Neither euphoria nor defeatism: Christian ethical considerations on the new epochal changes in Latin America

 

By Dr. Guillermo Hansen

 

 

 

A. Where are we? The farewell to romantic utopia and the emerging neo-liberal messianism

 

Since the Conference of Church and Society at Geneva in 1966, Latin American theological contributions at international forums have been marked by strong "revolutionary" language and the moral conviction that stems from belief that we were participating in the birthpangs of a new historic-redemptive dispensation. The identification of divine epiphany and social movements gave the distinctive thrust articulated as a theology of liberation. In turn this guided pastoral and political concerns which were introduced at different levels into the agenda of the Ecumenical movement. This impetus was not exclusive of Christians but corresponded to a local "optimistic" elan which mobilized popular organizations, parties, intellectuals, and different cultural subjects. The heavens were about to be stormed, and Latin Americans constituted the chosen vanguard.

 

During the late eighties and early nineties, however, the mood of Latin American voices (both secular and ecclesiatical) underwent a significant change. Reasons for this shift abound, causes are more than single, and interpretations differ substantially.[1]  For some the continent is coming out of an utopic dream to awaken into a globalized and neo-liberal nightmare; for others the unfulfilled utopia of the sixties must give room for a new and cool pragmatism not prone to romantic lapses; the more artistically inclined speak of the transition from a drama, that is, the consciousness of being midwives of transcendence, to the shallowness of burlesque massmediatic cacophony or a nihilistic tragedy. There are also those who have fallen to a postmodern cynicism for whom history has taken a wrong turn dissolving the apodictic axiom of a Great Qualitative Change.[2] Whatever the attempted rationalization the extent of the impact has one thing in common for all of those who have bet their lives upon the ideal of social justice: there are great difficulties at imaging our place and role within a new context and new demands yet without the utopic horizon signified by (anachronistic?) reformist or revolutionary symbols.

 

The descriptions just pointed out portray the fact that a deep transformation is taking place; some compare it to a "crisis of civilization" or "cultural mutation." This mutation, of course, is not only at the level of representations, but follows the different strategies of development implemented in Latin America as it attempts to adjust to the rules and demands of the market inserted in a globalized economy. This new economic and social scenario has been appropriately defined by Xabier Gorostiaga, a Roman Catholic sociologist and theologian, when he writes: "we are living a change of epoch, not merely an epoch of changes."[3]  This change of epoch is signified culturally by perplexity, uncertainty, fragility and a search for new meanings, politically by the spread of democracy concomitantly with the crisis of the role of the state and the proliferation of single-issues groups, and economically by the Darwinian rules imposed by a globalized economy and the concentration of rent and gain in the hands of a small, "competitive" class strategically related with financial/international capital. A contagious euphoria surrounds the latter like a cloud.

 

Without falling into a reductionism one has nonetheless to conclude that the economic transformations constitute the axial ground upon which other cultural and societal changes are conjugated. Latin American countries --children of the West-- not only structured national, independent identities around the liberal and modernist creed in the past, but also seem unequivocally committed at present to let the logic of the market define that of which social membership and standing consists. Wider webs of social relationships and symbolic expressions, therefore, are strongly conditioned (yet never reduced) to it.[4]

 

Some of the multiple significative changes which have characterized this new epoch for Latin America may be summarized as follows:

 

 

(a) Economic transformation: Neo-liberal adjustment[5]

 

Most of the countries in the region, with different timings, intensities and results, have experienced during this decade deep transformations both at the level of  economic policies and strategies as well as in their very productive systems. These changes stem from a number of causes, sparked basically by the debt crisis --and rampant inflation in some cases-- which revealed the structural weakness of the Latin America economy. As internal causes one could mention the failure of different developmental strategies oriented to the domestic market, and the natural straining of populist policies which attempted to redistribute that which it did not have or produce.

