Liberation And Development --

A Christian Answer

Paulos Mar Gregorios

In a world where the economic structures are unjustly tilted in favour of the propertied classes, more development may mean that more of the fruit of the labour of the working classes will be appropriated by the propertied classes, and the gap between the rich and the poor will thus only become wider. ln this sense developmentalism can be seen as an ideology of the propertied classes, designed to make these classes richer at the expense of the working classes. It is in opposition to this developmentalist ideology that liberation theology has now arisen. And the opposition to liberation theology in certain influential Christian quarters, we believe, comes at least in part from their identification with the propertied classes to which some of the rich church establishments belong.

There is no doubt that liberation theology poses a major threat to the vested interests of the affluent. Liberation theology begins with a critique and exposure of the neo-conservative ideological elements in certain prevailing types of Christian theology. Their allegation is that the establishments in the Christian churches are lined up with the propertied classes against the legitimate interests of the working people, and that traditional Christian theology is in effect bolstering up the prevailing unjust economic and political order. These are allegations which the Christian Peace Conference and its Study Commission have to examine seriously. We have to scrutinize carefully some of the recent declarations of the Sacred Congregation on the Faith of the Roman Catholic Church condemning liberation theology on the flimsy ground that it is tainted with Marxist elements. It is our responsibility to help Christians to re-examine traditional theology and contemporary attempts to rehabilitate a mythical theology within a conservative politico-economic ideology, in the light of these charges made by liberation theology and to assess the programme recommended by liberation theology to overcome and change the structures of injustice.

It may be the case that liberation theology has often tended to neglect certain fundamental aspects of the Christian faith which understands, for example, the Kingdom of God as both historical, or this-worldly, and transcendent or eschatological. If that is true, that must be pointed out clearly and liberation theologians admonished to have a more com prehensive approach. It may be a fact that liberation theology has been primarily a product of European colonial settlers in Latin America and does not adequately represent the aspirations and perceptions of native Americans. If that is so, that should certainly be pointed out. It may also be the case that liberation theology has not given adequate attention to certain dimensions of meaning in the Christian faith and especially to the personal and sacramental dimensions of life in -the Body of Christ, and that it has emphasized political, economic and cultural liberation at the expense of questions of personal salvation and sacramental spirituality. If that is so,then the issue should he debated and clarified. But it cannot he Christian to dismiss liberation theology mainly on the grounds that these Christian theologians have learned to see the truth with the help of Marxist analytical procedures. One of the things that we have learned from recent discussions on hermeneutics is that there is no perception of truth that is completely free from all pre-conceptions. The Marxist pre-conception can be just as valid as any other, if it fits the facts.

Why does the Old Order object so strenuously to liberation theology? I believe that the world’s market economy system is in a panic over four disturbing trends of the eighties: (a) stagnant production, (b) growing unemployment, (c) shrinking world trade and (d) the growing debt burden of the developing countries. The following table will make this clear:

Growth Rate Unemployment
1980 +1.2 % 21 million
1981 +1.2 %, 25 million
1982 --05 % 30 million
1983 +0.5 % 34 million

Increase in world Trade Debt Burden at the beginning of the year
1980 +1 % $ 406 billion
1981 0 % $ 465 billion
1982 —1 to —2 % $ 530 billion
1983 —1 % $ 626 billion

The debt of the developing countries is approaching the astronomical level of $ 1000 billion in the current year (1985). And the paradoxical situation is that despite all these debts, the private banks and the market economy world are overflowing with liquid credit, and are looking around for borrowers. Equally paradoxical is the fact that even though some large developing countries, like India, have growth rates of up to 5 ‘F0. it is the commercial banks of the market economy would who have the liquid cash to spare, despite near-zero growth rates in market economy industrialized countries.

This is what we mean by “tilted international economic structures”. We of the developing countries produce more wealth and the banks of the developed countries grow richer. How does it happen? There are many ways of making that happen. Here are some:

1. Investment money goes from the developing to the developed countries: e.g. in 1983, the Six Gulf States of the Arab Gulf Co-operation Council invested $333.46 billion, of which 85% was invested in industrially developed countries.

2. Debt servicing charges alone come to billions of dollars a year flowing out to developed countries so that more than half of the so-called international aid is swallowed up by debt service charges.

3. Profit outflow from developing to developed countries by TNC's becomes in four to live years more than the capital invested. After that. it is poor people's money that flows continuously to developed countries and their banks.

4. The international trade and price fixing techniques are so fitted together, as to facilitate higher prices for developing country imports without a corresponding increase in the prices exports and sometimes even a fall in the prices of raw materials exported. More of poor people's products have to be exchanged for less of developed country's products.

5. The native or indigenous industrial rnagnates prefer to keep their capital invested or deposited abroad for reasons of capital security.

6. Much of the borrowed foreign exchange of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America changes hands from government to government official and gets deposited in private accounts in western banks.

There are many other subtler systems like the international monetary system, which I will not analyze here.

