Justice and fullness of life in the context of economic globalization

An African woman's perspective

Puleng LenkaBula

"Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow." Is 1.16f.

"Because the poor are despoiled, because the needy groan, I will now rise up," says the Lord; "I will place them in the safety for which they long." Ps 12.5

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." Jn 10.10

International financial and regulatory institutions, multinational and transnational companies, and many economists support the current neoliberal model of economic globalization and see it as a viable development model, if not, indeed, the only model available. This article, by contrast, sees neoliberal globalization as an economic model, founded on the hegemony of capital and finance, that tramples on the principles and values of justice and abundant life for all God's creation.

The article is written from the perspective of an African woman Christian ethicist, living in South Africa and actively involved in the church and the ecumenical movement. It is a perspective informed by gender justice, Christian ethics and African culture.¹ My purpose is to identify resources for criticism in Christian ethics, church and ecumenical tradition, the Bible and African culture, and to explore alternatives to the destructive and death-dealing elements of economic globalization. As Julius Nyerere, the former president of Tanzania, says, "unless we participate actively in the rebellion against those structures and organizations which condemn people to poverty and degradation, the church will become irrelevant."² We begin with two testimonies.

Thabo the miner

"My name is Thabo Lephuthing. I was born in Lesotho in the district of Mokhotlong. I left Lesotho in August 1971 to work in the mines of South Africa. I worked for over fifteen years at Vaal Reefs. After the 1987 Vaal Reefs Strike, where I was heavily involved in negotiations for better salaries, better labour practices, etc., I and many other migrant workers were made redundant. Our severance package could not help us survive for even the next three years. Many of us were found to be living with the HIV/Aids virus. This was because the laws in South Africa did not allow us to bring our families to South Africa. Instead some informal settlements mushroomed next to our mines. Many of us had to find girlfriends because our wives were in Lesotho. I also have the Aids virus. I cannot afford Aids medicines, yet for twenty-two years, I worked in the belly of the earth extracting gold for De Beers and the other big companies to sell all over the world. I cannot afford to buy the gold that I mined for my wife or children. Is there justice in this world?"

Rosemary the tailor

"My name is Rosemary van Dyk. I am a woman of mixed descent, known in South Africa as Cape Coloured. I worked in a clothing textile company for nine years, but the company was closed down because it could not compete with the international textiles that are being imported into South Africa. The Cut and Trim Company in Khaye Litsha sometimes call me when they have contracts from local clothing companies. In my previous job, I had a permanent position as a tailor, I had medical benefits, a pension fund and contributions to an unemployment insurance fund. Now I am a casual labourer, I work for long hours and I am paid very little. I just wait to be called when there's work to be done. Work has ceased to be meaningful, and there are many people competing for few jobs."

Economic globalization

"When we speak of "the economy' or "an economic system' we are speaking of the policies and plans which control the wealth and resources of a country, about how resources are distributed between people, and about how the means of production - such as land, factories and technology - are owned and controlled."³ Capitalist globalization is "the process of consolidating wealth and power by the rapid integration and structuring of national economies into one global economic order through trade liberalization, privatization and deregulation. The aim is to remove the obstacles to the global movement of capital and production of goods that have accumulated in advanced, industrial capitalist countries. Its primary institution is the transnational corporation."⁴

Capitalist globalization is characterized by:

• the accumulation of surplus capital in the form of private profit
• the presence of monopolies, concentrating and centralizing capital
• the merging of finance and bank capital
• the dividing of the world into markets
• the global movement of and speculation in capital
• the collusion with and use of, national and international institutions to consolidate power⁵

Advocates of economic globalization argue that "increasing globalization helps to expand opportunities for national economies and on average helps workers in rich and poor countries alike".⁶ Michel Camdessus, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), says, "Globalization is a positive development for the world economy... To begin with, globalization is the continuation of the trend of growing openness and integration among economies that has brought the world a half century of unparalleled prosperity."⁷ For such people, economic globalization is a natural and inevitable part of historical change. Trying to stop it "is tantamount to trying to stop the rotation of the earth".⁸

