The tradition of the church warns against the accumulation of property and advocates a policy of mini-mization as sufficient for a worthy life

It is said now and then that the church ought to stick to its spiri-tual task and not enter into the running of worldly affairs. That the church ought to stick to its spiritual task is a reasonable demand, but that this would mean an abstention from evaluating what is happening in the world of economics is unthinkable.

The tradition of the church shows that questions of world economy have always been the object of Christian action and reaction. The simple reason is that the divine call is seen as a challenge to opt for the poor and distressed. This challenge is evident in the Old Testament writings and in the message given by Jesus of Nazareth. Also, the majority of Christians have been the poorer and humbler members of the community.

Property for all

The biblical concepts of amassed richness and the ownership of property are based on the idea that God is the true owner of all that has been created. Human claims, therefore, must always be conditioned by the concept of responsibility in stewardship. This basic idea stood in almost total conflict with the starting point of the strong, legal tradition, which the church met in the Medi-terra-nean world. There was the Roman code of law accord-ing to which there is an absolute and exclusive individual right of owner-ship to practically all property that can be acquired.

The encounter between these two traditions, the biblical tradition and the Roman code of law, made up the background for reflection in the earliest church on ownership, gain and debt. An early church father, Clement of Alexandria, said that one cannot criticize riches as such. General poverty is not a goal of society. On the other hand he attacked the unreasonable diffe-rences in wealth within society. He accepted the right of owner-ship, but held that property was meant for use, not for the in-crease of prestige and power. Two main principles are offered. First autarkeia, that which is enough for each and every one. One shall have what is enough for a worthy life, but not more. Secondly koinonia, fellowship and sharing. Property is to be used for taking away the disparity between rich and poor. "The one who owns something, owns it for the sake of his brother, rather than for himself."

Basileios the Great in the fourth century was sharper in his judgement and held the view that property is theft from the poor. As land, seed, rain and draught-animals are gifts from God to the whole of humankind, the riches which come from these gifts have to be available for all as a right of creation.

Ambrose of Milan, who also lived in the fourth century when the church was making a just stand concerning ownership and riches, was still more radical and maintained that wealth creates pover-ty. The poverty of the many is caused by the amassed and con-tinuously increasing wealth of the few. The limitation of private ownership has to be the real need, not greed. His prin-ciple for economic reconstruction was: "If you claim ownership of some-thing that has been given in common for all mankind, you have to share at least part of it with the poor". That can be said to be as good a principle as any for a discussion on the basis of a Swed--ish policy on de-velop-ment assistance.

The responsibility of ownership

Another spokesperson for the Christian viewpoint as it took shape during the important fourth century is Joh Chrysos-to-mos. He started with the question as to how property had been acquir-ed and how it is used. The burden of proof concerning legitimate ownership rests, if so, on the one who is in possession of it, rather than on the one who questions the right of ownership. Chrysostomos was the first who in a written form dealt with the problem of ownership that comes through inheritance. He made use of St. Paul's words that "if somebody does not work, he shall not eat" and maintained that those who want to give their children a rich inheritance should give virtue and skill, not material riches.

Augustine lived during the later part of the fourth century and into the fifth. He is the key-person to the Western church tradi-tion of the Middle Ages. He followed up the idea that legitim-ate ownership must be conditioned by a just use of what is owned. He pointed out that it is private ownership that leads to fighting, hatred, injustice, murder and the like. It is different from what we own collectively. "If someone wants to give room for the Lord he must have his joy, not in what is privately owned, but in what is collectively owned."

In the biblical tradition there is a strong aversion against charging interest, so strong that it was forbidden to take interest from somebody within one's own people. On that issue the Christian church could not avoid a compromise. There was a development from a negative attitude to trade in money to a gra-dual acceptance during the Middle Ages. By and by the church itself was drawn into the system and used interest for its own economic ends. At the same time one was well aware that precisely interest, and, of course, particularly usury, was the contemporary scourge of the poorest.

