The Origins of Neoliberalism

Modeling the Economy from Jesus to Foucault

Dotan Leshem

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780231541749
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion, Politik & Staat

Dotan Leshem recasts the history of the West from an economic perspective, bringing politics, philosophy, and the economy closer together and revealing the significant role of Christian theology in shaping economic and political thought. He begins with early Christian treatment of economic knowledge and the effect of this interaction on ancient politics and philosophy. He then follows the secularization of the economy in liberal and neoliberal theory.

Leshem draws on Hannah Arendt's history of politics and Michel Foucault's genealogy of economy and philosophy. He consults exegetical and apologetic tracts, homilies and eulogies, manuals and correspondence, and Church canons and creeds to trace the influence of the economy on Christian orthodoxy. Only by relocating the origins of modernity in Late Antiquity, Leshem argues, can we confront the full effect of the neoliberal marketized economy on contemporary societies. Then, he proposes, a new political philosophy that re-secularizes the economy will take shape and transform the human condition.

1

From Oikos to Ecclesia

Oikonomia in Scripture

The word oikonomia (ὀικονομία) appears twice in the Septuagint, both in Isaiah 22.¹ Oikonomos (ὀικονόμος) appears twelve times, most of these being translations of the Hebrew the one who’s (in charge) on the house

. These rare appearances, combined with oikonomos being transliterated in Jewish texts from the same period,² and with Hellenic Jewish texts borrowing the common Stoic use of the term as government of the cosmos, led John Reumann (1992:16, 1967:151–53, 156–57) to determine that the Christian use of the concept came from the Greek-speaking world (and not the Hebrew one), a view shared by Gerhard Richter (Richter 2005:91–92).

Oikonomia was not a key concept in the New Testament, where it is found nine times, oikonomos ten times, and the verb oikonomeo only once. The origin of its meaning,³ as “dispensation of revealed divine mystery,” is found in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.⁴

He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him; with a view to an economy of the fullness of ages to recapitulate all in Christ, things in the heavens and thing on the earth.

(Ephesians 1:9–10)

To enlighten all what is the economy of the mystery which from eternity has been hid in God who created all things.

(Ephesians 3:9)

Reumann, Richter, and Agamben all (Reumann 1967:166; Richter 2005:90; Agamben 2011:21–25) argue against the received view that Paul used the word to signify God’s salvific plan that reveals itself in history, suggesting that oikonomia in Paul need to be understood as management of God’s mysteries (μυστήρια), a word that is found next to most of oikonomia/ oikonomos appearances in Paul. Even if we were to accept the view that oikonomia does not mean the fulfillment of a neatly ordered divine plan in Paul’s mind, at the very least it means the inner-worldly management of the divine mystery in accordance with God’s intention (Reumann 1967:166). So, even in the minimalist version, at least some of the attributes of economy as God’s salvific plan, which subsists in him before creation, along with the modes by which it unfolds in worldly time and space, can be traced back to Paul.⁵

The boundaries of economic space are defined in Paul’s via negativa by setting an absolute boundary and one relative to it. The absolute boundary is equated with the created world, as oikonomia, so long as it is the fulfillment of the divine plan (let alone if it is “nothing more” than the management of the revealed divine mystery), which takes place in the bounds of the created world and cannot exceed cosmological space back into divinity in itself. Oikonomia’s relative boundary is revealed when taking into account that as long as it means the revelation of the divine plan since the creation of the world up to the end of times (the economy of the incarnation to be situated at the center of this drama), then history of salvation does not coincide with the history of the cosmos, but takes place within it bounds.⁶ By saying that the economy will be fulfilled when both the celestial and the earthly will be recapitulated in Christ, Paul rendered Stoic distinctions between the intimate, the economic, the political, and the cosmopolitical inoperative,⁷ the reason for this being that the same economy will, in the fullness of the age, appear in all of them and annihilate both spheres and the distinctions between them. By saying so, he also implied a need for a new spatial distinction in the age that lies between the revelation of the “new economy” in Christ and the fullness of the ages, one that will distinguish between what is part of the new economy and what has not been included in it yet.

THE ECONOMISTS OF SALVATION

Paul, too, is the origin of the use of oikonomos to describe the role of bishops in the realization of the plan and the revelation of the mysteries (see Tooley 1966:82, 84): “Whereof I am made a minister [of the Church], according to the economy of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God” (Colossians 1:25).⁸ His use of oikonomos to describe the role of the bishop marks a change in the economic literature of antiquity. For one, he was the first to proudly self-identify as an oikonomos and to address his fellow economists in his letters, whereas neither the classical economist nor the imperial one focused attention on the economic literature of their time, and they did not author the advisory economic literature that was addressed to their masters. If at all, economists were referred to in this literature as part of “the master’s science[, which] is the science of employing slaves” (Pol. 1252.b), those who need to be classified, managed, and supervised (see Leshem 2014a).

