God, Cellphones, Quarterly Earnings and the Search for the Common Good
"Our life together can be better." That's the opening sentence of an important new book by Jim Wallis called On God's Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn't Learned About Serving the Common Good. Wallis, in addition to being CEO of the D.C.-based Christian ministry Sojourners,
is one of our most compelling thinkers and writers -- not just on
religion and spirituality but on American public life as well. He's
also, I'm happy to say, a longtime and frequent contributor to HuffPost.
And for those of you in the New York area, on Friday I'll be taking
part in a conversation with him, moderated by our religion editor Paul
Raushenbush, at NYU's Brennan Center for Justice from 7:00 - 8:30 p.m.
Wallis wrote On God's Side while taking a three-month
sabbatical last year, in the midst of the 2012 election -- a break that
allowed him to get a broader perspective on what was going on in
American public life. "Sitting back and watching the deluge of insults
and accusations that feeds our political system, I witnessed the worst
of us as a nation," he wrote last week on HuffPost. "And I came to the conclusion that it's time to reframe our priorities."
According to Wallis, we have traded "the idea of public servants for
the false idols of power and privilege." And "we have lost something as a
nation when we can no longer look at one another as people, as
Americans."
So he wrote the book to get at "the root of what I believe is the
answer to our current state of unrest." And this is what he concluded:
It is not about right and left -- or merely about partisan
politics -- but rather about the quality of our life together. It's
about moving beyond the political ideologies that have both polarized
and paralyzed us, by regaining a moral compass for both our public and
personal lives -- by reclaiming an ancient yet urgently timely idea: the
common good.
The book draws inspiration from Abraham Lincoln's famous line:
"[M]y concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is
to be on God's side..." Wallis calls this "probably the most important
thing about religion ever said by an American president." For Wallis,
the key to being on God's side is a focus on the common good. "That old
but always new ethic simply says we must care for more than just
ourselves, or just our own group," he writes. "We must care for our
neighbor as well, and for the health of the life we share with one
another. It echoes a very basic tenet of Christian and other faiths --
love your neighbor as yourself -- still the most transformational ethic
in history."
But, as Wallis saw vividly during his sabbatical, that doesn't seem
to be the direction things are currently headed in our country. Instead
of strengthening our commitment to equality, social justice, and our
sense of unity as a nation, our public and political discourse is
breaking us apart.
The question is, where is change going to come from? Much of Wallis'
book focuses on the fact that it's unlikely to come from Washington.
"There is a war going on today in our nation's political discourse," he writes.
We've
lost our civility, the ability to have public discussion that isn't
harsh or dismissive but respectful and genuinely open to dialogue and
disagreement. We've also lost our ability to really listen to one
another. We've lost our capacity for political compromise, for actually
finding solutions instead of just continually blaming each other for
problems.
The problem is that it's hard to see Washington changing any time
soon, or, at least, it's hard to see change coming from inside
Washington. Our political life right now seems stagnant, stalemated --
like the trench-warfare battle lines of World War I. Small battles and
skirmishes are won or lost -- and are covered with breathless import by
the media -- but the scope of what passes for solutions grows ever
smaller.
I'm definitely not suggesting we should give up on politics, or let
our leaders off the hook, or disengage in any way -- and neither is
Wallis. But right now the debate in Washington isn't just shrinking bit
by bit, it's disappearing faster than the polar ice cap. Otto von
Bismarck famously said, "Politics is the art of the possible" -- but in our politics, achieving the possible is seen not as art but as capitulation.
So when I interview Jim on Friday, I want to ask him about avenues
for pursuing the common good outside of Washington. Just as the
incentives in politics have veered toward fundraising, the incentives in
business have come to be dominated by quarterly earnings and short-term
growth. But even though both the public and private sectors are off
course, it's more likely that the private sector -- which includes not
just businesses but non-profits and individuals committed to making a
difference -- will be able to course-correct more rapidly.
So what would it mean to pursue the common good in the business
world? In 1890, Alfred Marshall, one of the founders of modern
capitalism, coined the term "economic chivalry," and wrote that the
"desire of men for approval of their own conscience and for the esteem
of others is an economic force of the first order of importance." That's
still as true today as it was then. But the question is, what is it
that gives a person "the esteem of others" and thus the "approval of
their own conscience?" We can't change our general need for the approval
of others and ourselves, but what we approve of -- what we think of as
success -- can change. In a word: incentives. If our collective
definition of success is simply greater quarterly earnings at all costs,
then that's the route to approval that people will pursue. But how can
we widen the definition of success to include the notion of the common
good?
One of the costs of that short-term pursuit of success defined simply
as money and power is often our health and well-being. Right now,
stress costs American businesses $300 billion
a year. But thankfully more and more companies are realizing that not
only are healthy profits and healthy employees not exclusive, they go
hand in hand. According to the iOpener Institute,
increasing happiness in the workplace can reduce the cost of sick leave
by 19 percent and the cost of employee turnover by 46 percent, and
increase productivity by 12 percent. This is why around one-quarter of all large U.S. businesses currently offer some sort of stress reduction program.
One way to encourage the other three-quarters would be to provide
stronger incentives. For instance, during earnings calls, the
all-important Wall Street analysts whom CEOs and directors are always
trying to impress with ever bigger quarterly profits could ask about
what the CEO is doing to ensure the health and well-being of his or her
employees. It would give the analysts a better idea of the company's
long-term financial health, as well.
One way to shift toward that longer-term perspective is by
disconnecting from the noise and distraction of our ever-wired world.
I'm interested in hearing Jim's perspective on the role of technology in
the fraying of the common good.
In On God's Side, he writes: "...let's be honest, cellphones
have become the 'significant other' for lots of people today. Many
spend more time with them each day -- thumbing away on the keyboards or
having long conversations from anywhere and everywhere -- than with any
person in their lives."
So how do we rebuild the common good when we're disconnected to those
closest to us, and, very often, even from ourselves? How do we take
advantage of all the many obvious benefits of technology and social
media while minimizing the increasingly obvious costs? While encouraging
meaningful debate in Washington is certainly a great thing, the answers
to these questions are also vital to the question of whether we can
rebuild the common good.
If you're in New York on Friday, I hope you'll join us for the discussion. RSVP Here. If you're not, we'll post highlights from our conversation here on HuffPost.
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