Depart in Peace, Be Warmed and Filled (Good of Affluence #9)

So we have seen that Schneider explains Amos's attacks upon the unjust rich as first of all an attack on those who have direct responsibility for the poor and for unjust policies that are harming them, not as an attack on third parties who just happen to be rich.  His second line of argument is that what Amos is attacking is not the enjoyment of wealth per se, but a bad attitude toward wealth.  This is a very common sort of claim among divine right capitalists like Schneider--wealth isn't evil; it's a bad attitude toward wealth that is evil.  The implication is that their opponents disagree; they think that wealth itself is evil.  Generally, however, that's not the case; their opponents rather insist that attitudes issue in actions, and so a good attitude toward wealth requires certain concrete just and charitable uses of that wealth, whereas a bad attitude toward wealth can be identified through certain greedy or unjust uses of that wealth.  So I can agree with Schneider's general statement; however, I will then ask him to flesh out what this bad attitude looks like for us today, and what a corresponding good attitude would entail.  Unfortunately, he gives us little to go on--here, and in the rest of the book.

 So let's dig in to this section a bit and see what he does have to say. 

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How Much is Too Much? (Good of Affluence #8)

Before turning to consider the attitude that Amos is critiquing, and what this might mean for our attitude toward wealth, Schneider takes some time to critique what he considers to be irresponsible and unjustified uses of Amos-type rhetoric.  He complains that people like Ron Sider suggest that people's eternal salvation is on the line if they enjoy too much of their wealth, instead of giving it to the poor.  Not only do they make such harsh accusations, but they do so on a hopelessly ambiguous basis.  For how much is "too much"?  Schneider suggests at first that Sider and others (he includes John Wesley here) appear to operate on a utilitarian basis, whereby we are to seek to maximize happiness for the greatest number, and so, presumably, to keep giving away any resources we don't need as long as there are some people that are poorer than us.  But then he points to what seems like an inconsistency or hypocrisy in Sider's approach, by which he equivocates on the meaning of the word "need."  "'Necessities,' he writes, 'is not to be understood a the minimum necessary to keep from starving.'  It rather means, he explains, what is 'necessary' for a standard of living that 'would have been considered [in ancient Hebrew society] reasonable and acceptable, not embarrassingly minimal." 

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Defanging Amos (Good of Affluence #7)

In his fourth chapter, Schneider turns to consider the testimony concerning wealth and poverty in the Prophets and Wisdom literature.  Again, his boldness in the way he handles this material must be applauded.  He does not seek to hide behind the purple coattails of Proverbs, as many conservatives do, citing its platitudes on the God-given blessings of wealth or on poverty as a result of sloth to justify the wealthy lifestyle.  Eventually he does turn to look at Proverbs, and when he does, he is remarkably balanced, recognizing the diversity of its teachings on wealth and poverty, but it is not his starting point--Amos is.  

Of course, anyone who remembers what Amos is about is sure to recognize this as a courageous maneuver.  Amos is the book that unrelentingly bashes the Israelites for their oppression of the poor and callous enjoyment of a lavish lifestyle while the needy suffer.  Amos reads like a 8th-century BC liberation theologian.  Oh sure, you can try to say that what Amos is really worried about is idolatry, and that he really wouldn't have any complaint against the people of Israel if they were worshipping Yahweh and enjoying their wealth, but this hardly seems sustainable when you actually look at the text, and Schneider doesn't even try to take this route, at least not initially.  So, how does Schneider sustain the "good of affluence," the good of enjoying as much wealth as you can and not feeling the need to give much to the poor, in the face of the book of Amos?  

Let's take a careful look.  Schneider appears to employ two distinct evasive strategies: one focusing on responsibility, and another on attitude.  Under the first heading, Schneider seeks to show that Amos's critiques apply to those directly responsible for the suffering of the poor in a way that we are not.  Under the second, Schneider seeks to argue that the real problem isn't how much you have, but how you view it.  (Unfortunately, though I was hoping to cover all this in one post, it looks like it's going to be two and three, if they're to be of readable length.)