 

In the industrialized countries the new geopolitical space signified by the socialist debacle was preceded and accompanied by the emergence of more "dynamic" sectors of capital which demanded a new political and economic profile in their respective governments.  Thus Keynesian economic paradigm (welfare state) gave room to conservative and neo-liberal models. This new geopolitical situation soon became a geoeconomic one which pressed neo-liberal recipes upon many countries in Latin America, dictated and monitored by the IMF, the World Bank and the Interamerican Bank for Development (BID). Macroeconomic reforms sought to assure the flow of capital from South to North in concept of payment of the interests of the huge public debt.[6]

 

In practice this has meant for major Latin American countries the reduction of social spending, flexibilization of the labor market, regressive taxation policies, resulting in the net transference of income from the poor, working and middle classes to a powerful minority.  The need for rapid technological change, a more efficient macroeconomic management, regional economic integration, in sum, the strengthening of the productive structure for a better compliance and effective insertion within the dynamic tendencies of world commerce, are the legitimizing arguments which sustain these policies.

 

 

(b) The state and the privatization of its functions

 

The boundaries and function of the state are rapidly being redrawn in face of the challenges emerging from a new globalized economy and the needs expressed by the interests of financial and/or speculative capital. Government's traditional regulating role is disappearing in face of  the forces shaping the "free" market, and its place as producer of goods and source of labor has been displaced by private capital. Furthermore, traditional services which to a large extent legitimized the existence of the state (education, health care, social security, public order and security, etc.) are being transferred into private firms and corporations. It is true that the former rampant corruption, inefficient services, overexpansion and overspending of populist states created a domestic predisposition favorable for reforms; but what the neo-liberal model seem to be doing is terminating the idea of the state as such!

 

 

(c) Democracy

 

In spite of the waning presence of the state never before has the Latin American scenario seen such a widespread consensus concerning democracy. After decades of dictatorship and authoritarian governments, democracy is considered as the political order which, with relative independence of the economic arrangements, the majority of Latin Americans find desirable, recommendable and worthy to implement and foster. As a political arrangement democracy is distinguished by its representative character through popular vote, political competition mediated by parties, and the fundamental respect for the rules stated by a National Constitution. In this fashion, a democratic regime embodies tools for resolving conflicts without recourse to political violence --a means so often employed in the history of our continent.

 

Far from being a simple tool of the neo-liberal consensus,[7] democracy is in many cases the outcome of decades of popular struggle and demand. Yet while democratic practice and culture are becoming entrenched in many Latin American countries, an unequal access to representation, defective mechanisms for accountability, and the impending social inequality may severely threaten democratic institutions and damage the tie between state and society.

 

 

(d) Exclusion and marginalization

 

With the demands implied by the globalization of the national and regional economies (point a) and the concomitant readjustment of the state and its regulative power (point b), classes excluded from the new neo-liberal covenant of domination (capitalists and business not directly related with international capital, business people not involved in the privatization of state enterprises or public services, worker and their labor organizations, great segments of the middle class and most of the traditional peasant classes) are loosing their capability to demand an intervention of the state for the sake of interests not represented by the hegemonic bloc.[8]

 

Thereby the phenomenon of exclusion and marginalization, both from a social consensus and economic benefits, profoundly marks the present Latin American situation. To the extent that those who are "superfluous," those who are not integrated, in fact loose power of negotiation and thus the opportunity for contributing to societal growth, the very idea of community and national purpose dissolves. New "circuities of violence" are thus overlapped upon old ones.[9]

 

 

(e) Atomization and new configuration of identities and the political

 

Finally, the increasing disaffection of the population with the state, added to the general cultural crisis stemming from a pluralization of symbols and values, has led to a dispersion and atomization in the dynamics of identity presenting a new challenge in the quest for political consensus. The difficulty in visualizing a profile of national identity in a globalized world has (partially) encouraged a micro-group reference which, in most cases, lacks a global view and proposal with the concomitant political and strategic ineffectiveness. While the emergence of single issue groups must be fostered and cherished as true expressions of democratic impulses, it is nonetheless a fact that the logic and goal that rules groups at the level of civil society are different from the ones that guide parties in the political sphere; only the latter --reimagined in new fashions integrative of themes forwarded by single issues groups-- can articulate and furnish a powerful political alternative on the basis of new visions which confer an inclusive identity.[10] New political representations, that is, new articulations nurtured by identity and purpose, will constitute the basis for a new imaging of the state and society and, eventually, a counter-offensive against the seemingly triumphant power of transnational capital.

