Depression, Recession, and Recovery: Niebuhur's Christian Realism Applied to Macroeconomics
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Abstract
Following decades of macroeconomic theories applied to counteract the business cycle, the Great Recession of 2008-2010 was an unexpected challenge to economic dogmas that had been part of American consciousness. In like manner, early economic principles such as the Protestant Ethic and the promise of industrial capitalism were challenged by the harsh injustices of the Great Depression in the 1930s. While it is tempting for people of faith to align with radical economic and political factions that purport unilateral solutions to economic problems, more often than not solutions are far more complicated and multifaceted than platitudes reveal. Following the Great Depression, Reinhold Niebuhr argued for a perspective of Christian Realism that could remain critical of both capitalism and socialism, and seek practical, moderate solutions to advocate both prosperity and justice for all people. Niebuhr’s perspective, when applied to macroeconomics, recognizes that corporations, individuals, and government are each inherently oriented toward corruption and thus, need one another for purposes of mutual security and accountability. Both imaginative and moderate possibilities for macroeconomic and social change are briefly explored.
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Weber, M. (1958). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. White, L. (1991). The S&L debacle: Public policy lessons for bank and thrift regulation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Borgwardt, E. (2005). A New Deal for the world: America’s vision for human rights. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Budde, M. & Brimlow, R. (2002). Christianity incorporated. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press.
Fox, J. (2009). The Myth of the Rational Market. Time Magazine, June.
Friedman, M. & Schwartz, A. (1963). The monetary history of the United States, 1867 to 1960 Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Fuechtmann, T. (1989). Steeples and stacks: Religion and steel crisis in Youngstown, Ohio. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Gardner, C. (1914). The ethics of Jesus and social progress. New York, NY: George H. Doran Company.
Handy, R. (1960). The American religious depression:1925-1935. Church History, 29(1).
Hansen, A. (1941). Fiscal policy and business cycles. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.
Jacobs, M. (2005). Pocketbook politics: Economic citizenship and 20th-century America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Johnson, B. (1982). Taking stock: Reflections on the end of another era. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 21(3).
Keynes, J. (1936). The general theory of employment, interest, and money. New York: Harcourt Brace, & Co.
King, W. (1981). The emergence of social gospel radicalism: The Methodist case. Church History, 50(4).
Kurth, J. (1999). Religion and globalization. The Templeton lecture on religion and world affairs, 7(7).
Leuchtenburg, W. (1963). Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940. New York: Harper Perennial.
Lewis, C.S. (1934). “Equality,†in C. S. Lewis: Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces, ed. by Lesley Walmsley. London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000.
Niebuhr, R. (1920). The church and the industrial crisis. Biblical World, 54(6).
Niebuhr, R. (1932). Moral man and immoral society. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
Patterson, E. (2003). The Christian Realists: Reassessing the Contributions of Niebuhr and His Contemporaries: The Independent Review: The Independent Institute. Retrieved May 29, 2010, fromhttp://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=528. Retrieved May 29, 2010, from http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=528
Pew Forum: Obama' s Favorite Theologian? A Short Course on Reinhold Niebuhr. (2009). Retrieved May 29, 2010, from http://pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/ObamasFavorite-Theologian-A-
Rauschenbusch, W. (1913). A theology for the social gospel. New York, NY: MacMillan Publishing Company.
Shlaes, A. (2007). The forgotten man: A new history of the Great Depression. New York: Harper Perennial.
Shuman, J. & Meador, K. (2003). Heal thyself: Spirituality, medicine, and the distortion of Christianity. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Schumpeter, J. (1939). Business cycles. New York: Martino Publishers.
Stackhouse, M. (1984). Creeds, society, and human rights: Study in three cultures. Grand Rapids, MI: William Eerdman's Publishing Company.
Wallis, J. (2010). How Christian is Tea Party Libertarianism? Retrieved May 29, 2010, from http://blog.sojo.net/2010/05/27/how-christian-is-tea-party-libertarianis...
Weber, M. (1958). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons. White, L. (1991). The S&L debacle: Public policy lessons for bank and thrift regulation. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Research Articles