Economic Crisis and Rebuilding an Ethical and Integral Economy.

This was the talk delivered at the 2nd Christian-Taoist Colloquium with the theme of Christian-Taoist Ethics in Dialogue. The colloquium which gathered 70 scholars, experts and participants from 10 countries was initiated by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue of the Vatican. It was held in Singapore from 5th - 7th of November. I shared from my perspective as a Christian

Thank you Rev. Dr. Peniel from the World Council of Churches for moderating this panel. Good morning everyone, I am honoured to be here with a distinguished panel to discuss this session’s theme of Crisis of Ethics and hope for tomorrow. As a Christian and an entrepreneur, this is a matter close to my heart. I would like to contribute by presenting the foundational Christian thinking for ethical practice in the economy then some personal experiences on how my colleagues and I shape an economy for good.

Before I present a brief landscape of the crisis of ethics in our times, I would like to explain the premise of the Christian perspective. For Christians, because Jesus, as God was born and walked among humanity. Because he lived, worked and prayed with us. In doing so, in his 33 years on earth, it was a revelation and an innovation in terms of perspective of the concept of God and what happens when God says: I see what you see and I understand your joys and pains because I too have experienced them. 

Through the 4 Gospels in the Bible, we learned in many situations, that for Jesus, He lived in perfect union with His Father. Essentially he lived two realities at the same time: the earthly and the heavenly dimension until his death and resurrection. Therefore every Christian is called from initiation, to be aware of this dual dimension in life, the earthly and the divine. The Lord’s Prayer, which is the common prayer of all Christian denominations has this line that says: “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus showed us, as God and Man, that it is possible to live an undivided life, that in the daily grind, in the uncertainty, and in the darkest moments, it is possible to reach out to the divine nature of humanity, change our view and the way we act. Since Christians also believe that humans are uniquely created in the likeness and image of God. 

The next thing is: Jesus presented a paradigm shift in the concept of encounter with God. Traditionally, one encounters God in the temple or in the mountain, an exclusive and limited physical setting. But Jesus said: “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, you do it onto me.” And in another passage in the bible, Jesus said: “ Whoever welcomes these little children in my name welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me but also my Father who sent me.” In doing so, Jesus changed the perspective for His followers, that you can and are encountering God daily in every person. Jesus made a specific mention that in the least, the most ignored, they are the most treasured in the eyes of God. 

These two innovative approaches introduced by Jesus were unheard of, and they form the foundational perspective for a Christian. That he or she is called to be mindful to fulfil the will of God on earth daily in a way that will be pleasing to God in heaven. And that in every encounter with another human person, he/she is actually meeting God in the one who cleans the garden, the little ones, in the one who is homeless and so on. If a Christian is aware of these two principles constantly, then naturally his/her inclination and action will be God-inspired. But if he/she is divided, such as to consider spiritual practices and daily life as separate then there will be no harmony of practice, leading to a conflicted life. 

I believe that as people of faith we need to be true to ourselves , to live in harmony with our beliefs as it will affect the way we serve in the world. Especially in these times where we are faced with such great divisions fuelled by the inability to see things in an interconnected way. 

Here I like to highlight the four great divides or ethical crisis in our times:

The most obvious is the wealth divide: The world’s richest 1% own half the world’s wealth today. At the same time, many of the world’s largest companies have more revenue than half the nations on earth (e.g Volkswagen’s revenue in 2017 is greater then the GDP of Chile) yet they increasingly share little of the tax burden required to finance rising social and healthcare costs. That the vast majority of the 1% and richest companies do not yet have an approach to do something about how they use their wealth and shape common good has devastating implications. 

The next is the Power divide: We have never had such great distrust in the ruling political class that electorates everywhere are making extreme choices. Clearly we need a new model of governance and political participation that renews trust, that the political class is here to serve and not to be served. Recent scandals such as the one of 1MDB in Malaysia shows a recurring trend that too many politicians feel entitled to profit while being in office. 

The growing climate-change divide is a growing ethical crisis: Few nations have the resources to deal with rising tide that will submerge entire islands and cities. Water scarcity in other areas will result in more armed clashes and even all-out conflict. This has huge ramification affecting migration and livelihoods. Such a divide requires urgent global action but few nations are bothered about others and are taking a nation-first approach. 

The fourth divide is Technological: Access to advanced education and technological platforms varies greatly and will shape the destinies of future generations. Those with access will learn new skills, those without access will be out of work and relegated to the bottom, affecting our decades-long success in lifting people out of poverty.

These growing divides will redefine how humanity live, work and co-exist with each other. This is why our colloquium matters: as religious leaders inspiring the faithful, as believers working in the economy, we have a shared responsibility to urgently shape a modern ethical framework inspired by our respective faith traditions to nurture common action for good.

