Africa and the Economy of Exclusion-Perspective and New Horizons from The Joy of the Gospel of Pope Francis

(Final Part)

Maurice Ashley Agbaw-Ebai (AMDG)

In the Joy of the Gospel, Francis makes this bold comment: “Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say, “Thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion” (EG, 53). This shows a clear sense of the principle of pastorality, which is the landmark of the entire document. Francis says elsewhere: “I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security. I do not want a Church concerned with being at the centre and which then ends by being caught up in a web of obsessions and procedures” (EG, 49). Pastorality demands certain theological warrants that will make religious education in the secular culture possible, in terms of motivational principles, such as paying attention to the lived experiences of people; the social, economic and political challenges that people face in living out the faith. In this light, pastorality is a hermeneutical principle that pays attention to the experiences of the people of the Church in dehumanizing economic conditions, of many parts of Latin America and the developing world, and in the suburbs and ghettos of the developed world. In addition, pastorality implies that Francis does not talk about the economy as a CEO from Wall Street. He is interested in the economy because he is interested in he people of God. The goal is to allow the Gospel to enter the economic sphere in its entirety.

In contra distinction to a person-centered economic theory for Africa is one that Francis describes as a throw away economic culture, an economy of exclusion. Those excluded, Francis maintains, “(…) are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the ‘exploited’ but the outcast, the leftovers” (EG, 53). Africans might very well pay attention to the images Francis employs to drive home the destructive power of an economy of exclusion: Firstly, the economy of exclusion is enhanced by trickle-down economic theories, “(…) which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralised workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting” (EG, 54). Francis has come under attack for criticising trickle-down theories, with some labelling him a Marxist. The Pope defended himself by saying that the difficulty has been that while the excluded were waiting for the spill over, the glass magically gets bigger once the water was approaching the brim!

Secondly, the economy of exclusion is bolstered by a globalization of indifference, in which, “almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own” (EG, 54). Little effort is needed to see the effect of this globalization of indifference across many places in Africa, Latin America and Asia. A third feature of the economy of exclusion is the absolute autonomy of the markets: “While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and finance speculation” (EG, 56). No doubt, free markets offer the best possibility to emerge from material poverty. It creates space for creativity, freedom and hard work. Notwithstanding the merits of the free market, one cannot be indifferent in the face of the many who are excluded and dehumanized. Free markets ought to be tied to the objective good of the dignity of the human person; a freedom indifferent to the objective good of the person is actually an unfreedom that leads to a coercive social order. At the centre of the freedom of the markets must be the dignity of the human person and the common good, not just profit making. The fourth defining quality of the economy of exclusion is the idolatry of money. Francis remarks: “We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (Cf. Ex. 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose (…). Man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption” (EG, 55). The idolatry of money is about the moral limits of money. It tells us that there are certain things that money cannot and should not buy. Francis says elsewhere: “Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and a return of economics and finance to an ethical approach that favour human beings” (EG, 58). It becomes clear that the human person, his dignity and enhancement, forms the fulcrum of any genuine economic theory for Africa.

All these insights from Francis offer Africa a challenging economic model of communion that eschews the liberal market ethos that is the dominant capitalist model. Catholic Social Teaching and the Joy of Gospel places human freedom, creativity and hard work at the service of an economic rationality that rejects the worship of money and refutes an economic framework in which money rules, instead of serving the common good. The standard of evaluating the success of the markets ceases to be exclusively profit-driven. It offers Africa an economic model whose successes are based on transformative and improved living conditions for all. Catholic Social Teaching and the Joy of the Gospel reaffirm the free market as a vehicle to address poverty, while at the same time arguing for certain moral limits of the markets. The principles of solidarity, subsidiarity, the common good, the care for the creation, respect for human life, et cetera, challenge Africa to realize that the market need not, indeed cannot be the exclusive domain of the homo economicus, but the place for the human being, made in God’s own image and likeness. What hopes and new horizons can this liberating understanding of person-centered markets and money have for Africa? How can such a person-centered vision of the markets influence systemic change in Africa? In order to achieve a modicum of economic growth that will meet the aspirations of Africa, a Marshall-type program for Europe, and, preferably a Franklin Delano Roosevelt type of economic recovery program for the U.S.A., must be formulated, adopted and executed for Africa. From the Marshal Plan, Africa could draw inspiration that looks to the future, without focusing, as George Marshal challenged Europe not to, on the destruction caused by World War II on Europe. Similar to post-war Europe, Africa could see in the Marshal Plan the positive effects of modernizing industrial and business practices, borrowing a leaf from the generally efficient American free market that seeks to reduce artificial trade barriers, while instilling a sense of hope and self-reliance. Africa could also see in the Delano Plan, a model for fighting poverty and pessimism, trusting that Africa has nothing to fear but fear itself. Delano’s Emergency Banking Act could offer Africa’s banks a more positive role in the free market that Africa seeks to construct in combatting poverty and establishing a more assertive and engaged middle class in Africa, which is largely missing in many African countries. Without such plans and actions, the dichotomy between the rich and the poor in Africa will intensify and will increase the simmering and growing tensions, crises, and wars in Africa. Such a situation will increase the conflict between Africa and the West. Just as a country cannot remain at peace, half-slave and half-free, so the world cannot remain over-developed and under-developed, and hope to have and sustain peace.

In the post-synodal exhortation Ecclesia in Africa, Pope John Paul II declared that for many Synod Fathers contemporary Africa can be compared to the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho; he fell among robbers who stripped him, beat him and departed, leaving him half dead (cf. Lk 10:30-37). Africa is a continent where countless human beings — men and women, children and young people — are lying, as it were, on the edge of the road, sick, injured, disabled, marginalized and abandoned. They are in dire need of Good Samaritans who will come to their aid (EA, 41). In sum, each one is a vehicle of ideas. Ideas are the most powerful thing in history. They are history. The great discoverer dies. His or her house disappears. All the physical objects associated with him or disappear. His or her grave becomes unknown; and yet, his or her ideas live on in others. Ideas are the most powerful force, in the long run, in history. In my view, therefore, the idea of what the world must be, the idea of what must be done for Africa, are the principal forces by which this issue can be fought. With the dignity of the human being at the center, with the common good as the focus of the markets, with an economy that includes instead of excludes, with a vision of money that serves instead of rules, together with focus on basic necessities that serve the common good and reflect the dignity of Africans, such as power, water management, transportation, sanitation, food preservation, we can begin to build a new Africa where development, peace and justice shall for all shall be the economic vision.

As Africa struggles to find a place in the economic world of the 21^st century, the vision of Catholic Social Teaching and the hermeneutic of liberation theology that marks the Joy of the Gospel offer a much more compelling and humane narrative in reconstructing the economic life of Africa. This vision takes the best of both worlds: the creativity, mobility of goods and services, hard work, generation of profit, production, et cetera, from the world of the markets, inspired and driven by the social doctrine of the Church, at the heart of which is the human person made in the image and likeness of God, called to live in family and community, for the individual’s enhancement and the social good of society.