Follow the Money: The Ethics of Money*

Money, economic dynamics at the micros and macro levels, our assumptions and our behavior influenced by money and economic systems are primary ethical matters which merit the attention of religious leaders. Here are some of the central presuppositions which have shaped this course.

Money is an awkward subject for many religious leaders and their communities and yet it is an important tool and is at the center of many complex dynamics in religious communities.

Human beings are quite capable of fooling themselves about issues of money, greed, self-interest, and often fail to see the role money (or the lack of money), economic power and status, plays in matters of self-esteem, social relationships, solidarity with others, motivation and so forth.

Many Central American political and social values are being undermined or hollowed out by large sums of money in strategic places so that the form of political and moral discourse continues, but the reality behind it has substantially changed.

  Religious moral thought has always concerned itself with money and its power over individuals and societies and yet religious people are often not aware of the excellent moral resources in their own religious tradition or in the social sciences.

Religious leaders tend not to think theologically about economic issues because they lack the training to do so and also because they fear the conflict that these issues often engender. 

Goals of the Course

Become familiar with the basic economic issues in  the United States and the world. Learn to see which elements of these issues are moral elements that religious people really ought to be thinking about together.

Leave the course having surfaced and examined one’s assumptions about the complex relationship between ideas and the material world.

Learn the basic teachings of your religious tradition about money and how it acts in the world.

Session One

Introductions of ourselves.

The Building Blocks for our investigation, ethical analysis, discussion

The relation between theology (or life philosophy) and ethics.

The sources for ethical reflection.

The relationships between description and prescription, facts and values.

The notion of ideology; the relationships between ideas and the material world .

Conceptual maps of human social worlds: structures, social classes, religious and ethnic groups, etc.

The sources for doing Ethics: experience, scripture, tradition,  faith, reason, etc.

First topic for our discussion today:

Money

Reading

Karl Marx                  

Social structures, values, ideas

Reading

Christopher Hedges pages 6-16 in  Death of the Liberal Class

The readings will be passed out in class.

Time permitting:  the film Capitalism   by Michael Moore

Session Two: Understanding Our National Economic Context

US data on income distribution, income tax, salary ratios between management and labor, correlations of ethnicity and class, common assumptions about the American Dream.

Reading

Robert Reich, Beyond Outrage, What Has Gone Wrong with Our Economy and Our Democracy, and How to Fix It.

Session Three: Understanding Our International Context

Readings

Chandra Muzaffar, “Islam, Justice and Politics” to be distributed.

Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World

Five page paper due.

Session Four: Consumerism, Several More Critiques

Readings

Sallie McFague, Blessed Are The Consumers.  Available online as “A Fortress Digital Preview.”

Tarek Ramadan, Islamic Ethics and Liberation, selected chapters

Peter Singer, One World, selected chapters

Vincent Miller, Consuming Religion

Five page paper due.

Session Five: Analysis of the Moral Critiques: Sources for Moral/Ethical Analysis and Evaluation

Readings

Tarek Ramadan, Islamic Ethics and Liberation, selected chapters

Jim Wallis, The Politics of God, selected chapters

Five page paper due.

Session Six: Contemporary Economic Policy Statements by US Catholic Bishops

Readings - TBA

Session Seven: Emerging Concerns, Questions

So what’s next? What are we supposed to do?

Time for students to share their papers….

10 page paper due.