International financial and regulatory institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO) promote economic liberalization as a panacea for global development in general and for Africa in particular. They see economic liberalization as "a process of "freeing economies', particularly so that trade between countries can take place more easily. In their view, this is the best way to ensure that economic growth (ie an increase in production of goods and services) will occur. To them, "freeing up' means providing more opportunities for business to make profits and reducing the state's role as a producer or deliverer of services."⁹

These institutions suggest that, in order to address their development needs and alleviate poverty, African countries need to liberalize. They argue that countries that liberalize their economies have high growth, while countries that do not liberalize tend to have low economic growth. The main aim of economic liberalization is to find new ways for business to maximize profits, but (they say) it also increases the wealth and prosperity of countries and their people, including workers. "The key principle of free market capitalism is that business is the most important force for a country's development. According to free market capitalism, if business makes large profits, the benefits will "trickle down' to everyone."¹⁰

Free market ideology promotes individualism, competition and the survival of the fittest. It sees the role of the state as promoting increased profits for business, a notion diametrically opposed to the view that government ought to ensure the welfare, needs and basic rights of the people and their environment.

Globalization is not neutral. Free market capitalism requires governments to implement three broad policy measures - privatization, deregulation and liberalization - to ensure that businesses are not hindered in their quest for profit. These measures have been forced on African countries through IMF conditionalities and the imposition of market-oriented policy reforms in the form of structural adjustment programmes. Transnational companies in their search for cheap labour, natural resources and competition for world markets also "use "free trade agreements' to facilitate their drive for profits and to protect their property, including intellectual property".¹¹ Historically, "the demands of the capitalist countries for liberalization of world trade and investment were satisfied through bilateral mechanisms, supplemented by the International Monetary Fund."¹² Today, they are enforced through trade rules and international law, through international institutions like the WTO.

Nicholas Sagosvsky says, "Neoliberal capitalism builds on privatization, deregulation and liberalization. However, it uses the political and military power of states as well as the ideological power of the media and cultural institutions to secure the autonomous self-regulation of the market... this leads to an imperial structure of the world system and hegemony of finance."¹³

Privatization

Privatization refers to the sale of state-owned enterprises and services to the private sector. The underlying ideology is a simple dichotomy: private good, public bad. This implies that the state should not be the producer, owner, or deliverer of services. In South Africa, the government has sold off huge amounts of shares in state-owned enterprises such as the electricity company, Eskom, the telecommunication company, Telkom, and Aventura Resorts. Other measures of privatization include outsourcing services to private companies. Services that traditionally have been provided by the state, such as health care, telecommunication, electricity, or water, are contracted to the business sector. For instance, in South Africa, payment of pensions for senior citizens is now the responsibility of private companies.

Deregulation

Deregulation refers to a variety of measures which reduce the state's role as the producer, provider of services and promoter of social welfare. Some of the key elements of deregulation include:

• removal of government subsidies, on food, housing, transport or education, for example
• removal of price controls: sellers set their own prices
• reduction of direct taxes on income or profits
• easing or removal of state regulations on business, for example, regulations on minimum wages, working conditions, or the environment

Liberalization

"Trade and financial liberalization cover measures, which allow goods, services and money to move more easily across borders. The motive behind this liberalization is to make it easier to do business internationally."¹⁴

Trade liberalization is often closely linked with investment agreements and policies: an example is the trade agreement between South Africa and the European Union. Governments often use trade liberalization to attract foreign investors. A common practice is to create free trade zones where foreign investors are exempted from local laws and taxes. Trade liberalization involves removing tariffs or taxes on imported goods, abolishing quotas, and lifting restrictions on how much of a particular firm or industry may be owned by foreigners. Financial liberalization eases restrictions on movement of money across borders. In particular, it makes it possible for companies to take their profits out of a country where they are based and to invest them elsewhere.

