Prayer for feedback / pushback
I myself also am persuaded of you, my brothers, that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another [as well as me]. (Romans 15)
Dear reader,
Thank you.
This blog allows me to practise my writing and to develop my thoughts. That is only possible thanks to you. I have a small audience, with a few hundred reads per essay, so each of your thoughts counts. Therefore, I write this humble epistle to pray feedback of you directly. What do you like or dislike? What topics would you like to read more or less of? What should I keep or change in my writing style? Everything you suggest will improve my writing, and therefore your reading. Please leave feedback however you like; by comment, share, or by writing a book destroying my entire argument; replying to this e-mail works; even a brief thought is well appreciated.
In particular, I would like to solicit feedback on my ongoing essay series, a complementarian critique of the economy. We began with an essay about the vocation of lay brothers, using their elimination to explore what complementarity is. The second essay provided a teleological analysis of working-class labour. The third essay, not yet released, will turn to the upper class, thus building a complementary model of the economy, then argue that our society has wrongly adopted an egalitarian standard of economic classes. This leads us into the bulk of the series, with subsequent essays addressing solutions to our economic problems.
It is on these subsequent essays where I would most appreciate feedback. What have you liked or disliked so far? What should I change or preserve in my writing style? What topics should I address or skip in the essays? Preliminary thoughts are provided below. Some are summaries of already-written draft essays, others are random thoughts. Feel free to ignore, develop, criticise, or add your own ideas as may help to guide your feedback. If you would like to write longer pieces, I am also happy to restack or cross-post them. If you received this prayer by e-mail, I will also receive your replies.
Thank you for your readership, and I thank you in advance for your feedback as we together develop a complementarian critique of the economy.
Sincerely,
Tijmen O van der Maas
Proposed topics for feedback / pushback:
Oikos and economics: Modern economic theories only value work when it is in the marketplace. The etymological root of ‘economics,’ oikos, describes the management of a self-sufficient household. On this blog, it has been described as Home economics. Based on GDP, though, a self-sufficient household of Amish are economically a zero. Taxation emphasises this: Why can I deduct costs from my company’s taxable income, but not from my household’s taxable income?
Domestic work and sexism: The above topic is closely related to sexism. Economic theories that only count the marketplace have no place for domestic and care work, which are typically female areas. Why do governments provide incentives for ‘working mothers?’ Are housewives not working? This topic will be covered, at least in part, in a separate essay already in draft form: Defence of the feminine.
Choice and calling: It is already controversial enough to argue for a natural difference in the vocation between economic classes; this controversy reaches fever pitch when we address sex, an entirely unchosen characteristic. People don’t like the idea of a ‘vocation’ (from Latin vocare, ‘to call’) that is unchosen. Nonetheless, God only gives us two choices: to respond to his call or not. Kierkegaard says that picking one or the other is a leap of faith. I argue that the leap of faith to fulfilling our true vocation, regardless of what we would have chosen for ourselves, is a good thing.
Income vs. sales tax: In the UK, individuals pay 20% VAT. Buying £100 of food costs £120. However, if we instead hire someone to produce that food, we need to be registered employers, pay payroll tax, national insurance contributions, etc, and then our employee needs to pay income tax on what is left. To put £100 in an employee’s pocket might cost closer to £300. Our taxation system thus encourages the purchase of goods from far away corporations in economically weak countries, and discourages labourers having a dignified connection to the fruits of their labour.
The moral responsibility of consumers: Managers of labour are morally bound to provide their labourers with dignified work, including a living wage. Since each purchase we make is really a usage of our financial capital to direct others’ labour, consumers indirectly take on the role of managers. This means that we are morally bound in the same way as managers: it is sinful to purchase goods produced by undignified labour or underpaid workers. ‘Vote with your wallet.’
Localism: Further to the above, it is economically virtuous to use our capital to fight the alienation of labour: to pay a tailor to make clothes, rather than buying them from H&M; to have a friend or local artist paint for you, rather than buying art off an anonymous Amazon seller; to hire a local gardener to cut your hedges, rather than importing one from a low-wage country. This goes against the grain of our consumer capitalist economy. It is costly and means that we can afford less goods. However, Christians are called to be different and poor in the eyes of the world.
Charity vs. handouts: The dignity of labourers is to provide through their own labour. Therefore, charity takes ‘teaching others to fish’ as its primary strategy. ‘Feeding them fish’ is a last resort for desperate cases. This does not rebut the obligation to charity, it refines our charitable strategy. An economy where most of the working class depend on handouts is neither a virtuous economy nor is such welfare a virtuous exercise of charity.
Technology, AI, and inequality: Technology is meant to complement our work. However, neo-Luddites like myself worry that ‘current approaches to … technology can paradoxically deskill workers’ and ‘replace human workers rather than complement them.’1 The benefits of technology concentrate in the hands of those who own it. This is even more the case with AI, which is in the hands of a few corporations, and which tends to monopoly (models that get used more, ‘learn’ more, and thus become better, and get used more.) AI will also, paradoxically, lead to a greater inequality between the working and the upper class, by cutting more white collar workers out of the upper class.
Pope Leo’s solution to the economic problems: In Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo suggests that our economy can solve its problems through ‘associations’ and ‘wise guides.’2 Associations are groups where the upper and working class combine to collaborate on the fruits of their labour. Wise guides are what MacIntyre calls ‘virtuous practitioners:’ to virtuously engage in a practice (like labour), we must also have exclusive organisations, vocational training, and mentor-/apprenticeships where higher standards are set.
Encouraging blue collar work: Pope Leo also writes about ‘following on the path trodden by our fathers.’3 I believe this refers to the cultural shift needed. The most important task in returning to a complementarian standard is to recognise the dignity of the working class. This will come about when we adopt the other solutions mentioned above. But we must also be the change we wish to see in the world. We must promote the dignity of the pilot as well as of the airline CEO, the mechanic as well as the engineer, the gardener as well as the landscape architect. A ‘born follower,’ as we called the lay brother, will be more virtuous and dignified if he lives out his vocation to be a follower than if he strives to be a leader.
Antiqua et Nova (2025), sections 67-68. This Church document on AI is worth a skim.
Rerum Novarum (1891), par. 60.
Ibid.