Books, Volume 13 #6

Bob Goudzwaard and Harry de Lange, Beyond Poverty and Affluence: Towards a Canadian Economy of Care. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. 192 pp. $15.95.

This book shows what is possible when the fetters that normally bind our thinking are cast off and when authentically Christian values, and not the bottom line, shape economic policymaking.

Beyond Poverty and Affluence is the Canadian version of a book previously published in Europe, revised for the Canadian context through a partnership with Citizens for Public Justice, a Christian public advocacy group. With biblical values of justice and stewardship as its foundation, it is a powerful and insightful commentary on why problems of poverty, unemployment and environmental degradation remain as serious as ever despite material prosperity.

"Today's vexing economic problems...," say authors Goudzwaard and de Lange, both Dutch economists and Christians, "are primarily crises of culture. They are partly sociopolitical and partly even religious...they will require more than technical solutions; they also require cultural solutions." Those "cultural solutions" mean getting to the roots of what motivates our actions and our economy: our values. The nub of the problem is that our society pursues consumption and self-interest first and foremost, with care needs as an afterthought.

Goudzwaard and de Lange marshal an impressive array of statistics to reinforce their view that simply counting on growth to solve our problems is unrealistic. Grim facts about Third World and Canadian poverty, environmental destruction and unemployment make this book tough slogging at times. But this weighty approach lightens when the authors present strategies for genuine economic renewal and the renewal of society itself. These proposals rest on the primacy of caring for "the least of these" and on making sustainable development a reality through an economics of "enough."

Some novel elements distinguish this book. The economic approach proposed would involve a radical shift in priorities, yet Goudzwaard and de Lange couch the need for change in language that is both scholarly and accessible to a broad audience. They weave together compelling academic analysis with Christian convictions in a refreshing way. There is even a chapter in which the authors discuss the objections often raised by people against the possibility of building a different type of economy.

Rounding out the book is an appropriately titled twelve-step program for economic recovery, including reforming the world monetary system, blocking corporations from passing on environmental and social costs to government, and moving towards a simpler lifestyle. This part of the book is something of a letdown in that many of the prescribed steps are rather abstract. There is not enough discussion of the grassroots movements in Canadian society that could be key partners in creating a new humane economy.

Yet this is a minor shortcoming, for Beyond Poverty and Affluence is above all a prophetic call for a fresh vision and ethos, rather than a specific blueprint. It's a vision that challenges not just the principalities and powers, but all of us, to work towards a society that is marked by compassion and treads lightly on the earth.

Christopher Lind, Something's Wrong Somewhere: Globalization, Community and the Moral Economy of the Farm Crisis. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 1995. 111 pp. $11.95.

In this short but most useful book, Christopher Lind, professor of church and society at St. Andrew's College in Saskatoon, links globalization and the continuing farm crisis in Saskatchewan.

He recounts how, by 1993, up to 50 per cent of the farmers in many of Saskatchewan's rural municipalities had appeared before government farm debt review boards--appearances that only occur once creditors have announced their intention to foreclose. Predictably, the human cost for those involved is exhibited in increased levels of stress, family breakdown, domestic violence, alcohol abuse and even suicide. Saskatchewan has also seen a continuing loss of both farms and people. The causes of the crisis are many and complex but can be summarized as a combination of low farm prices and escalating costs propelled by continuing high interest rates.

Lind links these developments, including the devastating 20 percent interest rates of the early 1980s, to globalization, which he describes as "a powerful new social reality that rearranges the power structure in our society. It has reinforced the power and enriched the lives of some and threatened the livelihood and impoverished the lives of many others. Since it is a human creation and a social rather than a natural fact, it lies within the realm of human choice. We can support it or resist it....Globalization is now a fundamental moral concern."

A globalized world undermines national sovereignty, Lind says, forcing the abandonment of protections that people have had their elected representatives put in place over the years: "Supply management systems which support farm livelihoods are now described as obstacles to competition....The net effect of this isolation and elevation of competitiveness as the dominant moral norm is to subordinate questions of social justice to questions of economic efficiency."

To deal with these concerns, Lind seeks to recover what he calls the concept of "moral economy," which dates back to Elizabethan England and was largely lost to the utilitarian philosophies of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century liberal theorists. This concept took shape when poor people and peasants applied the idea of the communal good to economic transformations confronting them, including the enclosure system and the industrial revolution.

Lind sees farm rallies as giving voice to the insistence that there is a link between morals and the economy. Describing a 1991 rally in Rosetown, Saskatchewan, he says, "These farmers...were pointing to the ethical cloth that formed the backdrop to the marketplace that had gone so wrong. They were trying to give voice to the moral economy that gave meaning to their lives and livelihood."

While finding hope in movements that oppose globalization and its effects, Lind says that this is a limited response. A more successful strategy involves a conscious attempt by people, in rural Saskatchewan and elsewhere, to build community as a means of restoring the local control and personal dignity that the agents of globalization have wrested from them. This sense of community, he says, must go beyond the limits of family and geographic location to the creation of new and more democratic institutions based on cooperation, solidarity and compassion.

John K. Grande, Balance: Art and Nature. Montreal: Black Rose, 1994. 256 pp. $48.99 cloth, $19.99 paper.

Not much is spared John K. Grande's sharp scrutiny as he critiques the state of western art in Balance: Art and Nature. Fortunately, the skill of his analysis is a match for the breadth of his critique.

Grande contends that the egocentricity of modern western society and its infatuation with technology and consumerism have increasingly separated us from the natural world. That separation has an impact on the way our art is conceived, formed, marketed and even displayed. Grande proposes that art return to being more "ecocentric," reminding us that we are derivative and essentially dependent on natural processes. "In developing a nature-specific dialogue that is interactive, rooted in actual experience in a given place and time, and giving these elements an equal voice in the creative process," he writes, "we are ultimately respecting our integral connectedness to the environment." Holding such a vision, we will come to see that "nature is the art of which we are a part."

To develop a dialogue more in touch with nature, Grande argues that artists should favour their specific culture and the diversity of the ecological communities in which they live rather than the homogenizing pressures of internationalism. He asserts that contemporary artists' preoccupation with international "market recognition," often reinforced by museums and funders, promotes a "product standardization" that takes precedence over any desire to represent one's own culture and bioregion. In such a horizontal milieu, artists and their works consequently become easily interchangeable. The attendant appropriation of Third World, tribal and extranational art styles not only mirrors acts of economic expropriation but also often ensures the commercial success of the collusive artists. Such appropriation barely pauses to appreciate the source culture's context and meaning.

As an alternative, Grande proposes that we celebrate the cultural diversity naturally intrinsic to each ecological community or bioregion. Such a preference would nourish the artistic expression of the cultural symbolism and spiritual values unique to that region. It would enhance an intuitive dialogue with nature in the creation of art, encouraging a healthier relationship with the local environment.

Grande vigorously argues and carefully develops his positions, drawing on a breadth of sources, ranging from Thomas Berry to Marilyn French, for support. Along the way, he censures many artists, institutions, art journals and both modern and postmodern ideologies, including Andy Warhol whose "art hides its terror of human communication behind commercial illustration" and such "bombastic promotional glossies" as Canadian Art magazine. Grande also describes the work of several artists who have already embraced the ecocentric art esthetics that he champions. Among these are Andy Goldsworthy, whose "site-specific works...allow the materials of a local ecology to speak for themselves," and Anish Kapoor. And this is where some frustration with the text begins.

Most of the examples of art that Grande uses to bolster his arguments are not illustrated in Balance: Art and Nature. Readers must rely on Grande's descriptions, coupled with their own imaginations or personal recollections of these many works, to follow the author's reasoning. I suspect that this makes it difficult for any but the most informed reader to evaluate fully Grande's propositions. Furthermore, because the text is a collection of essays and articles, there is some mildly annoying repetition of content.

These shortcomings notwithstanding, Balance: Art and Nature is engaging, provocative and thoughtful. John K. Grande cares passionately about art, the environment and the relationship between them. He seeks a future where art "goes beyond merely treating nature as raw material for an environmental project,...reaffirms the universal experience of being alive and conceives of nature as the end, not the means, of the creative process."

Murray MacAdam is a freelance writer in Toronto.... Dennis Gruending is an Ottawa-based author and journalist, and a former director of information for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.... Dennis Patrick O'Hara is a doctoral candidate studying the relationship between theology and ecology at the University of St. Michael's College in Toronto.