The ideology of globalization

We are told that there is no alternative. Advocates of globalization claim that it cannot be reversed, and anyway that it is not nearly as bad as it is painted. "Common but contradictory conceptions of globalization portray the process either as a conscious policy-driven practice that can be reversed, or as an exogenous force that nobody can really control. Each of these visions is only partly true." Thus, "deliberate government policy is an essential driver of globalization, but its impact cannot be reversed through government policy." Neither is globalization an "untameable force that marginalizes the masses, spreading inequalities and trampling on humanity". Statistics "seem to indicate that poor countries with open economies have enjoyed higher growth rates." The governments of poor countries must "commit to economic restructuring". Disengagement from the global economy is not an option. ¹⁵

This fatalism is challenged by South Africa's Catholic bishops in their pastoral statement on economic justice:

It is sometimes suggested that economic laws, like the basic laws of nature, are beyond human control; that we can no more influence them than we can defy gravity or stop the motion of the planets. Therefore, it is argued, the existence of poverty and unemployment, and the inequitable distribution of wealth, are the result of inescapable economic laws, and must be accepted as such. When suffering and even death flow from these "inevitable facts of economic life", that is simply unfortunate, it is said, just as it is unfortunate when suffering and death result from a natural disaster. Although we sympathize with the victims of an earthquake or a flood, we do not consider such natural occurrences unjust or immoral. In the same way, the argument continues, we should not regard an economic system as unjust or immoral, though we regret the suffering that may be part of such a system. Some people will be poor and some rich, inevitably and unavoidably, just as some will be the victims of earthquakes and floods, and some will not.¹⁶

This argument must be rejected, the bishops say, because it fails to take into account that economic consequences come about as a result of human agency.

At the heart of every economic system lie human needs, human abilities and human decisions, and it is the choices which we make in addressing those needs, sharing those abilities and making those decisions, that determine the justice or injustice of the economic system. (The more powerful our economic position, the greater our freedom of choice, with the poor and the marginalized having very little effective choice in their economic decision-making.)¹⁷

Writing in The Hindu, Indian journalist Supriya Roy Chowdhury notes the remarkable coherence of the defensive rhetoric used by the ideologists of economic globalization, and their equally remarkable ability to coopt some of the central arguments of their critics and to transform them into their own. At the same time, their defensive critique cannot be shaken from its adherence to the core grounding tenets of an individualistically oriented market economy, and the palliatives it offers for globalization's imperfections remain vague and unstructured.¹⁸

The impact of globalization on African communities and African women

Advocates of economic globalization suggest that it is the right path for economic development and a palliative for poverty, but our experiences in Africa suggest the contrary.

If globalization is so good, why are communities and especially women much poorer than ever before? Why is the gap between the rich and poor nations and persons within those nations getting wider and wider? ...Why do we have an urgent ecological crisis on our hands? ...Why do we have so much armed conflict and civil strife in Africa? ...Why is there an over-consumption by a few who have the financial resources and economic power and freedoms which have led to greed, exploitative systems of overproduction, marginalization and exclusion of the majority who are forced to live on less and less? ...Why is it that for the majority of the poor, despite the rhetoric of democratization and popular participation, the experience is that of exclusion from meaningful participation in the economic and political lives of their nations and communities? ...Why are less developed nations largely excluded from the global market place? For example, the whole of sub-Saharan Africa has less than 2% of the world's trade.¹⁹

The consequences of economic globalization in Africa are often detrimental to the poor and vulnerable, women and the working class. With its emphasis on competition with winners and losers, the global market "excludes millions of people from any meaningful participation in the economy. As corporations gain power over governments, governments have less ability to act on behalf of the people... [I]t no longer matters for our governments in Africa to privatize industries with the knowledge that those men and women being laid off are the only breadwinners."²⁰ Many prefer to put their trust in the macroeconomic development policies proffered by the international institutions rather than alternative models rooted in local experience. In 1996, South Africa changed from a home-grown macroeconomic policy framework, the Reconstruction and Development Programme, to a policy framework inspired by the World Bank, Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR), which embraced fully the ideals of self-regulating market capitalism discussed earlier.

