How to go about thinking about the election season - by Yale philosopher/theologian Miroslav Volf
Value #4: Economic
Growth
Value: Economic growth is not a value in its own right because wealth and money are not values in their own right. They are means, indispensible means, but only means. In one of the wealthiest nations in the world, we should worry more about how to use properly the wealth we create than how to create more wealth.
Rationale: “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth… But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:24, 33).
Debate: We can abandon the old debate about whether efficient wealth creation or just wealth distribution is more important; both are important, for we cannot distribute what we don’t have and you should not have what is just for us to distribute. Instead, we should debate about what are morally irresponsible (wall-street gambling!), inhumane (child labor!), and unsustainable (deforestation!) ways of creating wealth; about how to use wealth properly as individuals, communities, and nation; about how to make wealth serve us instead of turning our whole lives into means of wealth acquisition.
Question to Ask: Which candidate is able to remind us that we diminish ourselves when we turn into money-making and pleasure-seeking creatures, and that we flourish when we pursue truth, goodness, and beauty, that we are truly ourselves when we reach to others in solidarity and enjoy one another in love (which, Christians would claim, is possible only “in God”)?
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