 

 

A landscape of paradoxes

 

The issues enumerated above cast a scenario dominated by phenomena that only fit under the notion of  paradox. In effect, while points (c) and (e) above speak of a supersession of political marginalization through democratic processes and increasing civil participation through popular association and organization, points (a), (b) and (d), on the other hand, tell a story of accelerating economic marginalization and social exclusion imposed by the new dynamics of a globalized economy. Social groups and classes lacking the economic, material, organizational, ideological, and political resources demanded by the neo-liberal pact, seem doomed to be cast aside.[11]

 

Political freedom and democracy, increasing socio-economic inequality, unattended social demands, the emergence of the "new urban poor", rapid mobility and technological changes affecting production and labor, the crisis of a cultural ethos which used to legitimize conditions for communal life, and the mass-media promises of immediate satisfactions of desires transignified as ever increasing demands for goods, may seem to paint a picture of chronic crisis and expanding "spaces of frustration." This begs the question: what will the outcome be for this overlapping of political and social demands for recognition, the "show" put up by the global bazaar and the neo-liberal fetishism of goods, and the frustration that comes from being displaced from the redistribution of goods? Are not the institutions of democracy discredited when the interests of a minority seem always to prevail? Furthermore, how can social and democratic expectations be correlated with neo-liberal policies? Comparing the last two decades with the present one, the words of Yutzis summarizes well this point:

 

Populist policies which demagogically distributed resources which were not produced were ill fated for the regional development. The political illusion burst with the economic reality. Today, however, adjustment policies drag the pendulum to the other extreme, risking a similar fate: the economic illusion will blow up in face of the [present] social and political reality.[12]

 

 

The political economy of desires

 

When we hear today that being exploited is considered a "privilege"[13] ("at least I have a job!" is a recurrent phrase that one can hear in any Latin American city), we must realize that we are at the threshold of a deeper, more complex and more dense time and space than previously thought; in other words, that the concept of the absurd, of the real, what is worthy and what constitutes "common notions" (such as "social justice", "a job," "work") are radically mutating along the axis of neo-liberal codes. In this vein to hold a job meagerly paid in a context of labor uncertainty and growing unemployment constitutes a "miracle" that no one dares to risk. To be exploited, at least, is "to be in."

 

The neo-liberal creed has done in Latin America what military and authoritarians were unable to do: a transmutation of all values and desires, of "the common", of what yesterday may have seemed absurd but today is fate. And how does it has done so? By howling about the fairness and rationality of the markets, neo-liberalism can dress itself messianically (can call out our loyalty) by globalizing our wants and desires, and promising satisfaction to all. In other words, neo-liberalism feeds upon the fears and expectations which flow from the deep and irrational desires that our ego --within the "possibilities" promised by the market-- project under the garb of rational demands. The solitary self and its wants, then, becomes the agent who is made to believe that he rules by demanding. The market, of course, appears as the natural, providential space which gladly supplies. Loyalty is thereby bought at the rate of this exchange, while redemption comes to those who can signify their demands with currency.

 

 

The unlimited dream: the metaphysics of the free market

 

Legitimation of gain, defense of one's own interests as the best and natural pathway to progress, and the conception of the market as a supra-human entity capable of transforming individual interests into the welfare of the community (either national or global), thus constitutes the basic components of a neo-liberal metaphysics.[14] The trinity of unlimited production, unlimited growth, and unlimited transformation of desires as demands speak of a new conception of the limits in time and space.[15] Have not the classical attributes of God become, through a transformational criticism (Feuerbach), the attributes of bourgeois space, time and person? If this is the case it is no wonder that with the waning of the limits signified by the sacred (and the cultural ethos that it sustained) the world and its creatures become the immediate playground for the satisfaction of unending desires.[16] The problem is, however, that unlimited pretensions within a world empirically finite and limited, logically demand the sacrificial disposition of the majority of creatures and resources.[17]