It is precisely against such a tilted system that liberation theology directs its forces. The system works in favour of an international elite that exploits the majority and concentrates economic power in the hands of the propertied classes. The role played by Transnational Corporations in such a system should also come under survey in our meeting here. The entrepreneurial system, far from being one of free enterprise, is now working in favour of the large corporations over against small-scale private businesses. ln a typical market economy, industrialized nation like Japan, there were 19,155 small companies which failed or went bankrupt in 1983, and more than 20,000 in 1984. In just one month last year (August 1984). 1,682 companies went under, leaving a liability to shareholders and creditors of 264.7 billion yen. Power becomes concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer corporations as the years roll by.

The life of these corporations is heavily dependent on the military market and defense contracts. Lockheed, one of the largest military contractors, disclosed last week plans for a ten billion dollar expansion (Herald Tribune, March 21, 1985), mainly directed to war production. They are not banking on any great expansion in the civilian consumer market, hut on plans like that of the Reagan Administration to spend 1,800 billion dollars on armament in 1985--89. Already this year the defense expenditures of the world reaches a trillion dollars, and without this expenditure, most of these corporations could not survive. Genuine disarmament spells death to these companies and their beneficiaries, including millions of shareholders.

The Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars” programme, is only part of a giant economic race to privatize and commercialize space itself. It seems clear now that those who can afford to manufacture pharmaceuticals, semi-conductors and certain other delicate products in space-based factories can capture the market in these commodities. Here the Americans feel cheated, because the U.S. government does not directly subsidize research in these fields by private companies, whereas European companies, heavily subsidized by W. European governments, seem to be several steps ahead in this field. Arianespace, a private French company whose largest shareholder is the French government, holds ownership rights on the Arianc rocket, developed by the European Space Agency (a council of ll European countries that supervises nearly all major space projects in Europe). It has sent up about five communications satellites. each costing about $25 million. Americans cannot compete; for, without state subsidies, their Delta rocket charges about $42 million for each launch (Herald Tribune, March 21, 1985).

One of the products they want to perfect in space is a cure for diabetes, which involves separating tiny particles from a solution by electrophoresis or imparting an electrical charge to them in a no-gravity environment. The American shuttle sent up this month (March 1985) has, they say, an experimental space factory to produce just l--5 litres of this cure. If successful, next November the American company McDonnel Douglas will send a production plant weighing only 2 1/2 tons into space by November this year. Once the Food and Drug Administration approves this drug, enormous profits are within reach of McDonnel Douglas.

The hope of the establishment elite in world capitalism is to capture the world markets in food. health, communications and armaments within a few years. That seems the only way to forestall the collapse of the capitalist system. This requires (a) that the western nations, with or without the collaboration of Japan, should have unquestioned military superiority over other nations, and (b) within the western nations a few transnational corporations should be able to control the political and economic process directed to higher profit for the corporations. Both western dominance of the world, and the dominance of governments by TNCS are essential.

Military spending helps these corporations in so many ways: _
a) by boosting the capitalist economies through growing military spending and gaining a larger share of the arms market;
b) by using secret military research for commercial purposes, without research costs to the company itself;
c) by charging exorbitant prices to the defense establishments and thereby enhancing the corporation's profits.

You may have read about the disclosures made by US Representative Barbara Boxer last September that:

The same newspaper reported that the Army had overpaid $84 million to Ford Aerospace for one anti-aircraft gun.

The Transnational Corporations have a big stake in military spending; their financing of the political process in any country demands that they get a very big share of the fruit of other people’s labours, so they can kick back some money to control the political process.

We need to look here at the TNC's role in making western decisions to intervene in Nicaragua or Poland to carry out military exercises in the Pacific to keep US forces and missiles in South Korea even 40 years after the war there is over to keep Diego Garcia as a bastion of western nuclear power over the world, to keep up the white minority regime in South Africa and not to allow Namibia to have its freedom, to keep supplying arms to Afghan guerrillas so that the U.S.S.R. will not be able to withdraw its troops from that country, and to promote (de-stabilization moves in all countries which do not serve the interests of the TNCs. We should as workers for peace with justice expose that role sufficiently clearly to win the people of America, Western Europe, Australia and Japan, and of all countries as allies and co-workers in the struggle for peaceful and just societies.

Our fight is not against the West, but against an international elite who want to uphold the system that provides affluence for the few at the expense of the poverty of the majority. that permits hundreds of thousands in Africa to perish through famine and drought without coming to their aid in a determined and farsighted manner, and who would want to oppose all movements for détente and reduction in armaments for they perceive these movements to be against their privileged interests. These are the principalities and powers from which we seek liberation today. Formidable indeed is the power of the military-industrial-financial complex -- which includes TNCs and banking establishments, as well as arms makers and traders. But by far more powerful is the hand of the Lord, and when the human spirit gives itself to the Spirit of the Lord in silence and repentance, but also in committed action, the Lord will act, Justice with Peace will come. For that day of the Lord, we will pray and work.