In the fall of 1974, a fellow teacher in Busby and son of famed wildlife biologist John Craighead, professor of biology at the University of Montana, opened my eyes to a crisis plaguing the grizzly bear population of Yellowstone Park—a crisis that parallels the economic situation of our larger American society today. We Montanans have made a radical shift in our thinking about grizzly bear survival in Yellowstone Park. We desperately need a similar radical shift in thinking for the survival of our American families, if not our nation itself.
Early tourists to Yellowstone were enthralled with wildlife, and grizzly bears quickly learned that people--and their garbage cans--meant food. Rather than learning to dig grubs and catch fish, grizzly cubs followed their mothers to the dumpsters. Park visitors paid to watch ferocious grizzlies fight over garbage from the safety of a caged-in concrete stadium. This was far from what the Creator intended for these creatures.
It was also deadly business. Bear attacks became serious problems in Yellowstone Park as postwar crowds streamed through that habitat, tempting the bears with cameras and snacks. It also took a terrible toll on the wild grizzly population. As their garbage supply dwindled at the end of tourist season, hungry bears began to raid outlying communities. Cubs starved. Many renegade bears were shot. (The Grizzly Bears of Yellowstone: Their Ecology In The Yellowstone Ecosystem, by John Craighead and Jay Sumner)
Our naturally self-sufficient American society also needs to develop a new understanding of changes that have happened around us. Our misguided economy is now destroying families, rather than encouraging appropriate growth and development. It's time to look at reality today, just like we came to realistically appraise Yellowstone bear life in the 70's. Jubilee could be the answer to setting the bears and us free.
What is Jubilee? In short, it's radical redistribution, not so much of wealth, but of the means to make a livelihood. In the Bible, Leviticus 24, it was primarily the restoration of productive land, the primary means of survival then, to children of the owners from fifty years previous. Significantly, it also meant freedom for slaves, release of prisoners, and cancelling of debts. It DID happen in Bible times, contrary to many Bible teachers, but the frequent failure of ancient Israel to practice jubilee is the origin of much of the Bible's prophecy of judgment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_%28biblical%29
It's ironic to read the new Jubilee writing from secular-minded economists, such as the famous Boston Group.
Some of the best economists and historians are warning us all that unless we restructure our private mortgage debts and increase citizen access to our economy as a means of livelihood, we will all suffer as our nation teeters on financial disaster. We could even descend into going at each other over dwindling morsels of garbage like the Yellowstone bears. Maybe in the case of humans those would be junkbonds.
Many of us continue to focus on the poorest families in our country as the scapegoat for our economic problems. Yet evidence suggests that a great deal of government support is actually going to the richest Americans. This reminds me of what happened to the Soviet Union during Yeltsin's "glasnost," when partial reform of the failed communist economy toward capitalism led to tragic population loss. Our national media, anxious to similarly shift accountability because it's again owned by the elite, teaches us to blame only one kind of free-loading welfare-recipient: those at the bottom of our economy.
The Republican majority in the House recently voted to continue the free-loading taxpayer-funded subsidy of oil companies that Obama was trying to curb. This is just one example of how government money is being used to support capitalistic enterprises that should sink or swim on their own. Remember the bailouts? There are all sorts of justification for this trend, but ultimately it comes down to lopsided welfare for the rich. As in Russia, and like the garbage-eating bears of Yellowstone, we have found ways to allow free-loading off the lowest classes en masse. We don't see these free-loaders hanging around the streets of Big Horn County. We have to go to Wall Street to find them.
Democrats and Republicans have notoriously left unchallenged welfare for the rich while continuing to cut welfare for the poor. Both parties attempt to keep us distracted with diversionary pelvic issues (abortion and gay rights), while maintaining this system of unjust subsidies.
Let's remember the Bible's message of Jubilee and stay focused on fair distribution of the means of wealth, rather than wealth itself. Let's take care of the earth, so that all families can forage successfully to live well.
The Big Horn County News column ends here. Further information and additional citing follows.
Our founders felt the principles contained in the Jubilee were so important that they had the Liberty Bell inscribed with words taken straight from Leviticus: "...Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all its inhabitants thereof" (Lev.25: 10). Obviously the concepts underlying the Jubilee have something crucial to say with who we are not only as people of faith, but as Americans. Liberty: It's what the United States is all about. But Americans have an even stronger bond to the Jubilee. We like the Isrealites of old whom God is prescribing the Jubilee to are a land of exiles. "I am the lord your God, who brought you out of Egpyt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God." (leviticus 25:38) Most of us are of immigrant stock, some of us came here unvolunteerily.
But does the Jubilee speak to a time long gone? If we focus on the literal and look at the specific remedies God prescribed to Moses with the Jubilee celebration: cancellation of debts (Dt. 15:1, 15:9, 31:10, Neh. 10:31; Jer 34:14), the freeing of slaves (Lev 25:39, Ex 21:2), returning land purchased to its original owner (Lev 25:23-24) , letting land lie fallow (Lev 25: 4,11) it certainly appears dated. Slavery has been almost totally eradicated and the importance of land has diminished as we are no longer an agrarian society. But what was God after in the jubilee, the spirit behind it? and what have we learned in the last 3500 years?
