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Separate Parts of the American Dream

Rev. Sharon Dittmar
June 2, 2002

This year, as recipients of the auction sermon, the Wones family asked several hard questions about money: how should a religious person behave in a market economy, and does religion or Unitarianism have anything to say about economics?  Most of us have seen at least some of the American statistics, that in the last twenty-five years fewer and fewer families own a piece of the American pie.  

It is difficult to understand how we could be doing worse.  So many things have improved.  Aren’t we better off today than twenty years ago?  By every financial measure, the answer is a surprising and definitive, “No” for at least 95%, if not 99% of the American population.  By measures that account for standard of living, total wealth, and quality of life, the overwhelming majority of Americans are doing worse than their counterparts in the 1970’s.

Here are some statistics: 

·        The United States has become home to greater economic inequality than any other major Western nation.  In Japan the top fifth [percent of the population in terms of income] make 4.3 times more than the bottom fifth, in Germany the top fifth make 5.8 times more, and in England 9.6 times more.  Within the United States, the top fifth of the population makes 11 times more money than those in the bottom fifth.[1] 

·        The two most widely-watched U.S. indicators of social health, both show a steady decline since 1973 (ex: child poverty, health care coverage, and youth homicide).[2]

·        The inflation-adjusted, after-tax income flowing to the middle 60% of households in 1999 is slightly below the figure for 1977.[3] 

·        Between 1990 and 1995, the average annual hours worked in the United States passed every other industrial country.[4] 

            At this point you might be staring at me with disbelief.  What about the great stock market earnings of the 1980’s and 1990’s, profits from individual stocks, mutual funds, and 401(k)s, thank you?  How can Americans be doing worse in economic equality, social health, disposable income, and work hours?

According to Kevin Phillips, author of Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich, the answer is fairly straight forward.  “In 1999 The New York Times reported that within the most prosperous fifth of U.S. households, national income growth was shared so unevenly that some 90 percent of that fifths gain went to the top 1 percent.”[5]  Our pensions may (or may not) have increased, but we truly do not understand how much more money the CEO or inherited millionaire next store has acquired over the same period of time.

At the same time our pensions may have increased we have forgotten significant changes that amount to significant losses for the general public.  For example, according to Phillips, in 1960 19% of women with children under six years of age worked.  By 1995, 64% of women with children under six years of age worked.[6]  Now, some women, like myself, want to work.  But let me make it clear, how many of us also have no choice. 

As Phillips explains “With real non-supervisory wages declining for much of the population during the period [over 40 years], householders met this strain by wives going to work, by new magnitudes of borrowing . . . and by working longer hours.”[7]  Often it is that second parent’s income that keeps the family in the middle or upper middle class, which is why it is that much more difficult to be a single parent today than twenty-five years ago. 

It is easy to say that in the last three decades Americans have lost their frugality, that if we cut back, we would all be doing a lot better.  There is truth to this.  Americans have taken on extraordinary amounts of debt, which is one of the reasons our net worth is lower than it was in the 1970’s.  Phillips writes:  

Debt, the mother of interest payment burdens, tends to grow fastest in booms.  This is when financial institutions, advertisers,  and salespeople push credit, and when households trying to keep up with the Joneses accept it . . . Between 1989 and 1998, while families in the middle fifth enjoyed just 2.8 percent of the rise in stock market holdings, they accounted for 38.8 percent of the uptick in household debt . . . Between 1992 and the decades’ end, mortgage debts grew some 60 percent faster than income, so that homeowner’s equity in their houses in 2000 declined to the lowest level in a half century . . . so few black and Hispanics participated in the financial arena that, even while nonwhite incomes went up, the wealth gap between whites and nonwhites widened.[8]

 As alarming as these number are, debt is not the only reason, or even the major reason net worth has plummeted.  In the 21^st century Americans can not keep up with the financial losses of skyrocketing higher public education, day care costs, the loss of health insurance benefits and rising health care costs, the loss of manufacturing jobs due to automation, and the diversion of capital away from machinery and labor and into the hands of shareholders and CEO’s.  (Example of health care costs for elderly, 38% increase for Ohio college).  Our homes might be larger, our cars might be larger, our luxury items may be greater, but Americans are clearly worth less than their counterparts twenty-five years ago.  This holds true for every class except the 1% of richest Americans.

