“It’s All About Me”

(This is the fifth in a series of posts analyzing each chapter in Jim Wallis’s new book, Rediscovering Values.)

As I’ve said before in other places, Jim Wallis has a prophetic ability to point out what adjustments ought to be made by those who are otherwise behaving in ways that are dangerous and self-defeating. This chapter, titled, “It’s All About Me,” named after one of the three things that “got us here” [into the Great Recession], is an insightful yet critical assessment of the attitudes that pervaded the American people, from the Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, to Wall Street, and to Main Street.

Jim Wallis doesn’t like the idea of a free market self-regulating because it doesn’t result in the kind of things he wishes for society. He never uses the term “free market” because he cannot get away with calling it “free” (though why he is prevented from doing so begs the question, “What is keeping it from being free?”). While acknowledging that self-interest “often does do its job” (pg. 54), he warns that basic self-interst can turn into self-obsession, narcissism, and dangerous pride.

The rest of the chapter is essentially examples of how our society has become narcissistic and now leans toward extreme individualism, and providing the antidotes of humility and community. Wallis calls Greenspan the “high priest” of the economy in recent years, who said that the principles of self-interest would govern the economy and keep it from faltering. Wallis would do well in his prophetic and critical role to point out in more depth than merely calling Greenspan the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. It is a perfect opportunity to explain the fatal conceit of believing that a central banking institution whose sole purpose is to cushion the blow of excessive self-interest and greed could actually purport to keep the economy in check.

If you are looking for a great examination of the attitudes that caused our recession, Wallis provides great insight into the dangerous and deceptive path of excessive greed and self-interest. But Wallis does not go far enough in his criticism of the Fed. It appears as though if he were to advocate anything (though this section of the book is about the causes and not the cures), he would explain how it is important that in a free market, self-interest is inherently limited by a natural standard of wealth that cannot be artificially manipulated by a central banking cartel approved by the federal government.