agri.church

So, I’m getting back to writing about the four marks of empire. This time I want to ask questions about how so called “developing nations” fit into the overall global economic system. Is it possible that the “poor” countries of the world function in a similar way as the conquered provinces of Rome? Is development aid and the social and economic terms that come with it just another way of ensuring that the wealth of these countries continues to flow primarily toward the wealthy nations of the world?

Let’s look at how it worked in the Roman Empire. In a book called ‘Pax Romana and the Peace of Jesus Christ‘, Klaus Wengst writes:

So what Rome needed in order to exploit a province economically was above all the provision of an infrastructure, though this was tailored to its own needs. If the term “development aid” had already been in existence it would have been just as much a euphemism for exploitation as it is today(Wengst, page 28)

You see, Rome came and built roads and irrigation systems and other infrastructure to help the provinces “develop”, but in the end it was to make them more profitable for the empire. The infrastructure was built to ease the flow of resources back to Rome.

I suggest that the policies and goals of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund help the world’s “developing” countries develop in a way that makes them more profitable investments for the large corporations of the worlds wealthy nations. I suggest that the flow of wealth continues to flow unabated from the poor and powerless to the rich and powerful. Over consumption in one area of the globe means resources are over consumed in other areas. Despite what the high priests of capitalism say, this world is finite and cannot support a “developed standard of living” for all of the human beings on this planet. We cannot have it both ways. If we want to consume more than our share of the worlds resources, others will have to make due with less than their share. This is called an ‘economics of oppression’. It is only arrogance on our part to trust in our own ingenuity to solve the finitude of resources through technology and good will.

While the policies of global economic empire by and large ensure the flow of wealth from poor to rich, on occasion military control must be used to enforce the system. No regime is safe from the US and it allies if it attempts to buck the system. Play by the rules or you may find your country run by a new government that does. Can we really burry our heads to this “open secret”?

So, if the empire elevates economic greed and avarice into ‘civic virtues’, then what is the shape of a community that serves a ruler who brings reconciliation and peace by sacrificial death rather than military might?(Walsh and Keesmaat page 61) How do we live as followers of Jesus in an empire of all-consuming consumerism?