This economic disparity is not as much about individual choices as it is about our current economic system and government policies.  For example, most Americans can not recoup losses from changes in the tax code over the last five decades.  In 1950, corporations paid 26.5% of federal taxes, while individuals paid 6.9%.  In 2000, corporations pay 10.2% of federal taxes, while individuals pay 31.1%.  In 1986, a new tax reform went into affect.  In this tax reform, households making between $70,000 – $170,000 were taxed at 33%.  Households making over $170,000 were taxed at the lower rate of 28%.  At the time, The Economist of London wrote, “America has one of the world’s least progressive tax structures.”[9]  (remind tax change in 1993 –wealthiest taxed at 39.6%) 

This is far too discouraging, but it is real, and our ignorance of this reality is costing us.  (NOW, Bill Moyers, NY Attorney General-email, Merill Lynch, analyst, FL investment club-naiveté, believed what we wanted to hear, canaries in the coal mine, wealthiest investors understand inside nods and handshakes).  In his book, Phillips periodically refers to “market theology”, or the worship of markets. 

The word “market theology” might pass by many readers, but it leapt out towards me as both offensive and sadly accurate.  “Theology” itself means “god talk”, in essence those things that are most sacred and eternal to us.  To combine this definition of theology with “market” is disturbing.  Have the markets become our new gods, and at what cost?

The great, if not curmudgeonly, Unitarian thinker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, reminds us

A person will worship something – have no doubt about that.  We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts – but it will out.  That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and character.  Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.[10] 

These words, written over a hundred years ago, have a poignant resonance today.  There was a day I could go to the gym and while watching the television, only saw soap operas, VH-1, and talk shows.  But sometime in the last five years I couldn’t enter the gym without seeing a television set to a market channel, one of those channels that just runs stock numbers on the bottom of the screen, and up above the analysts and commentators discuss the stocks and companies of the day.  People on workout equipment are transfixed by this channel.

We watch market news because more of our money and energy is tied into the market, because many of us have become mini investors, because we believe that our stock profiles are real money (forgetting that until you cash out and hold the money in your hands it can vaporize in a moment’s panic). We watch market channels because we have come to worship money.

Emerson’s understanding of worship, and its significance was deep.  “That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and character.”  We have all been so caught up in the hype (and lie) of a great equalizing bull market, and its potential for mythic “democratic” gains, that we have ignored democracy and the American income disparity between rich and poor, nonwhite and white.  Our fascination with wealth has altered our imagination, thought, lives, and character.

   Similar to Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great 20^th century theologian, Paul Tillich, maintained that a critical dilemma for humans is the determination of what is ultimate vs. what claims to be ultimate.  According to Tillich, the object of theology is ultimate concern, that which concerns us ultimately.  Ultimate concerns must be infinite, for example God or love.  Tillich maintained that “idolatry” occurs when finite realities are elevated to the status of ultimate. [11]  Money can safely be considered a finite reality, and worship of it, an idolatry.

   This is difficult terrain.  Who among us does not want to be rich?  I’d like to have money, a lot more money.  But what does it mean to be rich, and at what cost to whom?  In the 1990’s many of us saw the markets as the easy way to get rich quick.  Certainly they were billed that way to us (NOW).  Phillips notes that Americans have a proclivity towards speculation, we are almost hard wired for it, and therefore very susceptible to boom times, and the resulting busts.

   I remember this magazine cover from the mid nineties.  On it were two young men, Gen Xers.  The headline was something like “How did these twenty-somethings become richer than Rockefeller”.  Of course the article went on to explain how young people and computer nerds were cleaning up in the tech bubble, and how the rest of us were such losers for being left behind. 

At the time I read the article I was in Divinity School.  I thought I was the “only one” left behind.  In retrospect, I am a Gen Xer, and to this day I do not personally know anyone who cleaned up in the tech bubble, even among my friends who were computer nerds.  We are all making it like every other middle and upper middle class American, the only difference being, that even my friends who have been professionally employed for 10 years, still can’t afford to buy a home in the Boston area.  I don’t believe that many Americans truly struck it rich in the 1990’s.  In retrospect, we were all lucky if we didn’t lose our shirts.

Our Unitarian Universalist values covenant us to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations and the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all.  In the 1980’s and 1990’s, these two principles have come into sharp conflict with another principle, “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.”  It is that age old dilemma of individual vs. community, public vs. private.  How much is too much for one person?

We are each encouraged to come in and go forth, learning, and making meaning as private individuals.  What if some of us, many of us, got on the market worship wagon?  It’s our own free and marginally responsible search.  “So what if the income gap increases, anyone can get in the market.  I’m not responsible for people who don’t take advantage of opportunity.  And other people are rich, why not me?”