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The Privation of Creation (Good of Affluence #4)

In chapters 2-4 of The Good of Affluence, Schneider launches into an Old Testament theology of affluence.  The main burden of his narrative is to show that God has created the material world good, and intends for his people to delight in its bounty.  The Garden of Eden, with its rich provision of fruits for Adam and Eve to enjoy, serves as a paradigm of the blessings to which God calls his people throughout the Old Testament, blessing Abraham and the patriarchs with great wealth and then inviting his people into a land flowing with milk and honey.  In short, God calls his people to an excessive material delight, not merely to the bare necessities, and so we must not, like Ron Sider, decry affluence as ungodly, something to be repented of or guiltily given away. 

Along the way, Schneider displays an actually quite impressive willingness to grapple with Biblical material that would seem to contradict his case.  He acknowledges that concern for the environment is an important part of a Christian doctrine of creation.  He does not pretend that Exodus and Deuteronomy prescribe some kind of unrestrained capitalism, but acknowledges that concern for the poor, and a legal system that institutionalises that concern, is Biblical.  He does not pretend that Amos and other prophets do not decry wealth and luxury in the strongest of terms. He says that all these things must be taken on board, that "concern for the poor and powerless (including the earth and animals)...is essential to the whole biblical vision of delight [Schneider's shorthand term for the enjoyment of materiality that he is arguing for]."  This is all greatly to be appreciated; and indeed, in discussing these points, Schneider offers some thoughtful exegesis and some helpful rebukes of more careless uses of some of these texts by social justice advocates.  The problem is simply that in the end, Schneider does not think these concerns alter the basic picture he is advocating.  To be sure, they must be kept in mind, they must be taken on board, they cannot be ignored, he tells us, but it is not clear to me just how they are to be kept in mind or taken on board in the lifestyle that Schneider wants to recommend to us.

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Jacuzzis with Sound Systems (Good of Affluence #3)

With this post, we finally come to the heart of the matter.  Schneider's main point is not, it should be emphasized, to defend capitalism.  I've mentioned this, but it took me awhile, given my previous experience with Schneider, to appreciate that fact fully myself.  Schneider's goal is in one sense a much narrower one--his purpose is to argue that enormous private wealth is a good thing--and that it is a good thing to enjoy it privately, without feeling compelled to restrain one's consumption on ethical grounds, or to share with those who don't have enough.  Stated so concisely, that sounds pretty indefensible, but as a defense mechanism against legalistic guilt-manipulation, Schneider's argument is somewhat understandable.  

In any case, his is an argument about the ethical status of wealth--the end product--rather than of capitalism--the process whereby it comes about.  Capitalism is highly relevant to his argument, for at least three reasons: first, because since he believes affluence to be really great, and he believes capitalism to be the cause of this affluence, he believes capitalism to be really great; second, similarly, since he believes capitalism to be the main way in which people can become affluent, he is able to argue that yes, we should care about the poor, but the best way to help them is not by charity, but by fostering capitalism; third, as mentioned in the previous post, since he believes that capitalism represents a way of becoming rich without it making others poor in the process, then we don't need to be worried about the morality of where our wealth came from--we can simply accept the end product as an unqualified good.  The first is not important to his argument here, though of course, if he were writing a defense of capitalism as such, it would merit more attention.  The second is rather important, hence the frustrations about his vagueness that I voiced in the previous post; but as this theme is only an undercurrent until the epilogue, I will wait till then to discuss it.  The third is a very important assumption, for it is what justifies Schneider's decision to essentially narrow his attention to the morality of the end-product wealth.  If this assumption turns out to be too optimistic, then his whole argument could turn out to be a moot point--that is, one might retort, "Sure, in theory it might be fine for Americans to enjoy fantastic wealth, but since, as a matter of fact, they are guilty of long-term exploitation of other countries, they have an obligation to make restitution rather than simply revelling in their jacuzzis."  But, having noted this weakness (repeatedly), I will focus from here on on Schneider's narrower argument on its own terms.

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