God’s values on moolah…
Sep 15th, 2009 by ljkim
The Amish are right…when it comes to work and money: Wealth is a good thing. What’s “evil” is the desire for money apart from adding value… Now I peg this on the Amish, but this is really the Bible’s point of view – yet it’s so contrary to what most people think right now that you really need some radical non-conformists, like the Amish, to bring it home…
The American Dream these days is to get lucky with something really simple or easy, and make a ginormous amount of money from it – so that we never have to work again a day in our lives…We love it when we get something for nothing.
The “Amish Dream” is a little different. (Not that I’m advocating becoming Amish, they have many silly ideas too – like the rest of us – but I think they’re on to something when it comes to work and money). In the Amish dream you would never want to “not-work”, meaning you would never want to let a week go by without adding value to the world through what you do. And it would be considered “theft” to make money while doing nothing – not adding value.
How could we apply this value to everyday life? Well, maybe something like this: to sell your house for more than you bought it is great! Also, to buy real estate and add-value by renovating repairing and making it “better” somehow, then selling it for a profit is also great! But buying real estate for the specific purpose of selling it at a higher price without adding value – that’s not so good.
So imagine what would happen to an auto industry if its goal was simply to maximize profits by making things as cheaply as possible for the highest price. Not hard to imagine eh? It looks like that’s what’s been happening for the past 20 years. Now imagine what would happen if they reversed that – and the goal was to GIVE people as much value as they could…for the lowest price… If everyone did that – we probably wouldn’t be in the mess we are now… Not only that we wouldn’t fall for bad investments, ponzi schemes, and things like that quite as easily… Instead maybe we’d invest more like Warren Buffet: putting our money in companies we believe in with good products that people want and sound business practices…
Anyway…we were meant to DO something, to add something to the overall welfare of the people around us – to provide a useful service, to aid in some way. And when we don’t do that, and get paid for it, we do violence to our souls… I think that’s why people love working with their hands – when you make something you can see what you’ve done and how it can be used… But you don’t have to literally work with your hands to add value: design, business transactions, consulting, artistic work, can all add value to the world around you…
What about us whose jobs are questionable in how much value they truly add to society? The bureaucrats of the world who generate reams and reams of reports and papers of questionable value?
Sometimes the value of a project is questionable – so there’s the risk that it might be pointless, but then it might just work… I think most people would say that’s a risk worth taking…
I think the temptation in bureaucracies is to get comfortable in the meaninglessness… To shut up, keep one’s head down, and collect one’s paycheck without actually doing anything…
It takes real skill and patience and specialized knowledge to really make a bureaucracy work. On top of that it takes passion and dedication to make a bureaucracy work…toward good ends. The world needs people like that.
Btw – have you ever seen the movie Ikiru by Kurosawa? It’s about a mid level bureaucrat who wants to build a playground. Sounds stupid – and yet it’s one of those rare movies that somehow helps you love your Savior, want to be a better person…and live/work (even the fairly mundane stuff) with purpose.