Why not me.  Last month while visiting a friend in Los Angeles, I went with her while she dropped her son off at a birthday party for a friend.  On the way to the party she said “Sharon, the father was a computer nerd who made money in the tech market.  They now live in a multi-million dollar home in a gated community, but the whole family is very normal.”  We pulled up to the entry gate (complete with guard), our names were found on a checklist that allowed us to pass through, so we continued on to the house.  My friend asked if I wanted to come inside the house for a minute.  I said “Of course.” 

The house was on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  The carpet was buff and plush, the entryway floor, marble.  The first floor was modern, nondescript, and under-furnished.  The mother was so average, dare I say frumpy looking, in her dress that I could have easily stood in line with her for a Kmart blue light special.  I wanted to walk the whole house and discover that it was extraordinary, although what I saw was just average, but larger and overlooking the ocean.   I felt like a voyeur, an intruder because my only purpose there was to peer into the life and home of a rich person.  This was no pastoral visit.

My friend was right, these were normal people, nice people.  I wanted to be angry, outraged, and I did find the gated community creepy, but under my observations there was a stronger feeling that I couldn’t deny, envy.  I was envious.  I coveted my neighbor’s wealth.  I want to be rich too. 

I was interested in my disappointment that the house was not spectacular.  I think this has to do with the fantasy of being rich, that average things will always be special, problems will be solved, and the view will always be spectacular.   Is this fantasy worth creating a democratic society where the richest top fifth of the population are eleven times wealthier than the poorest fifth?  I am not proud of my answer which is a reluctant “No.”  I’m glad it is “no”.  I’m just not proud of the reluctant part.  I can’t completely break the desire to be rich, and neither can most of America, even if it means other people will suffer.

The theologian Sallie McFague writes about taking up enough, but not too much space.  Her definition of sin is taking up too much space.  I don’t believe that anyone in this room is called to hand over all their money and live in poverty.  That would be taking up too little space and this is not an answer.  We are not called to put ourselves down.  We are called to live in moderation and bring others with us so that no one is left behind.

I suggest that you ask yourself how much space you are using.  Do I need the money of this multi-millionaire family in California?  No.  Maybe you lost $50,000 or $500,000 in the stock market last year.  Maybe you do need that money to live, but maybe you don’t.  In the last twenty years we have begun to confuse the fantasy or dream of being rich, with the dream of being independent and self-supporting, essentially middle class.  Middle class isn’t sexy, but it is enough spaced.

As Phillips so insightfully explains in Wealth and Democracy, today’s economic problems go beyond personal savings, debt, and frugality, beyond private anything.  We currently live in a system that has all of us working longer for less money and benefits.  If Bill Gates divided all his money among the poorest Americans or world citizens, it would still not solve our problems.  Our problems are systematic, in the tax code, in financial bailouts, in decades of capital diversion from resources and labor into the hands of shareholders and CEOs. 

Throughout American history, and especially within the last thirty years, Americans have not had equal access to wealth or the stock market.  I think of that Merill Lynch e-mail.  Phillips refers to our current market based society as a form of market Darwinism.  We have confused buying, or the power to buy with voting, or the power to vote, and in the process have ignored growing income disparities, suffering, and our own losses.  In some ways it is the ultimate con game.  We were so easily duped into believing we could have something difficult to attain just because we wanted it. 

However, anyone can get off the wagon of market theology and into a deeper search for an infinite, ultimate concern.  Yes, invest in the market, and pay attention to your pension and disposable income, but don’t become obsessed with these things.  Separate your wealth from your meaning, identity, and purpose.  Separate it from that which is ultimate and infinite. 

Everyone’s definition of a free and responsible search for meaning differs, but for me that responsible part includes the well-being of those who are the most vulnerable among us.  We might not be our brother’s keeper, but we are certainly our brother’s neighbor. 

What would it take for any of us to be more neighborly?  A regular discipline that includes giving a portion of our money away (that is sharing it with people and organizations), separating ourselves from Market Update, investing in local community with time, talent, and or money, reducing personal debt, and increasing savings (in other words, you don’t have to “keep up with the Joneses” to be neighborly with them), maintaining a healthy suspicion of get rich quick schemes, and above all, paying very careful attention to what you worship. 

What are you worshipping?  This is not just about our pocketbooks.  It is about our identity, our character, our souls. 

A person will worship something – have no doubt about that.  We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts – but it will out.  That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and character.  Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.

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