In an interesting article (Hoarding Nations Drive Food Costs Ever Higher, 30 June 2008), the New York Times explains that since 1980 “even as trade in services and in manufactured goods has tripled, adjusting for inflation, trade in food has barely increased. Instead, for decades, food has been a convoluted tangle of restrictive rules, in the form of tariffs, quotas and subsidies….[T]he world is increasingly dependent on a handful of countries…that are still exporting large quantities of food…. [P]oor countries have frequently cut farm assistance programs and lowered tariffs to balance budgets and avoid charging high prices to urban consumers. But they have found that their farmers cannot compete with imports from rich countries — imports that are heavily subsidized”.

In our Economics 101 lectures we were taught about Adam Smith’s ”invisible hand“, about comparative advantage and the importance of free trade.  By the time we made it to post-graduate courses, our lecturers could no longer hide the fact that Messers Smith, Keynes and Friedman did not have it all worked out, and that in fact “free market forces” did not have the power to fix everything.

In a statement entitled Valuing Spirituality in Development (18 February 1998), the Baha’i International Community posits an entirely different view of economics:

Central to the task of reconceptualizing the organization of human affairs is arriving at a proper understanding of the role of economics. The failure to place economics into the broader context of humanity’s social and spiritual existence has led to a corrosive materialism in the world’s more economically advantaged regions, and persistent conditions of deprivation among the masses of the world’s peoples. Economics should serve people’s needs; societies should not be expected to reformulate themselves to fit economic models. The ultimate function of economic systems should be to equip the peoples and institutions of the world with the means to achieve the real purpose of development: that is, the cultivation of the limitless potentialities latent in human consciousness.

There is a very useful tool that economists use to measure the inequality of wealth distribution. The Gini Coefficient is a ratio between 0 and 1, with 0 being perfect equality.  The map below illustrates the 2007/2008 Gini Coefficient for the world, as based on a recently released Human Development Report by the UNDP.  The darker the colour, the more unequal is the distribution of wealth in that country.

Addressing the problem of the extremes between wealth and poverty, the Universal House of Justice said this, in their 1985 message to the world The Promise of World Peace:

The inordinate disparity between rich and poor, a source of acute suffering, keeps the world in a state of instability, virtually on the brink of war. Few societies have dealt effectively with this situation. The solution calls for the combined application of spiritual, moral and practical approaches. A fresh look at the problem is required, entailing consultation with experts from a wide spectrum of disciplines, devoid of economic and ideological polemics, and involving the people directly affected in the decisions that must urgently be made. It is an issue that is bound up not only with the necessity for eliminating extremes of wealth and poverty but also with those spiritual verities the understanding of which can produce a new universal attitude. Fostering such an attitude is itself a major part of the solution.

Unbridled nationalism, as distinguished from a sane and legitimate patriotism, must give way to a wider loyalty, to the love of humanity as a whole. Bahá’u’lláh’s statement is: “The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.” The concept of world citizenship is a direct result of the contraction of the world into a single neighbourhood through scientific advances and of the indisputable interdependence of nations. Love of all the world’s peoples does not exclude love of one’s country. The advantage of the part in a world society is best served by promoting the advantage of the whole.

It is important for all of us, especially those from more developed countries, to remember our responsibilities to the rest of the world and to not take our material comforts for granted, as if they are somehow our “God-given rights”.  The resources of the world are the God-given patrimony of every member of the human race.

God is not partial and is no respecter of persons. He has made provision for all. The harvest comes forth for everyone. The rain showers upon everybody and the heat of the sun is destined to warm everyone. The verdure of the earth is for everyone. Therefore there should be for all humanity the utmost happiness, the utmost comfort, the utmost well-being.

But if conditions are such that some are happy and comfortable and some in misery; some are accumulating exorbitant wealth and others are in dire want — under such a system it is impossible for man to be happy and impossible for him to win the good pleasure of God. God is kind to all. The good pleasure of God consists in the welfare of all the individual members of mankind.

(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Foundations of World Unity)

Even in times of economic downturn in the U.S., the yawning wealth gap ensures that the “ultrarich” keep spending-though across town, their neighbors continue to struggle.

An article published a few months ago in The New York Times, for example, profiles “ultrarich” New Yorkers who boast that the recession has done nothing to slow down their profligate spending. Speaking of a particularly extravagant vacation involving a private jet, massages, custom-rolled cigars, and guided rides in racing boats and fighter jets, one individual remarked: “It was just all out – it was insane. I’m not afraid to spend money like that.”

That said, let’s pause and turn to another article, published in the same paper. It profiles a relatively young couple, the Harrises, with two children who, after striking it rich with the dot-com boom, found themselves spending with increasing frequency, amassing a huge amount of “stuff”: toys, gadgets, clothes, cars.

Yet, instead of feeling secure, fulfilled, as if they had “made it,” all they felt was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of “stuff” they had accumulated.

