The Holy Money

An Observation in three acts

Act 1- New Age Economisms

”Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me,” Jesus prayed that night on the Mount of Olives when he was about to be betrayed by Judas. “Being in agony he prayed more earnestly. His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground,” wrote the evangelist Luke. His story shows a human Jesus who is afraid, in agony, praying to be spared death on the cross.
The Passion play is a story about what is most deeply human: about love, pain, sorrow, doubt, and comfort. The message is: See Mankind!
But the Good Friday text about death on the cross doesn’t fit into the optimistic calculations of the new economy, where defeat and loss are signs of weakness. In a society imbued with hypercapitalism’s theology of success, the cross has been decorated with gold and turned into a business plan. The holy is made profane, the profane is made godly.
The economic superstition is spreading. Today it is the soul of the company which is to be saved at any price. The priesthood of business sings the praises of the free market, using words such as flexibility, company climate, trademark, and entrepreneurial spirit as if they were holy sacraments. Stock introductions have become baptisms, the quarterly report confession, and layoffs penance.
Hegel’s spirit hovers over the boards of directors. The market has become God. Management rhetoric has clear characteristics of New Age philosophy. The successful, those who have been granted a slice of the godly spark, preach. They are the chosen, and the others shall follow.
“Once there was the idea that the whole of our existence was comprised of four elements: air, earth, fire and water. The need for building blocks is still here. Good climates, values, conditions, and personal engagement are the elements of our time. Four preconditions for business to do its job—to supply life with nourishment,” proclaims the new employer’s organization Svensk Näringsliv in whole-page ads.
Businessmen see themselves nowadays as serving life itself. One can easily surmise in whose service they see union workers to be.
Spiritualizing gives birth to elitism. Only those who have seen the light are allowed to speak out. It was like this during Plato’s lifetime as well. Philosophers were part of the power structure, while slaves, who worked with their bodies, were at the lowest end of the spectrum. The fact is that the Platonic contempt for the body and its undervaluation of material and human entities are making a comeback in today’s community and business life.
When Ericsson “outsources” and lays off thousands of people, what is really happening is that the board of directors is handing over control of production. Executive directors are no longer interested in production. No, now it’s the trademark, the soul, that is important. The worth of a company is no longer what it produces, but its position on the holy stock market.

There are clear similarities between Nike and Ericsson. The transcendental world of image-making is now more important than the actual production of shoes and telephones. The layoffs in Kumla and the work camps in Indonesia are actually parts of the same process.
This is how the spiritualizing of a company can shift one’s focus from Man to Mammon, allowing the continued dismantling of human worth.
Jesus is crying on the mountain.

Act 2: To what do you attach your heart?

”You shall have no other gods before me” is the first of the Ten Commandments. In the Great Catechism, Martin Luther explains its meaning: ”That to which you attach your heart and in which you trust is, I say, in reality your God.” For Luther, humanity’s choice was not whether or not to choose God, but rather which God to choose. To what do you attach your heart? What controls your actions? What do your life’s goals look like?
Luther gives special weight to money in his discussion of false gods. The question of God and questions of economics do not according to Luther reside in different worlds. On the contrary, the good Christian should be engaged in his society! Luther was himself. His sharp criticisms of society and attacks on money echoed from his pulpit and in his writings. In the spring of 1539, Luther’s home city of Wittenberg was hit with a poor crop, and the price of wheat rose. Many shopkeepers hoarded wheat in the hopes of the price going even higher, which of course in itself caused the price to shoot sky-high. The capitalists made good money. The workers of Wittenberg suffered, however. They were forced to borrow money to be able to buy bread. The demand for loans caused interest rates to go up. This concerned Luther.
He appealed to the political leaders of the town to take steps against famine, price hikes, speculation and usury. He criticized the banking house Fugger, a leading economic family of the day. But the powers that be didn’t care. Then, Luther wrote “A charge to the priesthood to preach against usury,” an extremely sharp critique of those who loaned out money for interest.
“An usurer murders actively. Because it is not simply that he refuses to help the hungry. He even steals crumbs from the mouth of the starving, the bread which God and good people have given the hungry for his welfare. The usurer cares not if all the world dies of hunger as long as he gets his money,” wrote Luther.
Martin Luther would probably have joined the Attac movement.

Act 3-A New Order

“Capitalism’s buildings, killer bee hives, honey for the few. He made money there. But in a dark tunnel, he spread out his wings and flew when nobody was looking. He will have to live his life over,” writes Tomas Tranströmer. There are many of us who will have to live our lives over. The whole Western world ought to ask itself where it is going. It is time to seek other gods than those of profit maximization, stock speculation, and lottery prizes. If we listen carefully and put our ear next to our neighbor’s heart, we can hear the credo of humanism. Our salvation lies in being Human! We are here for one another. Spirituality is togetherness, not self-interest.

Helle Klein Is political Editor for the daily newspaper Aftonbladet. Helle Klein is also a theologist, and has published the book ”Längtan efter mening – vänsterns etik och den nykonservativa utmaningen” (“Longing for Meaning—the Ethics of the Left and the Challenge of the New Right”) (Atlas).

Translated from Swedish by George Kentros

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