It seems to me that most African governments are less concerned with the plight of the poor and vulnerable in their countries than with kowtowing to the prescriptions and regulations of the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO. Their radical implementation of these policies results in lack or loss of access "to food security, health, education and in many cases, housing".²¹

Economic globalization creates, maintains and promotes inequalities "between men and women, between poorer and affluent nations and between those who are affluent and those who live in poverty. Because globalization is based on the market and competitive imperative, those who are unable to compete with the giants are swallowed up and or made redundant."²²

Churches respond to economic globalization

"Does the church have a role in this situation and does it have sufficient credibility to make any impact?" The church "as a transnational actor guided by the ethical principles of its social teachings does indeed have a responsibility to contribute to the public discourse around [sic] globalization."²³ There is a moral quality about the economy, "a quality which has its roots in the morally correct or incorrect choices made by people; and it is the moral quality of the economy that enables us to make judgements about whether or not it is a just economy."²⁴

"All human beings have the inherent right to have their basic human needs met before any economic surplus is distributed to others. Simply stated, the basic needs of the poor transcend the superfluous desires of the rich in moral importance."²⁵ But the growing disparity in income and wealth between the rich and poor increasingly fractures societies and erodes collective conscience. There is a question of distributive justice, defined by the Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics as the "virtue by which goods and burdens of the community are distributed with due proportion among citizens". Is a distributive ethic possible, one that will be fair to all people and at the same time produce abundance to be shared?²⁶

James M Childs writes that greed "has a profoundly deleterious effect on everything from the quality of personal relationships to the just distribution of goods and the future of our environment. The Christian ethic of love with its commitment to sharing and generosity, reflecting God's love and generosity, points away from the selfishness of greed towards the building of caring communities."²⁷

Admittedly, sharing can be a means by which we retain power and control. This is too often the experience of African countries of the international aid given by western countries. "It is vital, therefore, that sharing be seen both as "constitutive of community' and as an expression of community in giving everyone a fair chance." Arguing for stakeholder rather than shareholder capitalism, Childs says that if sharing is understood as constitutive of community, "businesses can and ought to consider the interests of all individuals and groups who have a stake in the activities of the company." Summing up, he writes, "Cooperation, coalition, solidarity, sufficiency, sustainability, stakeholder theory, community - all these terms point in some way to the fact that individuals, institutions, and even nations are involved in a web of relationships with others who also have concerns, interests and needs. It is an involvement that makes sharing imperative." ²⁸

Dónal Dorr says that "the church can no longer play the part of a nurse looking after the casualties of the system". The church ought to play an active part "both in challenging the present unjust structures and in pioneering alternatives. In particular it must help people to explore and develop models of human development, which are more sustainable, more respectful of the earth, more just and more human than the present approach to development. For it is the present style of development which lies at the heart of most problems of social justice in our world today." The church is called to be God's messenger "to the poor and other creatures and consequently to be the representative, to speak out with and on behalf of the trees, the rivulets, the animals, the skies and the people. To speak out against greed and individualism" promoted by economic globalization.²⁹

African churches and African women theologians and ethicists cannot ignore the effects of economic globalization on the lives of our peoples and communities. In response to the moral problems that arise from ever-changing economic systems, our churches have over the years formulated a coherent body of social and ethical teaching on economic justice. While much of this teaching was a response to colonialism and apartheid, or to the conflict between western capitalism and Soviet communism, these ethical principles can equally be applied to economic globalization.³⁰

Our churches have exposed the weaknesses of economies based on domination, greed and exploitation. They have challenged the neoliberal economic ideology, which promotes individualism, greed, competition, consumerism, and the plunder of the earth without regard to future generations, and the systemic injustices of racism, sexism and classism that accompany economic globalization.

They have shown that in the Bible, God's justice and compassion are economic norms and principles. They have promoted life-giving and liberating ethical principles of the common good and solidarity with the vulnerable, the alienated, and the marginalized. They have called for the sharing of resources and the building of communities that care for all, not just for "us".