 

The issue of boundaries and limits, and the lack thereof, is perhaps one of the central topics to be faced in the search of a new cultural ethos barring the unwanted consequences spread by the unfettered  logic of the market. For in effect, what has taken hold of Latin America today is the expansion of one sphere above all other, namely, the tyranny of the market forces upon all spheres of society.[18] As Pascal put it in his Pensées, "tyranny consists in the desire of universal power beyond its scope...is the wish to have in one way what can only be had in another."[19] Once implicitly unobjected that money and commodities defines standing and belonging, all other goods fall into the gravitational pull of its mass.

 

The national and public space is thus bent in such a fashion that the traditional shapes of former goods and its spheres acquire the profile of the grotesque (one can think, for example, of telemediated religion, public office as access to drug trafficking or embezzlement, or media merchandizing of crime cases and trials). This is especially seen in the rationale that rules the present conception of a value such as social justice: when the state no longer functions as the political mechanism redistributing benefits on the basis of a plural consideration of goods, social justice is then defined as the obtaining in the market of what each one of us deserves on the basis norms derived from the economic sphere: competitiveness, efficiency and performance.[20]

 

 

 

B. Some consideration for moral deliberation and political action

 

The apparent gloomy tone of the above should not elicit, however, either a cynic accommodation or a romantic posture. Frustration in view of unrealized social(istic) utopia or autonomous development can never mean for Christians the abandonment of a hope for this world, but rather a redrawing of this hope on the basic of a careful and realistic assessment of present possibilities. Not heaven but earth is the object of our moral responsibility, and the understanding that different rules govern both realms is perhaps one of the most significative steps for Latin American theological existence today. This would mean, on the one hand, a clarification of the moral values to be realized in society in conversation with others who do not necessarily share our Christian faith (search for a moral vision)[21]; on the other, a deliberation on, and analysis of, the morality of specific decisions and actions. This calls for a meticulous consideration of economic themes in view of our new understanding of the different factors that sum up the complex equilibrium of our "social ecology."[22] For social scientists, pastors and theologians who have been fascinated for decades with the notion of "magic realism," namely, that Latin America is somehow placed outside the laws that govern space and time,[23] this is not an easy task.

 

Above we suggested that if there is any resistance against the "tyranny" of market logic and forces this will come from a renewed cultural view, a renewed hierarchy of values, a renewed vision of what is morally desirable yet politically possible in this complex web which conforms the social ecology. Precisely the political arena, and the possibility to conform or restructure an historical bloc,[24] is the place where symbolic representations and different (economic) interests converge seeking consensus. But the political realm as such is not a foundational, but an articulating space of values and demands present and formed in different segments of civil society.[25]

 

A renewed cultural vision must therefore consider issues such as the new modes of perception and symbolization of what is real, changes in the representation of time and space, the crisis of old individual and collective identities, and moral motivations, ends and values.[26]  The production and reproduction of meanings, in which our churches have an inescapable --yet not unique-- role, is therefore a necessary step for redrawing the boundaries, the spheres of pertinency within which different social goods must be distributed according to a moral vision not ruled by the market or state.

 

In what follows we delineate some of the issues and topics that may constitute the theological and ethical contribution of our churches in this larger conversation within civil society. The search for aproximative norms for action inspires these reflections.

 

 

The limits of utopic illusions

 

Pablo Richard, a Chilean theologian of liberation, has rightly observed that the discourse of the neo-liberal ideologues of the nineties is analogical to the revolutionary and liberationist talk of the seventies: their speech is flavored with messianic accents certifying that the future belongs to them.[27]  A critical theological assessment, therefore, has two fronts here: to help redraw the profile of hope for all those Christians who have been politically committed and nowadays disillusioned with the turn that history has taken, and to exercise a critique of the metaphysical assumptions of the neo-liberal creed. In the first case the pastoral goal is to walk through the defeatist frustration that came from the frontiers met in experience; in the second it will be to recall the limits that bind any historical project.

