The thing about Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa is that it keeps dropping profundities that seem to exceed the needs of an “issues book.” For example, from page 58:
Aid and social capital: a matter of trust
Social capital, by which is meant the invisible glue of relationships that holds business, economy and political life together, is at the core of any country’s development. At its most elemental level, this boils down to a matter of trust.
As discussed earlier, among development practitioners there is increasing acknowledgement of “soft” factors–such as governance, the rule of law, institutional quality–play a critical role in achieving economic prosperity and putting countries on a strong development path. But these things are meaningless in the absence of trust. And while trust is difficult to define or measure, when it is not there the networks upon which development depends break down or never even form.
While the word “governance” is used here, it can’t possibly be reduced to a theory, structure, or model of the state. She’s talking about he social custom of integrity and the blessing of being able to expect integrity.
What is sad is that Christians have adopted such a magical and superstitious understanding of the word faith, that they can’t even see that it is all Peter Leithart is talking about. I have actually read a reviewer ask “where is faith” in his amazing book. It is like accusing a man for writing about color of apostasy from belief in the existence of light.
As I wrote once,
God wants you to trust him the way politicians ask you to trust them. Jesus wants you to trust him the way you trust your doctor. Trusting God is not a qualitatively different act from accepting payment by means of a check. This should be the faith our children see in us. It should be the faith the world sees in us. No other faith declares that God exists.
For the world is built on faith. Cultures are formed around trust in something or someone. “The American Dream,” Democracy, Motor cycle culture, Sports. Our trust in Christ should be just as concrete and it should forge us into a unique community. It should create a different world.
And that is the tragedy. No one trusts their doctor, they want the government to confiscate him. Yet no one trusts politicians either in general, except for clinging superstitiously to one’s own tribe. But even that will be gone, along with trust in bankers or anyone else. And that means collapse. A friend just pointed me to this: America’s Soul is Lost.
No, not just another meltdown, another bear market recession like the one recently triggered by Wall Street’s “too-greedy-to-fail” banks. Faber is warning that the entire system of capitalism will collapse. Get it? The engine driving the great “American Economic Empire” for 233 years will collapse, a total disaster, a destiny we created.
OK, deny it. But I’ll bet you have a nagging feeling maybe he’s right, the end may be near. I have for a long time: I wrote a column back in 1997: “Battling for the Soul of Wall Street.” My interest in “The Soul” — what Jung called the “collective unconscious” — dates back to my Ph.D. dissertation: “Modern Man in Search of His Soul,” a title borrowed from Jung’s 1933 book, “Modern Man in Search of a Soul.” This battle has been on my mind since my days at Morgan Stanley 30 years ago, witnessing the decline.
Has capitalism lost its soul? Guys like Bogle and Faber sense it. Read more about the soul in physicist Gary Zukav’s “The Seat of the Soul,” Thomas Moore’s “Care of the Soul” and sacred texts.
But for Wall Street and American capitalism, use your gut. You know something’s very wrong: A year ago “too-greedy-to-fail” banks were insolvent, in a near-death experience. Now, magically they’re back to business as usual, arrogant, pocketing outrageous bonuses while Main Street sacrifices, and unemployment and foreclosures continue rising as tight credit, inflation and skyrocketing Federal debt are killing taxpayers.
Yes, Wall Street has lost its moral compass. They created the mess, now, like vultures, they’re capitalizing on the carcass. They have lost all sense of fiduciary duty, ethical responsibility and public obligation.
Here are the Top 20 reasons American capitalism has lost its soul: