Economic Supplement 6

An Advantage of the Credit Crunch

Until just recently it was possible to go down from Baliol or some such place, take a seat behind a computer, follow an elementary mathematical intelligence and go home with £300,000 a year and the prospect of bonuses. The life-style that emerged required continuing lavish support so the person was trapped. Hubris lead to nemesis. There are counsellors to help those who find life meaningless because they have achieved all their ambitions. The counsellors are employed of course to keep the poor saps working.
The credit crunch will mean it is not so easy to find a job and so one has to think about the matter. To be a slave of course is not to have a choice and the need for a wage for many has meant working down the mines or in the fields for a pittance.
Lonergan describes work in the economy as that by which man raises the potencies of nature to a standard of living, a flow of goods and services for households.
By work other things are done, households are made into homes, religious services are provided. Work has not only the potencies of nature to work upon but also, as it were, the potencies of grace.
A great theologian would point out that grace is always in act and the potencies are in the human side. There are though those created graces alongside supernatural graces. There is the humanity of the missionary. I love the story of the nun in near despair about Aids in Africa, who asked the children why they still believed in God after their parents had been taken from them. They replied, ‘Then God sent you to us.’ Her vocation was considerably strengthened.
W.S. Jevons humorously described religion as the ultimate trade in invisibles, but I think, though there is obviously an economic aspect, for churches must be built, it is good to recognise in the Church a motivation which is not economic, ‘a vocation’.
We pray ‘Send forth your Spirit and the face of the world will be renewed.’ We can see in the world’s troubles failures lay and clerical, so that hearts have failed to entwine, as Daniel O’Connell put it. May the credit crunch lead to much more ‘thinking things through’ so that there may be a greater flow of divine ‘services and goods’.
More prosaically we should work to encourage the young about their options. I have been talking to a 15 year old whose vocational aspiration is to be a hairdresser. Now I have nothing against hairdressers if they manage to tidy me up and leave my locks almost as flowing as when I went in. They deserve a tip. My psychology retains equipoise. It is important work they do. When though I suggested the young lady might be a nurse, she was taken by the idea, but explained she could never get the qualifications needed. I asked a senior parishioner, a nurse, what these might be. She said maths (so you could give correct dosages) and biology (so you had some idea of what was going on). So I have urged the young lady to attend to maths and biology. Could anything be better than a good nurse as you face vital problems?
I notice that qualifications have entered upon the scenario of religious life. Everyone must have A Levels to be a nun. Such religious orders may be missing out on a richer future.