Business & Economics

Kuyper

Description

Kuyper on the Positive Potential of BusinessIn his vast treasury of writings, Abraham Kuyper addressed nearly every sphere of society, including politics, science, and the arts. But his views on business and economics are often overlooked because he rarely engaged with that sphere directly. Still, his doctrine of common grace has great significance for showing how Christ is at work in the workplace. In this anthology of essays, speeches, and reflections, we see Kuyper's attempts to think positively and creatively about the calling and potential of business. Included are his ideas about economic freedom, the eternal value of earthly work, stewardship and philanthropy, economic globalization, the workings of God's grace in business, and the social function of money.

Sujets

• Economic history

Informations

• Publié par: Lexham Press
• Date de parution: 24 février 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781683594505
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

ON BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
ABRAHAM
KUYPER
Edited by Peter S. Heslam

A CTON I NSTITUTE
FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION AND LIBERTY
On Business & Economics
Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology
Copyright 2021 Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty
Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225
LexhamPress.com
All rights reserved. You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission.
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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ® (ESV ® ), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Print ISBN 9781577996767
Digital ISBN 9781683594505
Library of Congress Control Number 2020948473
Acton Editorial: Ingrid De Groot
Lexham Editorial: David Bomar, Claire Brubaker, Justin Marr, Abigail Stocker
Cover Design: Christine Christophersen
ABRAHAM
KUYPER
Collected Works in Public Theology
GENERAL EDITORS
JORDAN J. BALLOR
MELVIN FLIKKEMA
A BRAHAM K UYPER.COM
CONTENTS
Forewords
Editor’s Introduction: Calvinism in Business—an Enlightened Enterprise?
Volume Introduction: Abraham Kuyper and the Economic Teachings of the Heidelberg Catechism
Abbreviations
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
You Shall Not Steal
Remember the Sabbath Day
Working People and the Church
Sunday Rest and Hygiene
Manual Labor
The Social Question and the Christian Religion
Draft Pension Scheme for Wage Earners
Protectionism and Materialism
Human Trafficking
Social Organizations under Our Own Banner
Feeding the Nation’s Workers
The Social Question (1909)
Industrial Organization
The Sacred Order
The Social Question (1917)
What Next?
Meditations
Appendix: Common Grace and Commerce
Afterword
Bibliography
About Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920)
About the Contributors
Subject Index
Scripture Index
FOREWORDS
In the hyperpaced, global marketplace of the twenty-first century, what can be gained from the writings of a theologian-philosopher who seems preoccupied with critiquing the French Revolution of 1789? And given the sophisticated tools of modern economic analysis, why should anybody care about this theologian-philosopher’s analysis of labor unions, government subsidies, and pensions in the Netherlands over a century ago?
One reason is that this theologian-philosopher, Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920), understood the underlying dynamics of today’s global economy better than almost all of today’s leading academics, analysts, and marketplace leaders. In fact, over a century ago, Kuyper forecast one of the central paradoxes of contemporary economic and social life.
On the one hand, the spread of capitalist narratives, institutions, and practices from “the West to the rest” has resulted in unprecedented increases in income and in other dimensions of human and cultural flourishing. Particularly encouraging has been the impact on poverty. 1 Indeed, since 1990 the number of people living on less than $1.90 per day—the World Bank’s poverty line—has declined by more than half, largely due to the benefits of economic growth. 2 Furthermore, many global leaders believe that, should these trends continue, it may be possible to lift the entire world above the $1.90 poverty line by the year 2030. 3 This massive reduction in global poverty is one of the greatest accomplishments of human history and should give pause to the critics of globalization.
On the other hand, there is a gnawing sense that something has gone terribly wrong in the West. Families are disintegrating, communities are fragmented, and political processes are in disarray. Our minds and bodies can feel it. 4 As leading social psychologist Jean Twenge laments:
I think the research tells us that modern life is not good for mental health.… Obviously, there’s a lot of good things about societal and technological progress, and in a lot of ways our lives are much easier than, say, our grandparents’ or great-grandparents’ lives. But there’s a paradox here that we seem to have so much ease and relative economic prosperity compared to previous centuries, yet there’s this dissatisfaction, there’s this unhappiness, there are these mental health issues in terms of depression and anxiety. 5
