In Newsweek, Gary Dorrien makes the argument for a new Social Gospel in America:
Today we are getting a dramatic demonstration that the Social Gospelers were right about the social ravages of greed and the necessity of holding back the power of economic elites. From 1980 to 2008, only stubborn types held out for economic justice and regulating the financial sector. The market always knew best, trickle-down economics prevailed, and social justice was off the table politically. Adam Smith’s invisible hand was said to dispense general well-being—never mind that his conclusions depended on sound information, which was impossible to attain after Wall Street fell in love with derivatives and securitizations. For nearly 30 years the religion of the market ruled U.S. politics and looked past the embarrassments of Enron and WorldCom, in which the heedless pursuit of self-interest led to something quite contrary to societal well-being.
No more. In October 2008 a Republican administration in its final days took up government bailouts like it was 1933. Today we are dealing with an even more profound crisis of capitalism than the one that gave birth to social Christianity. There are limits to economic growth. The earth’s ecosystem cannot sustain an American-level lifestyle for more than one sixth of the world’s population. And the financial class is more interconnected and entrenched than ever.
[…]
If we can spend trillions of taxpayer dollars creating “bad banks” or “aggregator banks” to save capitalism from itself, we ought to be able to create publicly owned good banks to do good things. Public banks could finance startups in green technology that are currently languishing and provide financing for cooperatives that traditional banks spurn. They could be financed by an economic-stimulus package, or by claiming the good assets of banks seized by the government, or both.
There are alternatives to a system that stokes and celebrates greed and consumption to the point of self-destruction. The Social Gospelers said we must believe that to be saved. Certainly we must believe it to get something better.
Read the full article here.