Thus, for example, South Africa's Catholic bishops write, "An economic structure based on racism or which perpetuates third-world debt is itself sinful; those who benefit from those structures are tainted by that sin, and bear a responsibility for the suffering that inevitably flows from such sin."³¹

In 1995, the Southern Africa Alliance of Reformed Churches organized a consultation in Kitwe, Zambia, to explore the intersection between Reformed faith and economic justice. Participants observed the suffering and despair of many people in their churches and societies, and analysed the systematic impoverishment of Africa and its exclusion from the world economy. They concluded that "Africans live on a crucified continent as people to be sacrificed. Our humanity and the future of our children are of no consequence to the global economy... The sacrifice of humanity on the altar of the global economy is intertwined with the sacrifice of nature."³²

Kitwe contended that "today, the global market economy has been sacralized, and elevated to an imperial throne. It has changed places with the human beings who created it. By redefining what it means to be human, it has become the creator of human beings. Thereby it usurps the sovereignty of God, claiming a freedom that belongs to God alone. For us as Christians, this raises the question of idolatry and of loyalty to God or mammon." And it issued a challenge to churches in Africa and elsewhere:

"It is our painful conclusion that the African reality of poverty caused by an unjust economic world order has gone beyond an ethical problem and become a theological one. It now constitutes a status confessionis. The gospel to the poor is at stake in the very mechanism of the global economy today."³³

Whilst mainline churches in South Africa advocate principles of social and economic justice, there has also been an irruption of prosperity theology. Prosperity churches are enthusiastic supporters of economic globalization, and often suggest that the poor are poor either because they do not work hard enough or because they are sinners. Prosperity theology exaggerates the Bible's teaching on blessings by God, affirming and upholding the rich without analysing systematically why some in South Africa are rich and many others are poor. This individualistic and self-centred distortion of theology soothes the conscience of the affluent, but poses radical challenges in the articulation of social and economic justice.

Alternatives and sources of hope

The first task is "to break the cultural myth that there is no alternative to neoliberal capitalism".³⁴ We need to challenge the ideological weapons of globalization and to confront prosperity theology. We need to organize and cooperate, linking all those who stand for economic justice at local, regional and global levels.³⁵ We need to develop criteria for evaluating economic policies and plans consistent with the message of compassion, sharing and distributive justice for which Jesus in his ministry stood.

We should reject the claim that the current distribution of wealth in the world is somehow natural, emphasizing to what extent it is based on force:

...in the southern United States prior to emancipation, great wealth was created for plantation owners by workers (slaves) who did not even enjoy a token gesture of "free choice". Although that wealth was passed on by inheritance to succeeding generations, any attempt to restore portions of such wealth to the heirs of its creators has always been labelled "reverse discrimination". In nations victimized by colonial oppression, such as India, Africa and the Philippines, invaders conquered native populations and expropriated the land and its wealth which was, again, passed on through inheritance to succeeding generations even after the end of colonial rule. Yet those who have inherited unearned wealth in these...economies still refuse to accept economic reforms to restore any portion of such wealth to the heirs of those from whom it was taken by force, who are still forced to accept an unequal economic contract, with a result of widespread poverty. ³⁶

Until very recently, the economic framework and context in South Africa was shaped by apartheid, which denied black people even the smallest measure of choice regarding the wealth and resources of their country.

It seems to me that part of economic justice for communities in Africa should be a programme of redistribution of resources. This distribution of resources should not be undermined by violence, as with the recent land invasions in Zimbabwe. My suggestion is that businesses and families that own huge amounts of land in our countries - particularly those that were taken by force from African communities - should pledge to redistribute at least 40% of their land to poor families. A systematic programme of transfer of skills to the poor would also be another element of redistribution, enabling people to live full lives.

Neoliberal economic globalization is not benefiting the poor and our communities in Africa. Alternatives should be sought, promoted, and implemented so that all God's creatures may live fully and abundantly.

Notes