Thinking anew:As Job once famously asked: if we take happiness from the hand of the Lord must we not take sorrow too? And why should we worry, anyway? Have not the prophets told us that all will be well again in early 2010?
Christianity takes a back seat when the sages speak of upskilling, while avoiding fluffy concepts like the dignity of a person's labour. Social snobbery attributes higher values to certain types of employment and professions than it does to others.
We often take action to protect our professions from foreigners or our farming produce from outside
competition, but there is little sympathy for the factory worker when his or her work is sent abroad. In the new morality the less-respected employment can be farmed out to the developing world while we keep the jobs with the social prestige and bigger salaries.
Would it be the same if barristers from, say, India or accountants from Slovakia produced the same work as our barristers and accountants but at a cheaper rate? If factory workers in Indonesia can skilfully solder delicate circuit boards, surely their medical compatriots can perform micro-surgery equally well? We afford such dignity to these professions that we could not countenance their movement offshore. Yet every new financial services company that opens up here has moved from somewhere
else, and it could move again before we know it.
Returning to a society that values work for its dignity rather than its social prestige is a desirable dream. But the floodgates of greed opened a long time ago and the bonus culture we have developed is going to be hard to reverse. Returning to the old morality of an honest day's pay for an honest day's work sounds almost jocular. Everything is about the economy.
It's funny that the word economy is simply the Greek word for housekeeping! The bank account plays a pivotal role in all housekeeping, but there is more to housekeeping than a healthy balance on paper. Good housekeeping involves nurturing,
entertaining, warming and feeding the household. It draws on the skills and gifts of all its members and values every member's contribution. It comforts, heals, challenges and protects. In times of plenty it is generous to itself and those around it. In times of scarcity it focuses on the important things. It is also at these times that the great creativity and inventiveness of the household members become most evident. A good economy should also value these things, respect all its members and draw on the wealth of their creativity in the difficult days.
An economy built solely on balance-books and the inherent vulnerability of gambling on the stock markets is not prudent housekeeping - though your new accountant in Malawi might make it look good on paper!
Two thousand years ago we were warned of the futility of building bigger barns. It's still true.