nonprofit news

In Dallas, Plano children’s clinic refuses county funds because of reporting requirements, which would force them to screen patients’ income and citizenship status.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s budget impasse is wreaking major havoc on Philadelphia nonprofits, including childcare centers and other social service agencies.

the chief end of man...*

Man is dominated by the making of money, by acquisition as the ultimate purpose of his life. Economic acquisition is no longer subordinated to man as the means for satisfaction of his materials needs.

~ Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

In the words of the English historian E. P. Thompson, time became “currency: it is not passed but spent.” As employers consolidated control over their workforces, the day was increasingly split into two kinds of time: “owners’ time, the time of work”; and “their own time, a time (in theory) for leisure.’ Eventually, workers came to perceive time, not as the milieu in which they lived their life, but ‘as an objective force within which [they] were imprisoned.'”

~ Juliet Schor in The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

(The source of the last passage should be fairly self-evident. And in case there is any confusion, it is not from Philip Pullman's Golden Compass)


*and a different sort of iron cage.

opium of the masses

Whenever we talk about money, we always end up asking, How should we organize the economy? –or even, What economic system should I support? “At the moment,” we explain, “I may not be using money the way I should, but when the new system (whatever it may be) is instituted, when the general money problem is solved, I in turn will become just.”

Thus we subordinate moral and individual problems to the collective problem, to the total economic system. If a man is a thief, it is not his fault; his economic conditions were such that he could be nothing else. Let us beware. If we accept this excuse on behalf of a poor person, we must accept it for everyone. Both the capitalist who exploits workers and the farmer who dabbles in the black market are also involved in impersonal economic conditions which leave them no options. As soon as we accept the supremacy of global concerns and of the system, as soon as we agree that material conditions remove our freedom to choose, we absolve all individuals of all responsibility for their use of money.

…

… human nature (with its lust for money) is corrupting the system. And that is why it is horribly wrong to believe that the problem of money can be solved by a system. It is horribly wrong thus to cheat man’s hopes and thirst for virtue and honesty. “You want justice? Then establish my system.” This is the error of all committed economists and others who think they can solve the problem without considering human nature.

But it is more than an error: it is also hypocrisy and cowardice. For then I ultimately ask no more than to believe the system-builder. It is so convenient. I don’t have to think about what I do. I don’t have to try to use my money better, to covet less, to quit stealing. It’s not my fault. All I have to do is campaign for socialism or conservatism, and as soon as society’s problems are solved, I will be just and virtuous- effortlessly.

…

But all this activity is a justification for avoiding personal decision making. My money? My work? My life? I don’t have to worry about them because I am involved in such-and-such a movement which will take care of all that for everyone once it comes to power.

~ excerpts from Jacques Ellul's Money and Power

Sometimes you just stumble upon the right book at the right time. Providential perhaps?

chariots and horses

Today’s headlines worried me. Growing unemployment. Risk of deflation. As Matt and I consider buying a house this spring, the prospect of losing a job or of deflation are troubling. Suddenly the solid ground of good education, strong work ethic and prudent financial management seems shaky. And with that comes the hope that this economic recession will humble us and remind us where our provision truly comes from.