According to Leviticus 25, every fiftieth year was to be a jubilee where property would be returned to its ancestral owners, and everyone who had sold themselves as an indentured servant to a fellow Israelite or as a slave to a resident alien would be released:
You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month -- on the day of atonement -- you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty (Hebrew: דרור; LXX: ἄφεσις) throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. (Lev 25:8-10 NRSV)
Usury, fascism and the process of depopulation are three phases of the same process. The murderous debt-collection policies that dominated Imperial Rome destroyed the economy of the entire Mediterranean region, and led to a collapse of the population by 40 percent. The attempt to collect the debt imposed on Europe by the Bardi and Peruzzi banks in the fourteenth century led to the impoverishment of the population, the lowering of its standard of living and immunological resistance, and the devastation of the Black Death, which reduced the continent's population by one-third between 1348 and 1373.
In America, this triple process is far advanced. The Bush and Obama administrations lied that poverty is declining in America. The facts show otherwise, yet today. The minimal number of US poor is 45 million; but another 60 million are barely surviving with household incomes for a family of four within $6,000 of the poverty line. Two out of every five Americans barely subsist during what is supposedly the greatest recovery in American history in this century
Moral hazard is a concept that is arguably misunderstood, since those responsible for the damage have neglected to acknowledge its terms. Moral hazard is perceived by Allan Loeb in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps as ''being able to steal your money without responsibility''. This very crude description of moral hazard, however, turns out to be fairly exact. In the financial system, moral hazard occurs when the person investing money is not held responsible for the outcome of their investment strategy. – 2atardif.com
Frank Craighead's nephew was my teaching colleague at Busy in 1974-5. My family and I heard first hand of encounters with grizzlies, and saw many film clips taken in dangerous circumstances. We saw awesome violent footage, and also got a deep impression of the Craigheads' efforts to bring "jubilee" freedom to the bears of Yellowstone. Ultimately, they were granted freedom from their addiction to garbage, and the survivors relearned the forage structure that was compatible with the ecosystem in place in Yellowstone Park.
The brothers worked hard to stop a "cold turkey" decision that came down from the USDA to utterly end bear access to garbage in a very short time in the late 70's. The Craigheads promoted a program that would give bears time to relearn their nich in the Yellowstone ecosystem over time, so more would survive. In fact, survival of the Yellowstone grizzly was threatened by this program. Grizzlies were imported from Glacier Park to supplement the Yellowstone population. Now their survival is much better established. Control of these dangerous animals is still a controversy.
Many modern opponents of evolution reject Darwin's theory of evolution but accept, even practice, evolutionary survival-of-the-fittest in the market place. It's really the worst kind of evolution it threatens families the way bears' existence was threatened in Yellowstone by well-meaning profit-motivated ignorance. But a few bears survived their own judgment day, and now are doing better.
Some Biblical scholars argue that the Jubilee Year was never carried out in practice, suggesting that God has ceased to care about economic justice, that mounting inequalities do not lead to violence, and that we are off the hook. The Old Testament prophets repeatedly denounced those who devoured widows and orphans, taking over lands and houses until there were no (free) people left in the land. When the Children of Israel lost their land and were living in Babylonian exile they pondered their calamity and, with the help of prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah, they came to understand that idolatry and the injustice it caused, since idolatry is basically greed, were the cause of their disaster.
There is a question here for all societies to ponder. Can growing inequalities
only be resolved by violence? Can any human society can last without mechanisms of redistribution? Free public education, progressive income and inheritance taxes, and universal health insurance are examples of what is needed to prevent social collapse from too much tolerance of the idolatry of greed.
Will the powerful tend toward social justice only if and when violent breakdown of society threatens? Or will they allow jubilee because it's a deeper principle of God's word and human solidarity? Self interest even of the wealthy requires awareness of human suffering when excessive wealth deprives too many of basic human rights of survival and safety. Jesus focused on this.
For him, perpetual Jubilee was at the heart of the prophets' ministry, and even more so of his: At the beginning of his ministry, in the Synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus published his "movement manifesto" by reading from the scroll of the
prophet Isaiah: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's Favor.
". . . Then he began to speak to them, 'This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.'" (Luke 4:18-19).
In his book, The Politics of Jesus, John Howard Yoder quotes a word study by Andre Trocme that identified Jesus' announced "Year of the Lord's Favor" with the Jubilee Year. This has become the consensus of an increasing number of New Testament scholars. In fact, once this connection is made, it is hard to find anything in the Gospels that does not illustrate an ongoing enactment of the Biblical Jubilee.
