the opposite is true.

The hypocrisies of communism with its betrayed rhetoric of a common good have been appropriately exposed and excoriated. I find little loss in the collapse of the Soviet system, the rapid devolution of the Chinese system and the increasing isolation of the North Korean and Cuban systems. The hollowness of Marxism in reality can be seen in how China’s leadership proves to be vastly less interested in how wealth is generated and vastly more interested in who controls it.

Extremists of the other side, however, advocates of unfettered capitalism are the heroes of the day. The current American administration is dominated by a peculiar combination of Christian fundamentalists blending with neo-conservative theorists of American empire. However this is all driven by radical free-market ideologies. “What is good for Halliburton is good for America” really does seem to be the unstated rule of engagement.

Theorists like Milton Friedman, probably the foremost economist in America today, advocates privatizing Social Security and comes very close to advocating the same thing for what is currently called public education. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, the most powerful economist alive, advocates raising the age people are eligible for Social Security while simultaneously slashing its benefits. Rather than an annuity that keeps people from poverty in their old age both Mr. Friedman and Mr. Greenspan see Social Security as standing in the way of making their best possible investments.

People who see these calls as eviscerating the social contract are dismissed as “collectivists,” shadowy echoes of a justly repudiated communism. The right wing humorist P. J. O’Rourke in a speech delivered to the Cato Institute, the premiere radical free-market think tank, sets up this straw man argument in what has become standard right wing rhetorical fare. First he summarizes the collectivist approach as the belief “There should be no important economic differences among people. No one should be too rich. No one should be too poor.” He says those who would style themselves liberal or progressive want to level society to a colorless dreary sameness.

Having set him up, O’Rourke then goes on to attack his straw man. To do this he indulges the currently popular pastime of all political persuasions to lie a bit with some statistics. In his case to prove not only are the rich getting richer, but so are the poor. Shifting his argument from attack, O’Rourke then makes an appeal to the Biblical commandment not to envy others as the core principle of free markets. Real Christians and Jews, indeed anyone following biblical principles he tells us are, of course, capitalists. In that spirit he goes on to note how robbers are “free-lance collectivists,” and implies when these thieves put down their guns and go to the ballot boxes they become Democratic politicians.

Those are the attacks. But what is being championed? I had a friend who was a self-described libertarian whom I think fairly summarized the radical free market view. From the bottom of his heart my friend believed all taxes are theft. He also believed contracts could only be made between individuals and that any form of collective bargaining was communistic.

Now his ethical code was complex. Personally he was very generous, perhaps generous to a fault. But in theory and for the government he advocated, such as it was, if the choice was between letting a person starve to death or, stealing from another by which he meant tax them in order to provide food for that first person; it was an ethical imperative that the first person be allowed to starve.

Our current president describes himself as a compassionate conservative. I actually think our country is grounded in such a principle. While it can be a little hard to notice here in Newton as a people we Americans tilt to the right. By which I mean we’re inclined to self-reliance. We like people who boot-strap it. Our heroes overcome adversity and rise in the world. But, also, as a people we are compassionate. When we get away from the excesses of economic rhetoric we see evidences of this practical compassion in a thousand different ways. I suspect somewhere near our communal heart we’re mostly like that old-time small town Republican, make your living honestly, pay your bills, keep the streets clean and safe and watch out for your neighbors.

But as it tumbles from the mouth of our current president compassionate conservative is empty rhetoric. Setting aside the profoundly unsettling attitudes of both fundamentalist Christianity and neo-conservative imperialism and its attendant adventurism that also crowd up in today’s White House, serious subjects which need to be addressed at another time; radical free market ideology is the undercurrent of the president’s call for tax reform. Which I think it is completely fair to say he sees as the centerpiece of his administration. It is also the heart of a radical free market ideology.

I fear the consequences of President Bush’s single-minded pursuit of lowering taxes as much as he can get away with, is a revocation of the social contract. Right now, from my perspective, the future looks pretty grim. Should the economic radical right sustains its control over both houses of Congress and the presidency public education, which really does need reform, will instead be outsourced. I see a future where education will no longer be the right of all Americans, but simply another economic option for those who can afford it. In the same way health care will continue to be the best in the world, of course only for those who can afford it. And, last, retirement with dignity will be for those who can afford it. They, after all, goes this economic theory, are the only ones who deserve it.

Sadly, Senator John Edwards said it all during his run for the Democratic presidential nomination. We do live in a divided country; we do exist in the shadow of two Americas. Despite what Mr. O’Rourke says, the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. And the numbers who fit in that later category are growing steadily.

Senator Edwards tells us “Middle-class families have gone from being able to save for retirement or buy a house to now teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. These aren’t poor Americans; they’re the working middle-class. And they are terrified that if something goes wrong – a lost job or a health care disaster – they’re just one bad break away from falling off the cliff. For these families the American dream of building something better is being replaced by the hope of just getting by.

“If the current trend continues, one out of seven middle-class families with children will go bankrupt by the end of the decade. Think about what it means that 1 in 7 middle-class families could go bankrupt by the end of this decade. It means the middle-class – the foundation of our country – is sinking. Increasingly we are divided between those who live by the 1st and the 15th every month and those who don’t ever look at the calendar when they write a check.”