Paul describes the Christian oikonomos as Christ’s servant who is entrusted with the duty of interpreting and teaching the divine plan, namely that, as the oikonomia is fulfilled when the mysteries are revealed, its recapitulation in the fullness of the ages is dependent on him enlightening all. Paul also establishes a model for future economists (beside, of course, offering himself as a model) as well as a set of disciplinary measures. He describes the devotion demanded from the economists as follows: “Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and economists of the mysteries of God; In this case, moreover, it is required of economists that one be found trustworthy” (1 Corinthians 4:1–2). The economists do their job without a reward: “For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have an economy entrusted to me” (1 Corinthians 9:17). Moreover, the job description given by Paul includes the required qualities of character:

For the bishop must be above reproach as God’s steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain; Rather hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled.⁹

(Titus 1:7–8)

Not to teach strange doctrines; nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the economy from God that is by faith.

(1 Timothy 1:3–4)

Paul’s positioning of the bishop as an oikonomos who is entrusted with the execution of a plan dictated by a higher authority, being notified to a certain extent as to its essence and goals, does not exceed the “job description” of the oikonomos position in the ancient oikos. The difference between the Christian economists and their predecessors lies in the radical change of the nature of the economic activity they are entrusted with and the master they serve, so that instead of being charged with the management of the earthliest of all things in the service of their despotes, the Christian economist is entrusted with the management of divine matters and with the mission of divinization for the sake of their subordinates. Another crucial difference between the two is that the Christian economist labors to include all spheres of life in the economy instead of generating political and philosophical spheres that are “economicless.”

The Apostolic Fathers and the Early Apologists: Justin Martyr, Tatian, Ignatius, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch

Some rather limited expansion of the meanings attached to oikonomia can be traced to Christian texts composed in the second half of the first century and the first half of the second.¹⁰

Economy as God’s salvific plan, actuated in the Christ event, is found in Ignatius of Antioch, the only Apostolic Father who used oikonomia (Letter to the Ephesians 18:2, 20.1). Ignatius does so with reference to God’s plan incarnated, beginning with the Son’s conception in Mary’s womb, through his suffering on the cross, and up until his resurrection. Other appearances of oikonomia as incarnation (the most common meaning in Christian literature prior to Irenaeus, according to Markus 1958:92) can be found in the “Apology” of Aristides (2004:15.2), in Athenagoras’s Plea for the Christians (2004: 22.4), and in six out of ten times in Justin Martyr’s Dialog with Trypho (2002c: 30.3, 31.1, 45.4, 77.5, 103.3, 120.1).¹¹

Economy referring to the bishop position can be found in Ignatius’s “Epistle to the Ephesians” (2002b:6.1) and in Justin Martyr (2002c). Ignatius’s demand from the Ephesians “to receive every one whom the despot of the oikos sends on his oikonomia…[and to] look upon the bishop even as we would upon the Lord Himself” marks another development in the reverence of the oikonomos as bishop, who now must be treated as if he were the master himself.

While oikonomia as God’s salvific plan incarnated in Christ and oikonomos as the position of bishop can be found in Paul, the economy as a divine intervention in created world in other historical events, economy as morally questionable behavior and the economy of transcription were all added by early apologists.

Economy as divine intervention in created world is organized along a synchronic axis and a diachronic one. The former can be described as bringing together the Stoic conception of economy as a divine oversight (πρόνοια/providence) over the cosmos and the Jewish one of creation ex nihilo.¹² Economy bearing this meaning appears in Theophilus of Antioch’s Ad Autolycum (Theophilus 1970:73) where it refers to the plan of the hexameron (six days of creation).¹³ The economy of oversight can be found in Tatian’s “Address to the Greeks” where it means the organization of matter (in the world: ὕ λης oἰκoνoμίᾳ) of both human body and cosmos (Tatian 2004:12.2–3). Diachronic economy is found in Justin Martyr (2002c), who uses oikonomia to describes divine intervention in the history of salvation, such as God not sparing Nineveh (107), Jesus being circumcised and observing other Jewish legal ceremonies (67), Jacob’s bigamy (134), and David’s mischief in the “matter of Urriah’s wife” (141).

ECONOMY AS A MORALLY QUESTIONABLE BEHAVIOR

In the last four events mentioned a shady moral conduct, preformed either by God or his delegates, triggered Justin to enlighten all as to the nature of the economy that led them to do so. The explanation given by Martyr was that diversion from the righteous course of action was done in the service of a greater cause—the salvation of the world.

