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“Death creates an economy that makes life precious. One of the ways of naming that preciousness is friendship.”
Stanley Hauerwas

CPX sent Brian Rosner to the ‘Happiness Conference’ in Sydney. Here is the second of his reflections on the conference.

Greed as a Religion

Brian Rosner

  'There are many people who have acquired a high degree of political and social liberty, but only a few are not enslaved to things.’
Abraham Joshua Heschel 		 

Doubts about Western materialism

One thing every speaker at the happiness conference agreed on was that 'money can’t buy happiness.' Some just repeated the clichés. Others offered more detailed explanations. The first 10% of your income purchases 90% of your happiness.  Habituation, the act of becoming accustomed to something through prolonged exposure, means that that new computer or sofa or car or holiday house supplies ever-diminishing pleasure. Even lottery winners eventually return to their previous default level of happiness.  

In recent years a number of academics and social commentators have in fact questioned the rampant materialism of the Western world. They argue that if people are trying to get rich in order to be happy, it isn’t working.

Elizabeth Farrelly wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that 'Western happiness has declined precisely in tandem with the rise of affluence.'  Similarly, Ross Gittins claims that there is actually 'evidence that those who strive most for wealth tend to live with lower wellbeing.'

Why then do material ambitions still dominate so many of us? What explains the delusion that makes us think, given material plenty, we would feel differently?  Why is contentment so elusive? Affluenza, a book by Clive Hamilton, who spoke at the conference, compares materialism to a disease. In his view the Western world is in the grip of a consumption binge that is unique in human history. We are addicted to excessive consumption.
  In the Middle Ages theologians regarded greed not only as a deadly sin but also as a deadly illness
 
 

This plausible diagnosis is one that Christians have in fact made for centuries. In the Middle Ages theologians regarded greed not only as a deadly sin but also as a deadly illness. Greed was commonly thought to be the spiritual equivalent of dropsy, a malady that provoked an insatiable thirst for water even though the body was already filled with fluid. The more the sick person tried to satisfy their thirst, the more it was stimulated until finally death ensued. The comparison with the negative impact of greed is apt.

Other critics of greed have compared it to a religion. Two newspaper stories about materialism used religious rhetoric in their headlines: 'In greed we trust' (instead of 'in God we trust'); and 'A city obsessed – Through its worship of land and buildings, Sydney has found the stories that tell us who we are and what matters in life.' Another example is an obituary for high profile stockbroker Rene Rivkin that spoke of his ‘once-loyal entourage of supporters who worshipped their high priest at the altar of wealth.’ One review of Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad commented that it 'isn’t just a wealth creation manual, it’s a religious tract.'

As it turns out, the comparison of greed with a religion is hardly original. The New Testament warns not infrequently of the religious power of money. Jesus charged that people either serve God or Mammon (i.e., possessions; Matthew 6:24 / Luke 16:13). The apostle Paul believed that some people’s god is their belly (Rom. 16:18 / Phil. 3:19) and he condemned greed as a form of idol worship (Col. 3:5; Eph. 5:5).

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