In Jesus' coming, Jubilee was no longer a periodic and oft' neglected part of Israel's history, but the Messiah and his traveling community practiced an ongoing Jubilee celebration. Jesus went about forgiving sins, bypassing the temple sacrifice system. He taught his disciples to pray, "Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven those who are indebted to us," a moral and economic initiative of grace. Every healing was at the same time a restoration to full participation in the community of Israel. The feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000 illustrated the plenty that comes from a radical sharing that is blessed by God. The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost triggered a Jubilee avalanche of, sin forgiveness, economic restoration, healing, and baptism into communion of the saints. The periodic practice of Jubilee was turned into a perpetual Jubilee by those who follow Jesus in the way of peace. This is what times of renewal in the Church have always looked like. Jesus came, as he said, not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.
A responsible scholarly theological investigation of this theme is
Although replete with scholarly language, the book is readable. The author attempts to remedy the de-emphasis, a problem of today's theology, of shalom, koinonia and related social transformation at the heart of the Bible's message of salvation.
Bible is clear. Luke 4:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release (Hebrew: דרור; Greek OT [LXX]: ἄφεσις) to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19 NRSV; cf. Isaiah 61:1-2; 58:6).
In the 'Book of the Covenant' (Ex. 21-23) there are two regulations concerning the sabbatical year, one about agriculture and one about slavery. First, the regulation concerning agriculture is found in Exodus 23:10-11: For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, but during the seventh year let the land lie unploughed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove. (NIV)
In the Jubilee God speaks to us about right living. We are told how we should treat each other and the land--that all shall be set free! The principle(s) is so simple but it is profound and powerful. Yet generation upon generation have refused to follow its tenets, thinking it foolhardy or too dificult to follow. By doing such we have turned this basic truth into a hidden mystery. Liberty is power--the power to free ourselves.
We easily can find the free-loading low-initiative poor. Every community has some, trying to get from government what they cannot get or are too lazy to get for themselves.
Jubilee in the Bible teaches that it's the responsibility both of government and of individuals to support a major revolutionary redistribution of the means—not the result—of productive work every 50 years. It wasn't wealth simple redistribution, and obsession of political talk today; it was land redistribution. Land, after all, was the foundation of wealth in that economy. So Jesus' words frequently refer to land and its production, not to his father's work, carpentry.
Some comments on jubilee-related issues from The Economist's View, a clearinghouse of current writings by economists at universities around the world:
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Simon Johnson says we are "on a bipartisan route to disaster":
A Colossal Mistake of Historic Proportions: The "JOBS" bill, by Simon Johnson: From the 1970s until recently, Congress allowed and encouraged a great deal of financial market deregulation – allowing big banks to become larger, to expand their scope, and to take on more risks. This legislative agenda was largely bipartisan, up to and including the effective repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act at the end of the 1990s. After due legislative consideration, the way was cleared for megabanks to combine commercial and investment banking on a complex global scale. The scene was set for the 2008 financial crisis – and
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Mea Culpa? Yes, the banks did wrong. They became overlevered; hopped-up on greed, they took on more credit than a loan shark would have extended. When the bets turned sour, they went cap in hand to the taxpayer. Once bailed out, the banks threw petrol on the fire by not being contrite, hoovering up cheap cash, paying bonuses as if there were no tomorrow and refusing to develop a set of even the least offensive business restrictions.
But quickly changes course:
So what did legislators and regulators do? They did what they normally do in a crisis: they legislated and regulated. While the new rules may or may not preclude another crisis, they will certainly punish the banks and may inadvertently punish the taxpayer.
Saturday, March 03, 2012
The chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Phil Angelides, wonders if there will ever be a thorough investigation and prosecution of "the financial assault on our country":
Will Wall Street Ever Face Justice?, by Phil Angelides, Commentary, NY Times: Last week, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. proclaimed in a speech that when it comes to fighting financial fraud, the Obama administration's "record of success has been nothing less than historic." Such self-congratulation is not only premature, but it also reveals a troubling lack of understanding about what is required to win the war against financial wrongdoing.
Four years after the disintegration of the financial system, Americans have, rightfully, a gnawing feeling that justice has not been served
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Daniel Davies on the history and purpose of debt contracts (this is from a series of posts at Crooked Timber discussing David Graeber's new book Debt: The First 5,000 Years):
Too Big To Fail: The First 5000 Years, by Daniel Davies: One of the many fascinating pieces of information that David Graeber tosses off like shrapnel in Debt is that the first recorded appearance of the word "freedom" in a political document is in a Sumerian proclamation of a debt amnesty or jubilee.
What interested me, however, from the point of view of a professional banker, is that the document in question provided only for the discharge of personal debts of the Sumerians; commercial debts of merchants were not discharged. ... The point I am trying to make here is that as well as being the first mention of the word "freedom", this proclamation marks
Ehrenreich: How Corporations and Local Governments Rob the Poor Blind
The trick is to rob them in ways that are systematic, impersonal, and almost impossible to trace to individual perpetrators.
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David Graber
Hardin, MT 59034
graberdb@gmail.com
