Economics

In Pursuit of Economic Justice

by Pam Greenberg

To live a life of faith, it may be argued is to live in pursuit of economic justice. After all, what is religion without an idea of the moral? What is morality without a vision of economic security and tranquility for all? The real question, from a religious perspective should not be "should we have economic justice?"but "what would economic justice look like, and what is our responsibility toward achieving that end?"

Responses to this question have varied in approach, but it has not been until recent decades that we have seen religious doctrine used in this country to unabashedly promote a vision of the world based on furthering economic inequality and injustice. We have seen assaults on welfare, health care, social security, and labor. We have seen cuts in education that serve to propagate religious wrongs. We have seen turnbacks in legislation that supports women and minorities, along with all those who have traditionally been more economically vulnerable. We have seen a great resistance to taxation in the name of "individual freedom," a concept that has been wrongly applied. All of this has been done in the name of religion, which is the greatest irony of all. The time has come for people of all spiritual walks to contemplate what a just economic order might look like, and strive to make that vision real.

Photo by Lauren Grant on flickr.com. Some rights reserved.

In the writings included in this section, and in the bibliographic references, we hope to begin a dialogue about how to create change, both within particular religious denominations, and within the society as a whole. Our approach is, as always, both spiritual and psychological. Some of the dialogue included here will challenge us to look inward, while other pieces will ask us to look outward at the society around us. Still other pieces will ask us to think about economic justice in relation to the holy and the divine. We invite submissions to our database of articles and bibliographic references, and look forward to the day when the prophetic vision of a just world will more and more inform our religious and civic discourse.

These poor children in Indonesia cannot go to school
because the IMF and World Bank compel countries not to offer free education.