INTRODUCTION
Theology
and social science are hermeneutic tool for interpreting the signs of times.
The task of theology is not to create any particular social, economic or
political program, but rather to reflect critically on their structure and
policies. It is one of many ways that
enables us to communicate towards koinonia,
and this communication must be based the “option for the poor,” by listening to
the voices of the victims.
How then are we
able to listen to the voices of the poor?
In our contemporary world, we are in the flood of information through
researches and reports. The majority of
the information is for the benefit of the rich in the suprastructure and the
interpretation of the research is also done for their own benefit. Furthermore, as Joel Samoff points out,
decision makers pay too little attention to research, and policy makers do not
necessarily make decision for the benefit of whole.[1] In this situation, we, as Christian
theologians, need to examine the research to understand the reality as it is,
with the perspective of the poor. This
is a crucial point that makes difference, for the interpretation of the signs
of times, the Christian way from other interpretative ways.
GROWING GAPS BETWEEN RICH AND POOR
One
of the consequences of globalization is the growing gap between rich and poor.
The income disparities between rich and poor as individuals and as nations
become severer. The process of
globalization in the 1980s in the US shows how the gap became widened while the
US major corporate experienced the global adjustment. The ideology of free market which was the
core of the Reagan and Bush administrations transformed into the policy that
supported the benefit of corporate monopolies.
Mass production companies, with a serious problem of controlling markets
and prices, had to work out oligopolistic arrangements to avoid price
competition. Once they stabilized the prices of their products, they
manipulated government spending and interest rates to generate the total demand
to keep the system operating at relatively low levels of unemployment.[2] In this process, we notice that the government supports for the benefit of
the major corporations. Despite the government support, the major corporations
were not able to win the tough competition with Japan and the developing third
world countries. Mainly because the interests of these companies do not lie in
the national benefit, but their own profit, the US based high profitable
industries found the solution in cheap foreign labour, thus resulted in the
hollowing out of these industries to the low-waged third world nations.
The
policy of deregulation worked only for the benefit of the major businesses, and
breaking the resistance of the labour resulted in increase of the capital’s
profitability and declining of wages.
The wage inequality between highly skilled and less skilled workers
increased by the decline of union membership. By the development of free market
system, the US entered a higher state of capitalist development, the service
economy, of which the most services were low-value-added activities. NAFTA accelerates the replacement of
manufacturing and high skilled jobs by low paid service jobs not only unskilled
people, but also educated applicants.
The wealth distribution has also become more unequal over the period of
1962-83, but grew by four times as much in just six years between 1983-89.[3] This trend reveals the more serious problem
that the middle class is losing the ground, and it translated greater poverty
into the poor and vulnerable sectors of the population. This new trend gives the US a Third World
appearance: rising poverty, widespread homelessness, greater inequality, social
polarization. In this situation, the US
was accelerating her decline by reinforcing the military power which resulted
in massive deficit. The tax cuts and the
labour’s waning power did not work for enhancing America’s productive capacity,
but mainly worked for the benefit of non-industrial business activities or
hallowing out of American jobs to the third world low-waged countries. Federal
budget for infrastructure reduced by one per cent 1990, and this figure shows
seven percent down from 1950s.[4]
The
tax reform in federal level, “the Economic Recovery Tax Act” of 1981, created
the upward distribution of income and aided only the rich, and on the other
hand, cutting down of the social security benefits and increased the defence
budget. In 1990 and 1992 the state
government performed the “welfare reform” and cut down the welfare benefit by
about 40 per cent from their levels in the early 1970s. The most effected by the fiscal cut off were
the cities and by the end of Reagan-Bush era, federal aid to the cities dropped
by 60 per cent.[5] In this situation, the upsurge of crime and
consolidation of inner city poverty were inevitable. This should not be
overlooked as a social phenomenon, but rather we have to count it seriously.
The
ideology of free market created the policy with structural adjustment, liberalization,
privatization, deregulation for the global competition of the US corporation
especially against Japan. In this
process the weakness was the neglecting investment in infrastructure, capital
equipment, research and development and human capital, by reasserting
management unrestricted control, depressing domestic wages and down sizing the
domestic work force, and transferring manufacturing operations to low-wage
countries.
The
author suggests that the solution is by developing the human capital through
cultivating the human resources for maintaining competitiveness to enhance a
healthy economic development with a sound social psyche. It is a good and reasonable suggestion, and
both the government and the corporations should strive for the cultivating the
human resources. However without
positive attitude of listening to the voice of the poor, it is impossible.
WHAT IS THE VOICE OF THE POOR?
What
is the voice of the poor in the consequences of globalization above
examined? And what the Bible teaches us
as the church’s vocation to listen to the cries of the poor? I would like to find a reference from the
Bible why we need to hear the voice of the poor. In our shared life, God wants to hear the
story of pain of the victims in the oppressive structure of the socio-economic
structure: Where is Abel your brother?; What have you done?; The voice of your
brother's blood is crying to me from the ground (Gen. 4:9-10). God hears the cries of the victims and wants
us to share it. This is on of the reasons
why we have to make the story of the victims our frame of reference for
theological reflection in our global context.
From the scriptural witness to God’s
liberation of the people, we learn that the content of liberation is the
“resolution of the pain” rather than “salvation from sin” which the traditional
theology teaches. In the Bible, there are numerous examples of the resolution
of the pain of victims; they are the works of God and Jesus’ ministry that
create new life for the victims of our society. As in the Exodus event and
Jesus' ministry with the marginalized people, God is with the powerless for the
resolution of their pain. God's being with us does not mean a simple guarantee
of comfort or preservation of the status
quo. God is with us as the suffering
Spirit, and suffers all through the resolution of the pain of victims for the
wholeness of creation.
CONCLUSION
To
listen to the voice of the victim within the process of globalization is to have more information of
the infrastructure: the unemployed and the dying people from disease and
hunger. We also should not neglect
upsurge of crime and consolidation of inner city poverty which followed as a
consequence of globalization. The
phenomenon of upsurging of crime is one of the signs of times which reveals the suffering of the poor
in its active mode, in a negative way, through which the poor can seek
retaliation against the rich in a form which is itself unjust. The punishment of the crime creates the
vicious cycle of another crime thus it is not the solution of the pain in the
society. From the Exodus
event, we learn that God is with suffering people. From the cross event, Jesus represents the fate
of the poor, and Jesus identifies himself with the suffering people; and it is
an event right at the locus of pain. It
is clear that, in answering the world’s problem, the church must be “with” and
“in the midst” of the pain of the poor by listening to their cries of the pain
when she listens to the voices of the world.
|