So, they did the extreme. They rid themselves of nearly every material possession-including their wedding bands-and moved to a cabin in Vermont, where one partner would be working from home.

A friend of mine maintained that their example was aberrant, atypical of the norm. But I argued that it’s indicative of an increasingly common trend among affluent Americans: that of the move away from a wealth-at-any-cost, workaholic, materialistic mentality, and toward a career and life path that is more meaningful, holistic, and humane.

Take the Teach for America program, for instance, in which recent university graduates-after undergoing a rigorous application process-commit to spending two years teaching at poorly-performing public schools. A recent article reveals that many of its participants are high-achieving graduates of elite universities, who have chosen not, unlike many of their peers, to cash in their degrees for lucrative jobs in investment banking, for example.

Juxtapose these two diverging trends, and it looks like we’ve got a serious case of cognitive dissonance going on in the U.S.

What’s going on here? Why the extremes?

Your guess is as good as mine. The time-worn adage, “Money doesn’t buy happiness,” has persisted for years, yet we haven’t seemed to learn from past examples.

But I read a quotation the other day from a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith. Though it was written over seventy years ago, the words hold chilling relevance what the Harrises had felt, what had caused them to suddenly and dramatically reject their materialistic lifestyles:

The materialistic civilization of our age has so much absorbed the energy and interest of mankind that people in general do no longer feel the necessity of raising themselves above the forces and conditions of their daily material existence.

(Shoghi Effendi, Directives from the Guardian, p. 86)

Bahá’u'lláh, the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, speaks of the lofty nature of humankind; that we’re capable of reflecting those noble qualities of God. But, we’re also guilty of getting caught up with the crass materialism that runs rampant in society. He warns against this:

Ye are even as the bird which soareth, with the full force of its mighty wings and with complete and joyous confidence, through the immensity of the heavens, until, impelled to satisfy its hunger, it turneth longingly to the water and clay of the earth below it, and, having been entrapped in the mesh of its desire, findeth itself impotent to resume its flight to the realms whence it came. Powerless to shake off the burden weighing on its sullied wings, that bird, hitherto an inmate of the heavens, is now forced to seek a dwelling-place upon the dust. Wherefore, O My servants, defile not your wings with the clay of waywardness and vain desires, and suffer them not to be stained with the dust of envy and hate, that ye may not be hindered from soaring in the heavens of My divine knowledge.

(Baha’u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 325)

Both passages refer to the conscious effort required to resist succumbing to overt materialism. I don’t think that forgoing all of one’s possessions and retreating to the woods is going to provide any lasting solution for humanity-for the Harrises, I can only infer that it made them feel less burdened personally.

What I can glean from studying the writings of the Bahá’í Faith, however, is that a much larger awakening must occur as to the limitations of rampant materialism as a quick-fix to happiness, alongside an outcry against the excessive wealth gap that continues to persist. We’re beginning to see the faint glimmerings of that today, but as it grows, I can only imagine that these efforts will flourish. And as humanity grows impatient with economic injustice and crass materialism, then just maybe, those efforts will bring about a more just and humane global society.

While this may be true in time-boxed studies like the one described, I can’t imagine that the solution is anything more than temporary. We all know that life doesn’t provide us with an endless supply of positive reinforcement – or to use the old cliché – life has it’s ups and downs. Perhaps, for a more lasting effect, we should expend our energy on educating youth (and adults for that matter) on the true worth of material possessions:

Consider ye! No matter how much man gains wealth, riches and opulence in this world, he will not become as independent as a cow. For these fattened cows roam freely over the vast tableland. All the prairies and meadows are theirs for grazing, and all the springs and rivers are theirs for drinking! No matter how much they graze, the fields will not be exhausted! It is evident that they have earned these material bounties with the utmost facility.

Still more ideal than this life is the life of the bird. A bird, on the summit of a mountain, on the high, waving branches, has built for itself a nest more beautiful than the palaces of the kings! The air is in the utmost purity, the water cool and clear as crystal, the panorama charming and enchanting. In such glorious surroundings, he expends his numbered days. All the harvests of the plain are his possessions, having earned all this wealth without the least labor. Hence, no matter how much man may advance in this world, he shall not attain to the station of this bird! Thus it becomes evident that in the matters of this world, however much man may strive and work to the point of death, he will be unable to earn the abundance, the freedom and the independent life of a small bird. This proves and establishes the fact that man is not created for the life of this ephemeral world — nay, rather, is he created for the acquirement of infinite perfections, for the attainment to the sublimity of the world of humanity, to be drawn nigh unto the divine threshold, and to sit on the throne of everlasting sovereignty!

(Abdu’l-Baha, Tablets of the Divine Plan, p. 44)

It’s hard to accept, but neither the Rolex nor the surround sound system nor the fancy new SUV will ever bring us the material success of the little guy in the picture!