Year 9-4
Last week in the magnificent new Guthrie Theatre complex in downtown Minneapolis, on the shore of the Mississippi, I saw ”Shadowlands,” a play based on the life of C.S. Lewis, the well-known author of the Narnia Series, and, among others, the book “Mere Christianity”, first aired as a series of broadcasts for the BBC in 1942.
The performance itself is deeply personal, portraying C. S. Lewis’ agony watching a long and painful illness unfold in the life – and subsequent death – of his dearly beloved spouse. With 53 presentations from November 1 through December 21, judging by the one I attended, some 50,000 will see this moving show. I wondered how this distinctly Christian theatrical production would fare in a much more secular – and bigger- city such as Toronto.
I was struck by the enduring nature of its message that to love at all is to be vulnerable. It made me think how each of us will suffer personally through sickness and death but also how we all communally will be affected as our beloved easy-money prosperity turns into a painful illness of an economic nature, a transition from a supposedly healthy financial state to a sickly recession, so severe that even the Queen has wondered why nobody has seen this coming.
Just as in any serious illness massive doses of medicine are administered, so in our current economic malaise mountains of money are injected, trusting that more liquidity will cure the curse. Also, just as in all human cases, life may be extended, but the end can only be postponed, in the same way I am afraid, we are witnessing the passing of post World War II capitalism.
You probably have never heard of Herman Daly, a former economist with the World Bank. In his “The No Growth Society” he describes and advocates a steady state economy, rather than perpetual growth, which is impossible in a finite world. Yet Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson and his pals are doing everything to pump up growth, because our economic system depends on it, and falls without it.
In a recent article Dr Daly states that the current financial debacle is really not a “liquidity” crisis, as Washington maintains, but a crisis of too much money, as much as 20 times, relative to growth of real wealth. He writes that “the value of present real wealth is no longer sufficient to serve as a lien to guarantee the exploding debt.” In other words, the security on which the liabilities are based is far smaller than the moneys loaned on it.
This is all too clear in the US where, in many instances, the mortgages are higher than the value of the real estate, not only on residential properties, but now increasingly on commercial and industrial buildings as well. The banks are waiting to lend money until debt is reduced to its proper value, even though they could charge high interest rates, but to give out loans under those conditions would impair their precarious position even more.
There is something else happening as well. We are approaching or perhaps have already exceeded “The Limits of Growth”, the title of a book published by the Club of Rome in 1972, referring to the bearing capacity of our planet. Pumping trillions into the banking system actually means that real physical growth is making us poorer, not richer: it inevitably will lead to super inflation.
In addition we not only face the nearly impossible task to maintain a decent standard of living, without further burdening the next generation with massive increases in debt, but we also must confront the immense challenge to keep the economy and our lives on an even keel without further harming the environment while simultaneously repairing the damage done by soil erosion, pollution, Global Warming, and learning to cope with the arrival of Peak Oil and other commodity shortages by switching to renewable energy. The current crisis cannot be solved unless we deal with these gigantic problems.
As far as I can judge, none of these factors are sufficiently recognized by the idol worshippers of Perpetual Growth who downplay the increasing scarcity of natural resources and the possibility of disastrous Climate Change.
All this brings me back to “Shadowlands,” which, in the global context, is a condition of great economic uncertainty. We will only emerge from this gloominess into the Light if we live ecologically responsible. This means that we have to test all our actions with four criteria in mind: (1) nothing ever disappears, (2) everything is connected to every thing else, (3) there is no free lunch, (4) nature knows best.