 

Christian theology is called here to stand up on its feet and drink from its own well, namely, from the escatological promise embodied in Christ which clearly set the limits of what is historically achievable, yet does not abandon history to its own devices and ruses. The notion of the gratuitousness of God's love, the futurity of God's being and kingdom, the eschatological telos of the cosmos anticipated in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, points out that no human achievement will realize the transcendence, that there are definite limits to what we can be and do. To God alone, and not to us, is reserved the supersession of limits, the conquering of rebel powers, the inauguration of the totally new.

 

The limits which this sets to the illusions propagated by the neo-liberal creed are apparent enough (Cfr. supra). Yet also apparent should be that this view grounds an escatological spirituality as Christians commit themselves with those in daring need, knowing that a hope against all hope is what will sustain us in face of the inevitable disappointments found in historical processes. One is not committed with a utopia known to be aprioristically unattainable, but with the lives of women, men, children and creatures of all sorts which intrinsically demand a careful assessment of what should and can be done in the (ecological) conditions of this space and time. What we need is not so much grand schemes, dramatic declamatory documents, ineffectual and condescending stances, or a moral purism oblivious of a fallen creation, but to discern aproximative norms, this "`nicely calculated less and more' of good and evil" (Niebuhr) on which economies, political institutions and civilizations, in other words, life and its spaces, depend.[28]

 

 

The goods that people (¿and God?) want

 

"Things are our anchors in the world," Michael Walzer writes, bordering thereby upon a topic that most of our churches need to think more carefully. Speaking about things, as well as goods, touches upon both the form of God's creation as well as human fallness, upon the plurality of God's being as well as human desires. More often than not, groups and trends in our churches, inspired by a laudable concept of social justice, have nonetheless promoted cuasae-ascetic attitudes towards modern life, collapsing the notion of greed with that of enjoyment of artifacts produced in exchange with the world. A unilateral and dualistic emphasis upon the nefesh that comes from God has displaced the fact that we are also an afar/adama, therefore naturally attracted to (while necessarily dependent upon) that from which we come. A living being emerges both from the shaping of (dust) and the imparting of (breath); biblically, therefore, dependence upon God implies as well the responsible acceptance of our creatureliness and sensuous nature.

 

A romantic attack against "progress" and "development" (certainly not new in the West, i.e., Rousseau!) is not only theologically dubious, but also anthropologically unsound. Yet rejection of a romantic longing for an idyllic past does not imply a support for an unbounded idealism. A more nuanced (theological) view must balance the fact that technical progress and economic development has signified both more opportunities for survival, new and different ways to be part of the world, in sum, new expressions of life expressed in songs, houses, foods, fields, prayers and faces, as well as the unquestionable ecological damage, new social injustices, new forms of enslavement and domination.

 

In our historical situation, the paradox of a fallen yet ontically exocentric orientation has lead humanity to conform civilizations and devise technological ways for escaping situations of want, misery, insatisfaction, suffering, poverty, that is, escape from the very nothingness and emptiness that is carried within and threatens from without. Yet this desire and search is also occasion for sin and alienation: not so much because they are materially mediated (Augustine), but because they are egocentrically grounded. Luther saw well this paradox of desire, the different array of humanity's wants which constitutes both a sign of finitude and perishability as well as a prelude, a foretaste of the gracious escatological fulfillment.[29] The problem is not the want, but the self's illusion for immediate fulfillment associated with it. What else is the amor sui, the incorvatus in se but the transposition of totality to the self, of the systematic and compulsive violation of boundaries and spheres that precisely allows life of the multiple and diverse to grow and flourish in their own integrity?

 

While Christian theology can never become a justifying tool for progress and development, it represents however a horizon in light of which economic growth can be seen beyond the apparent selfish motivations of private, corporate and national interests. To develop a theology of God's historical opus alienum would be tempting, but in the end will mean to fall naively into a "providential" conception of the market. However an eschatological and trinitarian hermeneutic grounded in the vision of the Father's glory mediated through the Spirit's recapitulation of creation in Christ (Iraeneus) may help us understand the (provisional) meaning of our economic activities and planning, namely, one of our main means of relation with neighbor and nature.