The West is not alone in these disturbing trends. As market expansion has spread economic growth to the rest of the world, similar results have been found for transitional economies, resulting in what some economists are calling the “paradox of unhappy growth.” 6
How can Kuyper help us explain the paradox of the contemporary global economy? On the one hand, he would not have been surprised by the benefits of globalization, and he would have been particularly delighted by its impacts on poverty. Unlike many who have viewed the marketplace as outside God’s domain, Kuyper understood economic exchange, business, and technological progress to be rooted in the created order, making them intrinsically good gifts from our creator. 7 Although Kuyper was not naïve about the cosmic scope of the fall, his belief in common grace recognized Jesus Christ as the creator, sustainer, and redeemer of the entire cosmos, including the economic domain (Col 1:15–20). In this light, Kuyper viewed business and economics not as something to avoid, but rather as one of many spheres in which human beings are to fulfill their calling to steward God’s creation. 8
At the same time, Kuyper would not be at all surprised by the ills that characterize the current economic and social order. In fact, he predicted them. Although Kuyper believed in common grace, he also saw the cosmos as contested terrain in which King Jesus is in “mortal combat” with all would-be usurpers of his throne. 9 This fundamental antithesis between warring kingdoms expresses itself in cultural endeavors, as human beings with differing worldviews shape culture in the image of the god they worship, however secular they may claim to be. 10
At the dawn of the twentieth century, Kuyper believed the primary conflict in the West was between King Jesus and the god that had emerged from the French Revolution: the modern human being, an autonomous, rational, material creature whose flourishing depends solely on consumption. 11 Kuyper saw this as a grotesque distortion of the true nature of human beings; as image bearers of the Triune God, they are inherently relational and only truly flourish when they are in deep communion with God, others, and the world. 12
According to Kuyper, the elevation of human beings and their insatiable desire for material prosperity was having devastating impacts on individuals and society:
For the God of heaven is a God of compassion, but the money-god on earth is a god of boundless cruelty. Love of money abases you, dishonors you, robs you of spirit and backbone, and extinguishes in your soul the impulse for high and holy things. Money deprives you of your dignity, even when it gilds your life, your status, your position in society. It is not you that are rich, but it is money that makes you rich. If tomorrow your money is gone, gone is your glory. That is the lie that enters the world through love of money, corrupting everything. Since everything can be bought for money, the love of money won’t stop until it has corrupted everything—through family feuds, usury practices, theft and robbery, breach of trust and deception, and in the end through suicide. What a frightful contrast! Those who choose the Lord as their God receive all lasting good for eternity; but those who put their faith in the god of money are heading for all manner of sorrows. Poor century! This then is your glory, that you have unleashed love of money. You promised us freedom, yet you shackle us in the chains of contempt. 13
Now fast-forward one hundred years. Despite its adamant claims to being morally neutral, the neoclassical school of thought that has come to dominate Western economics and business has an implicit ethical standard and a god that it is worshipping. Indeed, neoclassical economics takes it as given that the goal of economic life is to serve homo economicus , an autonomous, rational, material creature whose flourishing depends solely on its consumption.
As an increasing number of scholars are noting, the goal of serving homo economics has come to dominate the narratives, institutions, and practices of the global economy. 14 Moreover, even noneconomic spheres are being shaped by the demands of homo economicus , including prisons, hospitals, libraries, schools, churches, and families. 15
Of course, homo economicus is none other than the modern human being, the false god that Kuyper denounced over one hundred years ago. And as he predicted, this god would prove to be very cruel. For although the worship of homo economicus has resulted in unprecedented increases in economic growth and consumption, there is very strong reason to be believe that human beings are being transformed into the image of this horrible god. 16 Indeed, there is considerable evidence that Americans have become more individualistic and materialistic throughout the postwar era, resulting in lower self-reported happiness, poorer interpersonal relationships, higher levels of anxiety and depression, greater antisocial behavior, and lower health. 17 Moreover, there is evidence that globalization is spreading this deformation to other countries. 18
At the start of this foreword I suggested that a key reason to read Kuyper’s works on economics and business is that he understood the paradoxes of the current global economy better than most of us do. As he was a social activist and prime minister, not merely a theologian-philosopher, we can observe how he moves between theory and practice. We can see how he wrestles with such nitty-gritty things as operating hours fo