I recently watched the 2011 film "Margin Call" that tells the story of an investment bank during the early stages of the 2007–2008 financial crisis. In the movie, the firm sells all its mortgage-backed securities one morning, knowing the assets' value will plummet that afternoon, triggering catastrophic consequences in the global financial market. Yet, through this process, some have become millionaires and more, while the rest of the world pays for it for many years to come.
Watching the movie reminded me of my years at the University of Washington in Seattle in 2010, during which I went through a deep vocational struggle as I was trying to figure out what I should do and could be doing upon graduation. At that time, I was a student of political science and economics, studying the financial crisis as it unfolded in 2007. I seriously thought about pursuing careers in law, business, or investment banking, but seeing what was happening in the global economy of the time, I reasoned that if I were serious about my faith, I could not possibly go into these fields with a good conscience. Vocation, Faith, and Economics — Could There Be Any Connection Between These?
Recently, I read the book "Completing Capitalism," which explores economics rooted in the concept of mutuality. The Economics of Mutuality (EoM) has grown into a global initiative—a partnership between Mars Inc. and Oxford University's Saïd Business School—that challenges the traditional understanding of economics by asking the fundamental questions on what the true purpose of economics should be in light of the bigger story of the world that was meant to be.
What is the true economics that was meant to be in the world that was created to be? In his essay "Two Economies," Wendell Berry distinguishes between two types of economies: the lesser and the greater. The lesser economy represents the world as it currently operates, while the greater economy embodies the underlying reality—seen or unseen—that the lesser economy should operate and abide by.
The greater economy that Wendell Berry speaks of is the world that truly embodies, in the words of Steven Garber, the "covenantal cosmos"—a world of places defined by relationships, revelations, and responsibilities. This is the world that the creation story speaks of, where we are given vocational stewardship, a vocational responsibility, to carry the work of covenantal economics in relation to the people, planet, and places for mutual flourishing of the world.
Last year in March, I visited Seattle again for the first time since my graduation in 2010, with Esther. As we were stepping onto the Liberal Arts Quadrangle, known as the Quad—a place for my economics classes—on the UW campus on a beautiful day with cherry blossoms everywhere, I reflected on the vocational struggle I had in 2010.
That night, for some reason unable to sleep, Esther and I drove to Kerry Park. In that moment of sleepless night in Seattle, with the Space Needle shining right in front of us as the whole city's view came into sight, I thought about the companies in Seattle—Boeing, Microsoft, Costco, Starbucks, Amazon, Expedia, and many more—and reflected on how they both positively and sometimes negatively contribute to the flourishing of the city and the world.
Whether we see it or not, as Wendell Berry argues, the greater economy is real and is there. This is the economy of the covenantal cosmos that the lesser economy cannot simply ignore. Where there is disconnect between greater and lesser economies, we, both as individuals and institutions, are called to bring the two worlds of economies together in and through our vocational stewardship by seeing ourselves deeply rooted in the larger covenantal story and intimately connected in relation to the people, places, and planet.
After all, we are all in this together. Only when we see ourselves deeply connected in relation to one another can we move towards the world of more responsible economics. On that sleepless night in Seattle, I longed and yearned for such economics, the true economics that reflect the realities of the true world, the meant to be world, the covenantal cosmos, to come in the city of Seattle, a place of deep vocational questions of mine, for mutual flourishing of the world.
References:
Berry, Wendell. Wendell Berry - Two Economies, www.worldwisdom.com/public/viewpdf/default.aspx?article-title=Two_Economies_by_Wendell_Berry.pdf. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.
Garber, Steven. Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good. IVP Books, an Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2014.
Roche, Bruno, and Jay Jakub. Completing Capitalism: Heal Business to Heal the World. Barrett-Koehler Publishers, a BK Business Book, 2017.
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