 

Development is certainly not a road to the kingdom, but a temporal hiatus allowed by the approaching kingdom. The relation between both realms comes to light when we consider that biblically this kingdom coincides with the unification of the triune being of God, and that the deity of this God is mediated by the lordship exercised upon the multiplicity of creation. "And when all things shall be subdued unto him," Paul refers in his hermeneutics of the resurrection in I Corinthians chapter fifteen, "then shall the Son also himself be subjected unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all" (v.28). It is  not only the fact that God's being has chosen to be mediated by the creatural that is here stressed, but also that this mediation is signified by the multiplicity, diversity and integrity of creatural existence (Cfr. also Rom 8: 18-25).

 

In this vein the fostering and praise of multiplicity, diversity and integrity of beings and things, can be appropriated as criteria for understanding the ultimate purpose of  such equivocal notion as growth, development and progress. These constitute that which in ethics are called "goods" or non-moral values. They are data, realities which precede human volition and freedom --even though they inform and are certainly affected by human action. The economy, the way in which we administer resources and reproduce conditions for living, is therefore an area of encounter between goods that precede us (which have their own laws to preserve their integrity) and human decision. Theologically the realm of economy is of utmost concern to the extent that it mediates the arranging of our temporal realm as the (future) oikos of God. Certainly it would be heresy to say that God's being is at stake with what we do or not do in this domain; but it is theologically correct to affirm that what is historically at stake is the morphology, that is, the form and shape that anticipates the multiplicity contained by God's being. It is God's will --a will that can also be partially understood in our dealings with the world-- that creatural multiplicity and diversity exist as masks of the material bountifullness that flows from the mutual loving between Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

 

Within this theological understanding economic growth can only be reasonable to the extent that it is a means for fostering the creaturly multiplicity, the diversity within each of its manifestations, and the integrity of a complex systemic equilibrium. Certainly development is a necessary process because without it --and especially considering the interdependent state of our global civilization-- not only are ecological concerns and the well being of present and future generations threatened, but also because it constitutes a means toward the multiplication of finite possibilities for life to be fulfilled in God.  However, technological progress and growth can become meaningless when, dazzled by quantitative goals, it threatens the very quality of that life which it seeks (at least tacitly) to aid and assist. The global statistics on massive poverty and the demographic pressure also point to the contradictory effects of a quantitative "growth" without qualitative goals. As the WCC has proposed,[30] policies aiming at poverty reduction, long-term employment, as well as environmental restoration and protection are reasonable and attainable qualitative goals that best assures a quantitative growth. Our economies, however, tend to put the cart before the horse hoping for a trickle down effect.

 

 

Some criteria for a (relative) conception of fairness and social justice

 

In the socio-political arena confusion between law and gospel has led many of our churches to forget that the goal is not to call people to be better, but that people do the good.[31] This fomented either an inflated historical expectation or a wishful and moralistic attitude which misplaced Christians vis-a-vis society. Thinking that there is a lineal relation between high principles and socio-political action (ethical monism), or overlooking one's and nature's fallness, can only lead to enthusiastic proposals doomed to  frustration or a self-centered rigorous morality which serves to distance ourselves from the world.[32] Christian love, however, seeks to engage neighbor and situations in the conditions in which they exist, trusting that the reason with which God has adorned creation is a powerful (yet not sufficient) means in the search for a responsible way of living. In this vein groups and segments conforming the large spectrum of civil society can together integrate with Christians a process for consenting to a shared view, a "moral vision" that will serve as a temporal horizon for socio-political goals. Compromises between our view, other's views, and the facts and limits that comes with human behavior, are inevitable. Furthermore, a serious consideration of the latter is a necessary step for accurate assessment of the morality of actions.

 

The drive to maximize gain, the search for self-aggrandizement, are all expressions of an aggressive instinct born from the desire to affirm the self in face of the empirical limits that binds finite existence. With different degrees and intensities, overtly or covertly expressed, it will exist as long as reconciliation of creation in Christ is still pending. On the other hand it is also a fact that sociologically and psychologically this aggression that is intrinsic to existence needs an effective outlet through which to channel this.[33] Greed and gain is one of its multiple expressions.

