In his new encyclical Dilexit Nos on the divine and human love of the heart of Jesus, Pope Francis wrote “we are in a world where everything is bought and sold, people’s sense of their worth appears increasingly to depend on what they can accumulate with the power of money. We are constantly being pushed to keep buying, consuming, and distracting ourselves, held captive to a demeaning system that prevents us from looking beyond our immediate and petty needs.
“As Christians, the love of Christ has no place in this perverse mechanism, yet only that love can set us free from a mad pursuit that no longer has room for a gratuitous love. Christ’s love can give a heart to our world and revive love wherever we think that the ability to love has been definitively lost.”
Are we becoming obsessed with the island’s economic growth without realising this comes at a substantial cost to our well-being? Is the impact of fiscal policies on well-being being assessed? Have we lost our bearing towards a peaceful life filled with mercy and compassion for others, simply because we have no time? Have we lost our soul? “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? (Mark 8:36)
Despite our successful economic performance, we need to listen to the people’s call for a better quality of life. We are constantly moving on the fast lane, creating a stressful life leading to anxiety and depression, and a life that lacks a sense of purpose and meaning. And all this within a scenario of environmental degradation due to the speculative greed of ruthless developers, with a heavy constant flow of tourism and population growth without having the proper infrastructure to sustain this unbridled development.
Economic growth without investment in human development is unsustainable and unethical
Christianity is not opposed to economic growth so long as it is sustainable. Sustained economic growth in recent centuries has fundamentally improved material well-being in ways large and small, and in ways often taken for granted.
Ongoing growth remains important, because of the resources it can generate for important new products and services and for its fiscal benefits in terms of funding public goods and social welfare programmes.
In an article entitled ‘Economics, theology, and a case for economic growth’, Stephen L.S. Smith and Edd. S. Noell say the Christian case for economic growth must point to the importance of healthy culture and governance in achieving the genuine human flourishing that are in accordance with biblical principles. These are the enduring foundations for a healthy ethics of economic growth.
One objection by Christians and non-Christian critics is that creation is groaning from near-catastrophic damage from unsustainable economic growth. Another objection is moral, that legitimate human desires are distorted by the drive for economic growth, accompanied by “the commercially promoted explosion of human needs in our already-rich societies”.
Economic growth without investment in human development is unsustainable and unethical. While supporting the fundamental merit of human prosperity, this should not come at the cost of unbridled consumerism, materialism, environmental damage, and income inequality.
US president John F. Kennedy once said: “Economic growth without social progress lets the great majority of people remain in poverty, while a privileged few reap the benefits of rising abundance.”