Neoliberalism, Social Inequality, and Christianity of Liberation

Introduction

Human history is founded on inequality. Religions and their gods were created, among other things, to sacralize social and metaphysical orders based on the qualitative distinction between superiority and inferiority of human beings, as in free and enslaved peoples, men and women, nobles and servants, civilized and barbarians, and so forth. The same happens to almost all types of knowledge and philosophies. In other words, human culture, when emerges, naturalizes or sacralizes human inequality.

Rebellion against the naturalization of human inequality is the novelty that transcends, goes beyond the limits of social system and dominant reason, and announces the “good news” to slaves and all the human beings considered “naturally” inferior.

In the Western world, rebellion in the name of equality comes from the Jewish tradition, not from Graeco-Roman culture. The novelty of the biblical tradition is not to teach that God exists – because this was already “known” in Ancient times – but rather to announce a distinct God, one who hears the cry of slaves (Exodus 3) and oppressed, and walks amongst them toward liberation. This is a God who defends the fundamental equality of all human beings.

With Modernity, especially in the 20th century, this notion of human equality became hegemonic, giving birth and providing justification for many social movements and public policies – such as civil rights for Black, and also Indigenous peoples, social rights for the poor and popular movements, women’s rights, as well as LGBTQI+ rights.

It is important to stress that human equality does not eliminate individual, cultural, or even social and professional differences within a given social system. Defending the fundamental equality of all human beings means not accepting differences as a pretext for discrimination and reducing or eliminating fundamental rights. In this sense, the claim for equality leads to the claim for Human Rights.

However, since every action generates a reaction, the push for equality generated a rebellion of those who are against it, beginning with Nietzsche, then becoming an important basis for the 20th-century fascist movements, and finally, ingrained in neoliberalism. By recognizing neoliberalism as a “legitimate” successor of fascism, it is necessary to assert that this anti-equality alliance that unites them has a distinct political-institutional structure, as stated by Hinkelammert: “Fascism is based on the totalitarianism of the State, while neoliberalism is based on a totalitarianism of the market.”[1]

Also, in the same line of reasoning, Pope Francis affirms that the fight against “an economy of exclusion and social inequality,” an economy that kills, is directly linked to the defense of human equality and human rights.[2] In this sense, the struggle for human rights (civil, political, and social rights), as well as the fight against neoliberalism and fascism should be central to Christianity of Liberation and Liberation Theology.

The transition from liberal capitalism to neoliberalism

With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the communist bloc, the 1990s saw the announcement of the “good news” of the “end of history,” as observed by Francis Fukuyama, the consolidation of capitalist globalization, and the hegemony of neoliberal culture replacing modern liberalism.[3]

To better understand the difference between neoliberal culture and liberalism, it is important to distinguish between the myths of liberal Capitalism and Neoliberalism.

In the myth of modern liberal capitalism, there is good news for all humanity: the ultimate meaning of history would be the realization of human desires for all humanity – i.e., social recognition and the unlimited fulfillment of material desires – and the path is through democracy and the free market system.

This utopian vision is a typical expression of the modern world, whether Liberal or Marxist. Driven by scientific-technological reason, humanity would be the “subject of history” capable of realizing, in the immanent world, the utopia of the “realm of freedom,” replacing the medieval utopia where the subject/agent would be God and the object of desire would be paradise in the afterlife.

In this sense, the Latin America Liberation Theology of the 1970s and 80s shared, largely, the Marxist-modern utopia of the Kingdom of Freedom or the Kingdom of God within history and the political theory of socio-political transformation. With the collapse of the socialist bloc, the loss of influence of Marxist socio-analytical theories on social movements, and the inability of sectors of the left to develop a new theory of political transformation in the face of globalization and neoliberalism, Liberation Theology and Christianity of Liberation broke into crisis.

One of the – diverse – causes of this crisis has to do with the lack of proper understanding of what the transition from liberal utopian capitalism to neoliberal capitalist utopia meant. With the collapse of socialism and major technological transformations (especially automation in factories) – that caused the exclusion of large sectors of the working class – the big capitalists became aware that they no longer needed to maintain a false humane façade of capitalism.

This false image worked socially, with the values of human rights and democracy, but now with the openly adopted values of social insensitivity and the cynicism of neoliberal culture, they began to deny the notion of universal human rights (especially the social rights of the poor) and also to condition democracy to the free market.

Democracy should therefore submit to the criteria of economic efficiency and the unlimited accumulation of capital. Capitalism desires unlimited accumulation, and thus, social, and environmental rights became enemies to be eliminated.

The notion that all human beings have certain fundamental rights, regardless of their social condition, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and culture, is an achievement of modernity, and, in the West, it originates in Christianity. This is clear in the famous statement of Paul apostle, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). However, with the postmodern reason’s criticism that there is no universal truth, but rather everything is cultural, the notion of universal values and of human essence, which justified the notion of universal human rights, also fell into crisis.