 

The fact that in our century the economy has become the main outlet for this "aggression" must give us both a sense of relief as well as worry. Relief to the extent that other spheres (family, state, religion) are partially freed from the worst manifestations of aggression; worry to the extent that the economic sphere seems to grow exponentially, threatening to overrule all other spheres of life (including, of course, all ecological niches). But what will justice look like in face of this? Shall we fight directly greed and gain? Do we need to regulate an abstract economic egalitarianism by moralizing to such an extent this field of activity that in fact it will invite even more abuses and violations?[34]  Does not a simple idea of justice and equality --and a monistic idea of the moral-- invite more manifestations of sin?

 

In view of this and the ethical horizon described above we believe that a conception that advocates different expressions of justices --rather than a Justice-- has a greater chance of being ethically sound and instrumentally viable. Such understanding acknowledges the specificities of different spheres and recognizes that distinct criteria of fairness and justice apply in them. Different social goods must be distributed for essentially different reasons. Therefore it would be acceptable --on the basis of a societal consensus-- that strategic rationality and competition for gain may be a principle that rules the economic sphere (whatever the form of property advocated). But what is unacceptable is that this same rational be imposed or leak over onto other spheres, where other values and rules must prevail. Money and political power (to cite one example) must be culturally declared as reciprocally inconvertible. The same with love and gain. Once the economic ratio supersedes its boundaries, the bindings of political and civil society start to disintegrate into anarchy, corruption (Brazil, Argentina) or Mafia-type behavior (Colombia).[35]

 

For this to work it is imperative to depend on a state furnished with mechanisms for social and political control of the forces which constitute the market. But a state is an easy prisoner of the powers that be if culture of moral deliberation is lacking. The public space constituted by this deliberation must debate upon its moral values and vision, as well as serve as the foundation for a political resolve to curb the impulse of a social and economic powerful minority through democratic means. In the same vein a proposal along these suggestions must depend upon a new type of state which is more integrative of opposition parties, as well as other non-political groups from civil society representing those groups marginalized by the debarring neo-liberal hegemonic bloc. Taking advantage of the existing democratic institutions, senior groups, "original" (native) peoples, women's rights associations, neighborhood organizations, human rights leagues and ecologically concerned circles, as well as churches and other clusters of civil society, can channel their demands in an orchestrated fashion through consent on common interests and goals.

 

A tactical cunning must take advantage of the very cultural contradictions of capitalism,[36] as well as of the need of the hegemonic classes to recreate their hegemony in the present historical bloc by seeking to integrate other groups' visions and appeals. In the near future it is not likely that we will see an emergence of a new historical bloc, but certainly it is reasonable in the view of the aforementioned to expect new policies seeking out social fairness and ecological balance, severely restricting the logic of strategic rationality to a circumscribed sphere. What this will consist of is practically a new systemic integration between state, civil society and market, where the laws of the latter are not allowed to exercise monopoly. A system, as the Zapatistas demanded in Mexico, "where everybody has space."[37]

 

Active social policies touching upon the distribution of income, property and wealth through a reingeneering of tributary criteria and processes is one of the pressing points for a new agenda.[38] It is time that the wealth and riches of this sphere be distributed among the spheres pertaining to health, education, culture and last, but not least, employed in programs for ecological sustenance and redress of environmental damage. But it must also be kept in mind that the new relation between capitalism and territoriality signified  by a globalized economy must also inform our people's vision and strategies for justice. As mentioned  in the beginning of this paper, the interlocking in a global economic network means also to be subjected to social processes transcending our own group, class, and nation. What this means in the long run is that a "globalization from below" (Gorostiaga), i.e., the international networking of groups and associations, constitutes one of the means for the birth of a "geoculture" able to cast a new vision for life in this planet. May our Lutheran communion be a tool for fostering this proprium within the alienum of economic globalization.