Making space for a healthy economy

If you are fed up of seeing advertisements for mince pies and other Christmas items in budget German supermarket chains since September, I have a suggestion. Take a stand against commercialism and start planning your Bright Friday event now for November 23.

Bright Friday is the brainchild of Martina Lehane Sheehan. She dreamt it up as an antidote to the crassness of Black Friday, an annual orgy of shopping the day after Thanksgiving is celebrated in the United States.

In her vision, bright Friday is a time for reflection and meditation. It was held in a number of places last year, including in Cork.

Meditation

For example, there was an inspiring programme of music, reflection and meditation held in the beautiful and atmospheric University Church, Stephen’s Green, Dublin. It was hosted by Columba Press, Martina Lehane Sheehan’s publisher.

The idea was to provide nourishment for the soul and a respite from the frantic busyness. When my husband, Brendan Conroy, read about Bright Friday in The Irish Catholic, he was inspired to approach Fr John Bracken, who made Dundrum Church available for a reflective service of music and readings in the evening.

These are just a sample of some of the possibilities for an alternative to the greedfest of Black Friday.

The Thanksgiving holiday, aside from the large food shopping bill for the Thanksgiving meal, is mostly a non-commercial family event.

That is why it is so sad that post-Thanksgiving is given over so much to consumption, which continues right through to Christmas.

The origins of the Black Friday tag are less than salubrious. Some trace it to disruptive events in Philadelphia in the 1950s when massive crowds of shoppers used to descend on the city in advance of a famous Army vs Navy football game.

Police in Philadelphia had to work extra shifts to cope with the crowds.  Not only that, but shoplifting was rampant.

Retailers tried to put a more positive spin on these events, while retaining the Black Friday name. To a large extent they succeeded, to the extent that people in Ireland now expect bargains on Black Friday, even though we do not celebrate Thanksgiving.

However, for many people, it is a troubling reminder of how our entire economy is dependent on excessive consumption.  The market even has its own characteristic deity.  It is called confidence, as in market confidence.

This mysterious entity must be continually placated or boosted.  When market confidence is low, serious trouble lies ahead, apparently.

The primacy of the market in our culture is taken so much for granted that it is hard to imagine another system.

Illusion

Communism proved to be a terrifying illusion, and socialism is largely a spent force, not least because it insists that the primary relationship of each individual is to the State. By ignoring the need for strong families, socialism ironically only succeeds in reinforcing the individualistic values of consumerist capitalism.

An alternative vision to unhealthy capitalism was spelled out by a panel on the economy at the World Meeting of Families. A kind of social capitalism which recognises that businesses need to be commercially viable in order to provide employment and contribute to the common good is a reality in some places, particularly in Italy. It sees the goal of business to provide for family and to protect human society and the environment.

In contrast to this holistic vision, Prof. Stefano and Prof. Vera Zamagni, Luigino Bruni and Prof. Ray Kinsella, pointed out that the family is basically seen as providing fodder for the marketplace, while being undermined at every turn by government policy. Yet where do people learn to be responsible, trustworthy or honorable, if not in the family?

And we all know what happens to the economy if people fail to live by those values.

Martina Lehane Sheehan’s decision to provide an alternative to Black Friday inspired others. It would be great if the Church’s vision for a social economy, particularly as set out in a recent Vatican document. ‘Considerations for an ethical discernment regarding some aspects of the present economic-financial system’ similarly inspired people.

It echoes the words of St John Paul, that the Catholic tradition calls for a “society of work, enterprise and participation” which “is not directed against the market, but demands that the market be appropriately controlled by the forces of society and by the state to assure that the basic needs of the whole society are satisfied”.

It might seem a far cry from the simple reflective spaces that Bright Friday promotes to the sweeping reforms that such a change in emphasis in the economy would demand.

But by creating spaces where timeless values can be appreciated, it might also create the space to challenge in more profound ways a culture that tells us that what we can buy is all that matters about us.