For neoliberals, there are no rights before and outside the contract. Also, the foundation of contract arises from the right to property and the buyer-seller relationship. In other words, the market system is the cornerstone and basis of all rights. In the neoliberal worldview, there are no human rights, but only the rights of property owners and consumers. Hence, social programs aimed at benefiting the poor, in the name of social justice, would be perceived merely as an injustice against the wealthy, who feel they are being “robbed” by the state through taxation to fund these programs. Moreover, social inequality, instead of being addressed, is viewed, by neoliberal culture, as a driver of economic development and civilization.

In neoliberal culture and within Prosperity Christian theologies alike, the impoverished are perceived as criminals or sinners deserving of their suffering, while the wealthy are seen as blessed by God, as in Christian parlance, for they possess riches.

Thus, in this sense, no concept of human dignity, meaning that which makes all human beings human, and cannot be measured, calculated, traded, bought, or sold could exist. In neoliberal culture, everything is reduced to calculation and becomes a commodity, something that can be bought and sold in the market.

As these ideas were propagated worldwide and became the hegemonic structure of globalized culture, capitalism transformed into something different. With the myth of the “free market” (free from state interventions), capitalism became even more cruel and insensitive to the suffering of the poor.

The challenge of religious language

In parallel with the transition from liberal capitalism to neoliberalism, we have had another challenge within Christianity of Liberation: the relationship between theological-religious language and socio-political struggles in the modern world. This theme of religious language is fundamental because religious language (speeches and rituals) is one of the main instruments of the struggle of the poor and the construction and maintenance of the identity of religious communities and groups.

With the entry of Christians into the political world in favor of the poor, another challenge was faced: one of constructing a new language capable of articulating God and the use of modern social sciences analysis, which presupposes methodological atheism. That is, God is not part of the analysis and proposals for solutions.

Therefore, often the relationship between faith and politics came to mean concretely the following: faith and God appeared in the motivation for Christians to enter the struggle and then disappeared, or lost importance, in modern social analyses and proposals for action. This led Christianity of Liberation to lose its influence or theological dispute within Christian churches. After all, most people who cherish their Christian identity want a religious language in which God plays a central role.

On the other hand, there are Christians who feel unease or are against the use of Christian arguments and liturgies in defense of human rights in the public sphere because this would be a form of “Christocentrism,” putting Christ and Christianity at the center of language, not recognizing the importance of cultural and religious pluralism.

With this in mind, some propose an approach based on religious pluralism or even abandon the notion of religion and faith and replace it with the notion of spirituality and a post-religious worldview. The problem is that almost all socially relevant religions, if not all, have significant sectors within them that deny the fundamental equality of all human beings.

This leads to two problems. In name of which religion and which sectors of certain religions or spiritualties can we defend the fundamental equality of all human beings? The second problem is the loss of influence of Christians defending human rights within Christian churches and the strengthening of anti-humanists. It is as if someone said, “Whoever enters the fight for human rights loses faith in Christ (does not talk much about Christ) and no longer gives importance to the church (doctrine and authorities) and ends up leaving the church.”

In part, this helps us to better understand why, if in the 1970s and 80s, the discussion about religion/faith and politics was led by Liberation Theology with the theme that everyone has the right to live because Jesus came into the world “so that everyone may have life and have it in abundance” (John 10:10). However, in recent years, the theme of Christian faith/religion and politics is being led by churches, Christian leaders as well as leaders of other religions against universal human rights and democracy. In the name of God and their religion, many religious figures in Latin America and around the world are against human rights and democracy, especially social democracy. For them, not everyone is equal, just as salvation is not for everyone.

With this, we can better understand the political and pragmatic alliance between neoliberals and churches and sectors of Christianity, as well as the pragmatic ecumenism among Christian churches that unite against human rights and against the faith in a God who makes no distinction between men and women, rich and poor, white and black, heterosexual, homosexual and so forth…

If there are no fundamental human rights, political-social democracy ceases to be a fundamental value in society, and if necessary for the interests of the market and the powerful, authoritarianism or dictatorship becomes the path of “salvation” for the minority, the “elite,” with the blessings of a god that the biblical tradition calls an idol.

Defending the right to life of the poor and also to a life with dignity – which entails the need to combat the myth of the free market and neoliberal culture – is not, for Christians, merely a social or practical issue, but above all, it is a spiritual problem of faith, requiring spiritual discernment between the idol that dominates the world and the God of Life. Therefore, from the perspective of the biblical tradition, advocating for the rights of the poor and oppressed to live with dignity must be today a prioritized theological, pedagogical, and political task.

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References

[1] F. Hinkelammert, Cuando Dios se hace hombre, el ser humano hace la modernidad: Crítica de la razón mítica en la historia occidental. 2ª edición ampliada y revisada (Ed. Universidad Nacional, 2022), 263.

[2] Papa Francisco, Evangelii Gaudium (Liberia Editrice Vaticana, 2013), n. 53

[3] F. Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (Free Press, 1992).

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© Jung Mo Sung, 2024.

This work is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

Cover Image: Taken by Patricia Palazzo Tsai.