Is (or Was) Sam Walton Your Neighbor?
March 17th, 2009 by Darryl G. Hart(From NTJ, January 1998)
A report on NPR about a sermon by a priest in the Church of England prompted some thoughts about the implications of the Eighth Commandment. The news service copy indicated that this priest had told his parishioners that shoplifting from supermarket chains was not stealing. His reasoning was that such chains were putting the village food markets out of business and, thus, destroying the social fabric of English town life.
This priest’s teaching is not what we would prefer to hear in the pulpit. It does appear to be something of a stretch to say that shoplifting is not theft. And, no doubt, the character of English town life changed long before supermarkets and malls began to show up in the UK. Just ask the Luddites. But his admonishment does raise some interesting questions about how we observe the Eighth Commandment.
For instance, among the sins forbidden by this commandment, according to the Westminster Larger Catechism, are “oppression” and all “unjust or sinful ways of taking or withholding from our neighbor what belongs to him.” Which might mean that chains like WalMart, McDonalds and Winn Dixie, may actually excessively burden and deprive our neighbors who run local businesses from what would normally belong to them were it not for the consolidation of wealth in corporations and their ability to buy goods in mass quantities and distribute those goods throughout the world. As long as our only consideration in purchasing any item, from food to houses, is simply the lowest price, we will always be suckers for chains and the services they provide.
Which raises another question about who exactly is the neighbor in view in the Eighth Commandment. Is some corporate executive who lives in Downers Grove, Illinois really the neighbor of someone living in Southeastern Pennsylvania? In other words, what kind of economic obligations do we have to real neighbors, the people with whom we share a specific geographic space? Not lying to or having an affair with the wife of the owner of the local food market is good. But how much love and respect do we show to that owner if we travel by car to buy groceries from the Giant Supermarket five miles away?
As Wendell Berry has argued, the health of real local communities depends upon real and viable local economies where “work ought to be good,” “satisfying and dignifying to the people who do it, and genuinely useful and pleasing to the people for whom it is done.” In other words, the problem with chains, national or multi-national, is one of scale. Their reach with regard to their own advantage is everywhere while their accountability with regard to those whose lives they affect is nowhere. American conservatives are inconsistent if they are only concerned about a big central government while also promoting big business. As Berry also writes, “a supranational economy . . . would inevitably function as a government far bigger and more centralized than any dreamed of before.” If it is clear that to be free we need to limit the size of government, it is “foolish to complain about big government if we do not do everything we can to support strong local communities and strong community economies” (“Conserving Communities,” Another Turn of the Crank).
If we are going to champion families, schools, and churches, we had better give some attention to economic arrangements and how big business affects the “common wealth.” So the offbeat advice from the Church of England priest might be more in line with the social teachings of the Bible than it first sounded.
The flip side of this that has always bothered me is the implications for those who work for such establishments. If it may not be loving of neighbor to shop at these mega-marts, what about working for one? The same applies to banks and credit card companies which charge exorbitant interest. So, in a addition to deciding where to shop, how should Christians decide where to work.
Foggy raises a good point. My hunch is that his problem may be solved by a category called liberty of conscience. I know mine is working for a private contractor in devilish cahoots with those big baddies known as state educators.
I’ve nothing against the ethic of “strong local communities,” nor with competing views on how to either define them or nurture them; I’m just not clear on what stake Christian virtue has to be consistent with the anti-big government ethic in the first place. I mean, every time I read it the NT seems to make more over submission than either paring down or inflating the powers that be. If submission to government trumps competing philosophies as to its nature then how would it follow that (lawfully) making or consuming certain economies have anything to do with the eighth commandment? Instead of the COE priest backing his way into better social teachings, I think I’ll stick with his being flat wrong on telling folks to lift vegetables.
“In other words, the problem with chains, national or multi-national, is one of scale.”
Well is it really just scale, or do volume discounts (aka preferred pricing) either offered by suppliers or coerced by the chain factor in? Perhaps if widget suppler “A” gave all the retailers the same price, the local little guy could be a little more competitive on price with big chain “W”. What if though widget supplier “A” does give the same price to everyone, but just won’t sell to smaller operations, so local shops have to buy from a wholesaler (who needs to make a profit) with whom the widget supplier will sell? “W” etal can operate as both (wholesaler and retailer) so why can’t the savings be passed on? Who’s at fault then? Is a three or four tier distribution system less oppressive than a two-tier system? How about just one? It’s not like those have not existed in the past. (Standard Oil) OTOH, it can be argued that one needs a global distribution system when the source of the widgets is from overseas manufacturers where labor esp child labor is cheap.
Consumers do not “belong” to local/community retailers, neither do our economic decisions. And what constitutes the “local community” — one’s neighborhodd? Municipality? Township? County? Region? State? (And I wonder if Arkansas consumers should be deemed to “belong” to Wal-Mart?)
Wow, a Church of England priest exhibiting a profound lack of economic sense and a profound lack of appreciation of freedom of economic choice. Shocking. Just shocking, I tell you. I suppose the next thing you’ll tell me is that the PCUSA suffers from theological drift and declining membership numbers. Crazy talk.
Big corporations, on their own, cannot prohibit me from growing my own food, from doing business with others who provide superior service to offset higher prices, or from simply deciding to do business with others for non-price-related reasons (e.g., easier parking, convenience to other stores, provision of “niche” items which aren’t available at the Giant Evil Chain Store, etc.).
Ну а что еще писать шоб не потерли?
Evgenii: Please translate into Hebrew.
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