The Franciscans established their own small banks and pawn-shops in Italy in order to give the poor an alternative to the 20 to 50 percent interest that money-lenders demanded for small loans to people without credit-worthiness. The monks took 5 and up to 10 percent, which was not considered as interest but as payment for administrative costs. It went against the grain to take interest. Theologically it could not be defended.

Conditions for capital

A change of attitude regarding the questions of capital, interest and profit came during the time of the Reformation. The cond-i-tions in the new cultural context to the north of the Latin area of domin--ance in Europe, were to some extent different. Work was now considered to be a holy call to be performed in the sight of God. It became a Christian duty to work hard. This, again, gave more income, but the religious ideal for life was simplicity. This led to saving-up, which led to investments. Capital accrued.

It was, first and foremost, the Calvinistic ideals that deter-mined the stand of protestantism on economics. Of Calvin a con-temporary said that "he deals with interest as an apothecary with poison". In spite of his negative attitude towards interest and his awareness that it had Holy Scripture against it, even Calvin had to find a compromise. He listed several prohibitions and warn-ings. Interest was not to be demanded of the poor. Charity was not to be neglected in favour of lending. The loan should benefit the borrower to the same extent as the lender. The very fact that something was legal did not make an action morally justified. An arrangement of loans must be judged by the Word of God, not only by common law. What was legal could nevertheless be for-bidden to a Christian. The common good must be given pre-fer-ence over private gain.

No real change of starting point has taken place within the Protestant world. The Enlightenment and the spread of Ra-tionalism, however, estranged the scientific world from the world of theology and the church. Thereby economics was trans-ferred into a different sphere. After some hundreds of years of secularization, absolute freedom has come to be perceived as the only point of departure for a sound economy. The earlier demands of the Christian tradition fell by the wayside. They, again, pre-supposed that freedom is a goal to be reached by deliberate choice and is not a natural point of departure. During the financial crises of the last decade, it has, consequently, not been seen as reasonable to take theological assessments into account. Management of the econo-my has been taken to be a technical business, free of value judge-ments. Even many churches, although not the large and well established ones, ad-justed their thinking.

Solidarity and freedom

The Roman Catholic Church has followed up the earlier Christ-ian tradition and has in several encyclicals addressed itself to the gap between poor and rich. The best known are "Solicitudo rei socia-lis", the Church's concern for development and peace, and "Cen-te-simus annus", a hundred years later. The recurring and leading concept is solidarity, which is a translation of the biblical koinonia and means sharing as well as fellowship. The common good must always be placed above self-seeking con-cerns. The rich countries, therefore, are always obliged to assist the poor nations.

In several ecumenical documents the churches' evaluation has been made clear. The Christian critique of present economic structures is sharp: the extravagance of the consumer society, squandering and materialism leads to dissatisfaction. The more people own, the more they want. Thereby the deeper expecta-tions are dissatisfied. There is an essential difference between having and being. The few who own too much are hindered from being, through their attachment to what is owned. And the many who have hardly nothing, cannot fulfil their call because they are denied what is necessary.

Development has an economic dimension, but is not limited to that. It does not consist of unrestrained ownership of created things and industrial products. What is owned and used must be submitted to the call of human beings to immortality. Human nature is specific and shares in a transcendental reality. When human beings do not submit to Divine Law, nature rebels against man-kind and refuses to recognize the Lordship of men and wo-men. Mankind consequently has to fight against the defects of underdevelopment as well as those of superdevelopment. The call to the church is to ask all to consider what true and real develop-ment is.

Solidarity as well as freedom are needed for development, but not one at the cost of the other. There is a moral dimension to development, as there is, also, to obstacles to development. The warning flag that the church has brought with it from the very earliest time is raised anew against the monetary and finan-cial systems of our time. It is the interest, and the exchange fluctua-tions that go with it, that threaten the countries that are poor and debt-laden.