From what I have understood as a Catholic Christian from the teachings of the Church and exhortations of the various Popes, allow me to explain briefly what I term as the 4Ps of the Christian vision for an Ethical and Integral Economy:

1. Personal Dignity 

As I shared at the beginning, for us Christians, the dignity of the human person is the most important since God is in everyone. Therefore the economy should serve and not enslave them for the purpose of maximization of profit and production. And the priority of the economy is to be able to take care of the least who are many not simply to enrich the few. 

2. Personal Development

Governments, companies in addition to educational institutions have an obligation to provide holistic development that take note of ethical formation while enabling them in competence training. A competence-alone development approach will result in more self-interests further aggravating power and wealth divides. 

3. Participation

The right to participation in the economy without discrimination of age, nationality, racial identity, religious belief is essential for a sustainable, interdependent economic and social development. 

4. Planet

As Pope Francis said in Laudato Si, the earth is our common home, therefore we must be responsible stewards. Without shared responsibility and if we continue to abuse the planet, we will have no place to build our economy. 

With this 4Ps, the Catholic Church believes that it is the duty of every Christian, and invites every person in the economy to do their best to live up to their vocation at work and shape common good. With the global economy now at an existential crossroads, it is critical to think of new ways to shape the economy for good. 

I am currently involved in the Economy of communion(EoC), a new economic approach inspired by the Gospel and launched in 1991 in Brazil to use business models to help the least. In putting the EoC into practice in our innovation consultancy, my colleagues and I had the opportunity to apply new approaches based on the 4Ps to do our part in small ways. But last year, Pope Francis helped us realise that our effort is not enough given the scale of the crisis of ethics in our time.

When he greeted the EoC movement last year, he said to us:

“The economy of communion, if it wants to be faithful to its charism, must not only care for the victims, but build a system where there are ever fewer victims, where, possibly, there may no longer be any. As long as the economy still produces one victim and there is still a single discarded person, communion has not yet been realized; the celebration of universal fraternity is not full. Therefore, we must work towards changing the rules of the game of the socio-economic system. Imitating the Good Samaritan of the Gospel is not enough.” 

We were stunned by his words but at the same time were inspired to do more. So we reflected and thought of how we can change ourselves to do more.

1. Changing the Consulting Industry

The global consultancy business likes to talk about providing change solutions for the clients but rarely likes to talk about changing itself. Because it is still very much an old boys club, serving entrenched interests. The recent fall of President Zuma in South Africa has implicated firms such as McKinsey, KPMG who have helped to further the interests of the few. As the global consulting world is extremely influential in shaping economic practices, we must bring change to it in order to shape an inclusive economic system.

So we understood that we have to grow our model globally to attract like-minded consultants who believe that consulting can be a force to shape common good. After we started sharing about our response to Pope Francis call and our mission to change the global consulting world, we met many like-hearted consultant. 

One of them is Carlos, a financial consultant from Brazil. Carlos shared that once he went to a CEO of a large consulting firm in Brazil and asked if it is possible to live the gospel in consulting. That CEO who is a Christian told him that the actual practice of consulting is incompatible with living the gospel. Carlos was disappointed so he was filled with joy when he met us. When he learned about our actual business practices that we are inspired by a greater purpose of changing the economy, are people-oriented, and that we put relationships first before profit, he felt that he has found his home.

2) Not just giving but enabling the least

Through Carlos, we managed to understand deeper the situation in Brazil. While I was in Sao Paolo last year, I spoke about the importance of discovering one’s purpose to shape one’s work. After that a government official came to me and said: “Lawrence what you shared about purpose is so important in the context of Brazil. Because just as you spoke, my daughter texted me and said Daddy I am no longer into drugs but still I have not found my purpose.” As a father myself, I felt his pain and immediately thought of how we can make a difference there. So we decided to launch a low-cost training programme with a local business association for individuals and micro-enterprises in Brazil to help them discover their purpose and transform for the new economic disruption. 

3) Shaping ethical leaders of unity

The other thing we realised is, with the ongoing narrative about Industry 4.0 with its constant talk about artificial intelligence, and robots, there seems to be this diminishing role for humanity. We looked world-wide and there is no business leadership course that addresses this urgent need to teach leaders to put humans at the heart of the future economy. 

So we began a partnership with Sophia University to introduce what we call the HERO model to form leaders of purpose. H refers to heart and spirit, E refers to embracive thinking, R refers to relational dynamics and O refers to how to implement values into practical aspects of an organisation. This Programme is so well-received that we have since received requests to implement this same programme in 2 universities in the US. A US think tank has also created a scholarship fund to receive donations to fund scholarships for emerging leaders to go through this programme in Italy. 

All these encouraging and providential responses demonstrate to us that the world is hungry for ethical and integrated leaders who believe that the economy is ripe for change and we have to unite with more like minded persons to change the world. Today’s colloquium is one such example. As the Chinese proverb goes, “one chopstick is easily to be broken while a bundle of chopsticks are not”. Let us walk together to shape an ethical and integral economy. 

Thank you