Which team?

Every time the Olympics come around, we see athletes from one country competing for another. Core identities surface in surprising ways.

Lately, I have been reading Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25). People arrive together before the King, bearing one of many national flags. But soon, they are individually reorganized into one of two teams: sheep or goats. The sheep have already been with Jesus, caring for the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner. They will continue on with Jesus. The goats ⏤ GOATs ⏤ never saw themselves as part of that team. And never will for all eternity.

Who contributes more?

One measure of an economy’s strength is the Labor Force Participation Rate. What percentage of the population (non-government, non-military) is employed or looking for a job? A common gripe I hear is that too few people contribute to our economy.

I think an argument can be made that trust is a greater economic stimulus than man-hours. How much capital and cash flow are wasted because of a lack of trust? What effect does distrust have on investment and employment? Seen this way, some wealthy, employed people actually undermine the economy by eroding trust. And others who may not earn a paycheck contribute to a more trusting society in ways that invigorate the economy. Who contributes more?

The Common Un-Good

Americans live in a culture that resists common good. I once worked for a company that (briefly) preached to its employees, “What is good for you personally will be good for the company.” The absurdity of that statement quickly became clear as aggressive office politics and fraud escalated.

In public life, that word ‘public’ takes a beating. Public transportation. Public utilities. Public education. Public health. Public housing. Public lands. It seems any shared benefit is Socialist. Socialist! But no one talks about public harm in the same way. Carbon, VOCs, and particulates in our air. Forever chemicals in our drinking water. A strained power grid. Communicable disease. We share these costs in common. Common un-good.

What if we flipped the script and labeled public harm ‘Socialist’? Would it make any difference? Or, would the term be defanged and just come to mean ‘common investment’ or ‘shared cost’ of civilized society?

Let’s not keep two sets of books, where we privatize benefits and socialize costs.