Frequently Asked Questions
- How does JEM describe Jubilee Economics?
- What motivated people to form JEM?
- What is an Economics of Abundance?
- How is Jubilee economics an economics of abundance?
- Does JEM really expect jubilee economics to become a major economic practice today?
- Why is the economics of jubilee not more widely practiced?
How does JEM describe Jubilee Economics?
The economics that we call "jubilee" can be helpfully described by many other names:
- Sustainable Economics
- Economics of Abundance
- Sabbath Economics
- Economics for the Common Good
- Peoples' Economics
- Indigenous Peoples' Economics
- Economics for People-Planet-Profit
- Living Economics
- Ecological Economics
These are all names that emphasize important aspects of the economic relationships JEM values. In this way we are describing economic patterns and practices that impact our lifestyles, shape our households, and affect how we are present in the world.
What motivated people to form JEM?
We are people from North America and Mexico who are growing in our conviction and practice of the biblical Sabbath-Jubilee because of its wisdom, and because we can no longer continue ways of living that support the economic system dominating the world today. For us, it is a choice to sustain life, rather than to destroy it. As microeconomics, Sabbath-Jubilee guides us in our lifestyle choices. We continually seek to discover the sufficiency of God's Enough rather than trusting The Market's shouts of "More, more, more." As macroeconomics, Sabbath-Jubilee presents us with a real alternative to the macro-systems defined by capitalism and socialism, the two best known arrangers of economics in recent centuries. Most especially, it gives us an alternative to the current expression of capitalism's neoliberal globalization. In 1999, we formed Jubilee Economics Ministries (JEM) as a non-profit NGO (Non-Government Organization) in Chicago, IL, USA. Since then JEM's office has relocated to San Diego, CA. Our motivation to live the Jubilee increased when we learned that sisters and brothers in Latin America were being drawn to it as a way to talk with North American Christians about discipleship with a strong economic component. As we heard it, many faithful Christians in Latin America, who daily feel the negative, impoverishing impact of neoliberal globalization, puzzled over how to talk with their sisters and brothers of the North who were benefiting from this economic system. They reasoned that people of the North, with a commitment to the bible, might choose an alternative to the Dominant System, if they were persuaded that an alternative was more biblical. This has proved to be true for many. Though the majority of church-going people in the North resist liberation from the privileges that the Domination System bestows on them, others are drawn to the challenge. Many of us are choosing to be in solidarity with those pushed deeper into poverty. JEM seeks out those in the North and the South who want to forge an alternative, historic economic way for our time. Drawn as we are to the practices described here, we confess that our lives are far more compromised by the Dominant System than we want them to be. We wrestle continually with this reality even as we press forward in our resolve to practice Sabbath-Jubilee more faithfully.
What is an Economics of Abundance?
The language of abundance contrasts sharply with the economics of scarcity. Economic models that prevail among the nations of the world are based on the notion that there is not enough to go around. Some people just have to do without, or at least with less. Spiritual traditions all insist that the Creator − and continuing creation − provides sufficient for all. Thus we can correctly describe the Creator's sufficiency as the abundance of the "Divine enough".
Abundance Economics |
Scarcity Economics |
|
| Encourages cooperation | Encourages competition | |
| Values the common good and sustainability | Values market expansion, maximizing profits, and privatization | |
| Seeks redistributive and restorative justice | Promotes rich-poor inequalities | |
| Emphasizes non-violent economics | Emphasizes violence to workers, families and the land, often driven by economics | |
| Practices lifestyles of enough | Practices lifestyle of accumulation and more | |
| Harmonizes with sustainability, sufficiency, and a no-waste web of life | Promotes growth, development, and production without regard to social or environmental impacts | |
| Finds security in relationships and community | Finds security in accumulated assets and power |
How is Jubilee economics an economics of abundance?
Human systems of distribution allocate more to the powerful, less to others. The myth of scarcity is perpetuated by the persons and systems that uphold power at the expense of the abundance of "enough for all". The story of economics in human history is written by those with power, so the story is told − both unconsciously and intentionally − in ways that perpetuate the odd heresy that the Creator mistakenly created more needs than resources. The economic stories of many indigenous peoples, peoples of the underclass, people of conscience, and religious traditions proclaim the reality of abundance: there is sufficient for the common good of all. JEM seeks to learn that story and then to amplify it and practice it amid today's economics of empire and privilege.
Does JEM really expect jubilee economics to become a major economic practice today?
The people's economics, which we here call jubilee economics, is, in fact, quite widely practiced today even though it is not the prevailing economy as defined by the governments and economic powers in the world. Jubilee economics is today, as it has been historically, an economics of resistance to what prevails amid empire and transnational corporate rule. It resists what prevails by actively practicing viable, sustainable, and local life-giving alternatives. Jubilee Economics Ministries encourages all who deeply desire to practice these alternatives. Intentional communities (many of them spiritually oriented), indigenous communities practicing traditional ways, economic cooperatives, and intentional local economies are some of the places to look for a variety of expressions of jubilee economics in contemporary contexts. The practice of jubilee is far wider than most people realize. The practice remains "hidden" from histories, written and taught, because those histories describe the perspectives and practices of the dominating cultures. But there are other histories to be told and lived. People's histories, as Howard Zinn has named them in his well-known People's History of the United States, tell these stories which the powers of the prevailing culture wish we would forget.
Why is the economics of jubilee not more widely practiced?
People, businesses, and governments commonly seek advantage, power, and control. The framework of jubilee seeks to prevent domination, empire, and control, so it goes against what they are looking for.
In the world of Jubilee Economics:
- All are invited to participate without partiality.
- All are to share in the resources of the earth, and to do so with ecological reverence.
- Power, too, is to be shared and passed around.
- The regular and intermittent redistribution of resources and wealth, so resisted by current neo-liberal economics and other domination economics, is a foundation of jubilee.
- Jubilee levels economic frameworks based on hierarchies of power and accumulation erected by empire and those who wish to dominate.
Jubilee continues, as it always has, in the people's stories and history, being practiced in a variety of expressions.