As discussed elsewhere,¹⁴ using the term oikonomia in order to justify shady behavior was not a Christian innovation. As it were, a tension between the intended goals and the justness of the measures taken—between utility and justice—accompanied the economy from the moment the political sphere was distinguished from it. In classical texts, dedicated to economy as oikos management, this tension was settled by governing the economy with soundness of mind that was aided by the formation of several modes of extralegal (and, as such, apolitical) forms of justice that were set in order to normalize the economy (see Leshem 2013c). But normalizing the oikos did not settle the question once and for all; this tension, inherent to the economy, reappeared whenever the economy exceeded its boundaries into a new sphere. The problematic relations between economy and truth telling became explicit well before Christianity, when the term oikonomia migrated into the field of rhetoric where it was used to denote the subjection of the organization of verities to serve the argument. As described in the introduction, it begun with Plato accusing the rhetoricians that their speech was not committed to the mission of conveying a true message and that they did not attempt to make the interlocutor’s soul a more virtuous one. Instead of doing so, Plato argued, the rhetorician used flattery to win the multitude’s consent, resulting in rhetoric becoming a science only if it imitated the model of the physician. The Church Fathers, who used the mode of conduct of the physician (as well as the pedagogue) as exemplary fairly often, demonstrate that the subjection of rhetoric in the service of divine truth does not solve rhetoric’s problematic relations (or the economy’s, for that matter) with truth telling in public speech. This is because, the moment rhetoric serves the economy of truth, revelations of only partial verities, keeping silence at the price of letting interlocutors assume false propositions to be true, and uttering complete lies intentionally are all licensed. Paradoxically, instead of solving the problem of lying in rhetoric, its subjection in the service of truth qualifies lying.¹⁵

The problem the person conveying a message in the service of divine truth incarnated in the economy has to tackle is to discern the distance that verities can be economized in order to secure the salvation of the souls of those under his care. He is forced to deal with questions: When does economizing truth become a lie? Is lying part of the economy? And, ultimately, what are the boundaries of the economy? As if things were not complicated enough, these questions undergo yet another sophistication as a consequence of two processes taking place simultaneously: 1. the subjection of rhetoric in the service of the economy of salvation (Mondzain 2005:13); 2. Subjecting economy itself to a higher truth laying outside its bounds, which licenses the oikonomos to suspend the laws that bind public speech in a political sphere (i.e., one that is governed by law) so that, as argued in an extremely popular manual written by the Christian master of rhetoric John Chrysostom, “it is possible then to make use of deceit for a good purpose, or rather that in such a case it ought not to be called deceit, but a kind of oikonomia worthy of all admiration” (John Chrysostom 2004b:II.1). Chrysostom does so relying on the model of the physician who lies occasionally to his patient as a necessary part of healing (I.8) by presenting the priest as someone who cure the soul by Word (IV.3), using the platonic metaphor to license the exact opposite of Plato.

The pedagogical model justifies revealing partial truth when Christ qua pedagogue serves as the model. Origen (1998:18.6) makes an analogy between “the divine oikonomia for human matters,” which includes accommodation for the intellectual level, language, and customs of the addressees, to the way adults address a toddler, arguing that a partial concealment of truth is mostly needed when approaching people who are like “children” that did not mature in their faith (referring to those who are not yet members of the society of believers in Christ’s economy or the ones who are new to it). The economy of truth adopted by the economist-pedagogue begins with an examination of the believer/interlocutor’s soul. Given his estimation of it, the economist accommodates truth to fit the exact prescription befiting the believer’s spiritual level. The latter is conceived as a student who progresses slowly toward encountering unconcealed truth, when the economist/pedagogue reveals it in accordance with the stage he reached on his road to enlightenment.

Both the physician model, to qualify lying, and the pedagogic one that qualifies truth accommodation rely on an authoritative relation that is used to license the economy of speech. Common to both physician and pedagogue is that their authority is derived from the excessive knowledge they posses, which persuades the student/patient to trust their judgment in guiding his psychic/somatic life. What has changed following their chrismation by the economists, who assert authority and excess knowledge, is that these authoritative relations are now taking place in the ecclesia, until Christianity the political of all spaces and, as such, denied of any institutionalized authoritative relations. As the ecclesiastical economy was in dire need of other models to replace despotic rule over slaves, in addition to the master’s rule over the matron as it exceeded the oikos boundaries into the public sphere, it made use of the two other nonpublic modes of conduct (pedagogue/student, physician/patient) at hand.

Keeping silence at the price of letting interlocutors assume false propositions to be true is the third kind of speech economy used by the Church Fathers. The model to follow was Basil the Great’s abstention from publicly declaring the full divinity of the Holy Spirit. Both Athanasius (2004d:letters 62, 63), and Basil’s intimate friend Gregory of Nazianzus (letter 58 in D...