Everyone is now expected to be an entrepreneur, and people move from job to job with no expectation of pensions. If Social Security is cut as severely as Mr. Greenspan wants, we will see a new generation of elderly poor in this nation. Think about it. In this room most have a retirement portfolio. Please note what most means. Move out of this neighborhood and those who have such a thing shrinks rapidly. Fewer than half of our nation’s adults can look forward to anything other than Social Security in their old age. And the radical right wants to eliminate the annuity and instead make it one more part of the portfolio.

The horror of it is there is a class war going on. It has been declared by the rich and their lap dog theorists. And the middle-class is the collateral damage. There is something seductive about the call of the radical right to cut taxes right to the bone. The rhetoric has been so successful in fact the poor, the near-poor, indeed so many of us who live paycheck to paycheck, think it isn’t about them, it isn’t about us. We’re just cutting services to the undeserving, and in the same high moral ground moment putting a few bucks back into our pockets where they’ll be put to good use, thank you.

Okay, while so far this sermon may seem to be about the current election, and I hope it is useful in that regard; it really is a call for us to examine our priorities, to look into our hearts, and to see if there aren’t spiritual insights that can help guide us as we make our political decisions. The old ideology of communism has deservedly been cast onto the trash heap of history. But the surviving principal ideology, I hope I’ve pointed out, is itself morally bankrupt. We need another way.

Now here we are today, sitting in a church, a Unitarian Universalist church. It is not only fair to ask, but we must ask; can our liberal religious principles reveal a way in which we can address the problems of our human situation, and specifically the problems of our American life today? Is there something within our faith that can inform our actions now in the first decade of the twenty-first century? Does our faith suggest a way between the economic extremists of communism and capitalism, between its all about the commonality or its all about me?

I have good news. The answer is yes. It can be found as we examine our old cry of Love over creed. I suggest that love is the most profound of human experiences. Small wonder many religions simply call love God. The experience of love, of that compelling attraction between and among people is the most powerful force in the world. But like any source of power it is dangerous, and it is most dangerous when it isn’t understood.

Fortunately our liberal tradition has investigated it and come up with some perspectives that I think not only can help us in our individual lives and our lives as families, but also as we hope to sort out how we live in this nation and on this planet. As we consider the first and the seventh principles of our contemporary denominational “statement,” principles enshrined in our denominational bylaws, we see what it is and how it works.

First we see how completely true and important the individual is. You and me; each of us unique and precious. And at the same time our individuality is created out of another. And this other which is bigger than any individual is nothing less than the world. The substance of my substance is you. So, the currents that enlivened both of the great economic theories of the twentieth century are right. We are one. And we are many. Communism had a core truth, betrayed by missing the other aspect of reality. And, I suggest, the horrors we currently face will tumble out of a single minded embrace of the autonomous individual, betraying that other aspect of reality.

We need to honor the possibility of shift and change. Our American cultural passion for the individual rising needs to be honored and protected. And the individual only, only exists within a society. To think one’s responsibility ends at the edge of our property lines is ridiculous on the face of it. Boundaries are necessary fictions. They help to sort things out; they help us to order things, to make sense and to act in healthy ways. But they are always permeable. My neighbor’s cat walks on my back yard completely oblivious to our contracts and deeds.

What we as Unitarian Universalists can offer is a way out of the extremist visions of either unthinking collectivism or unthinking autonomy. This is so important, let me repeat. There are elements of truth in both views, but when they’re held exclusively only hurt will follow. And we have a way through. The way of love over creed is a way of seeing our individual preciousness and how we need to support one another, both at the same time.

What we find is that we are all autonomous individuals, and we all belong to the same family, the closest of all families. We start by noticing the intuitions that this is true. Then we take up disciplines that help us to move the intuitions into deeply felt reality. We do this by participating in our church community, by taking up disciplines like Small Group Ministry or other practices of inquiry that move us beyond our ideologies to a rawer and truer place. We do this by the magical act of sharing in the religious education of our children, whether we have a dozen in the program, or they’ve all long since grown and left home, or even if we’ve never had a biological child. We do this by paying attention and caring, pulling our own weight and reaching out a hand.

As religious liberals we can advocate for a society that allows the largest possible freedom for individuals to excel. This necessitates the possibility people can and will fail as well as succeed. And for those who do fail there must be a social net. Society is about the great family. We don’t let Uncle Fred starve because he never got his act together. We don’t let Aunt Sally go homeless because of that terrible divorce. We don’t let our nieces and nephews go without education or health care. Instead, we work for a society that allows both individual freedom, the greatest range of opportunity, and we set out a social net for those who would otherwise be left behind. It is the work of the holy. It is the work of God. It is our work.

Here Annie Dillard’s wonderful paraphrase of the Psalms sings its truth. “Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord?/Who shall walk on that holy ground?/We are the only ones. There is no one but us./We bring all of ourselves./Unfinished and incomplete./Hurt and broken ourselves./We come fearful to the task, our power too puny and our vision too small./Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord?/We also bring our experiences of hope and possibility./We bring our intellects and our passions/And our deep knowledge that there is a universal love/Which has never broken faith with us and never will.”

Amen, my friends. On this Labor Day Sunday, amen.