Traditional conservatives in our area, I imagine, felt like they were caught between the devil and the deep blue sea when they voted yesterday.
The devil is Donald Trump who has hijacked their party, turning it into a populist, xenophobic, anti-free trade, anti-government party of grievances. The deep blue sea is Kamala Harris, whose ideology may be far too deep blue than they can support, even though they admit they are attracted to her temperament.
But wait! There are signs that the party of the Bushes and the Romneys might be at the early stages of making a comeback, at least locally. Dr. Rachel Ferguson established the Free Enterprise Center (FEC) at Concordia University in 2019 and points to Milton Friedman’s book Capitalism and Freedom as articulating where the center is coming from.
“Milton Friedman,” she explained, “argues that economic freedom, achieved through a free market system, is a necessary precondition for political freedom, essentially stating that the more economically free a society is, the more politically free its citizens will be; he believes that government intervention in the economy should be minimal to allow for maximum individual liberty and choice in the market.”
She said the center’s conservative economics fit well with Concordia’s social and theological conservatism.
Concordia Senior Nadia is a Lutheran Education major and explained why she became a fellow in what is essentially an economic and business center. “If we desire to live in a just society, a free market is the best option because it is a society that is ruled without favoritism, protectionism, or prejudice.”
And here’s where the compassionate piece fits.
Concordia’s motto is truth, freedom, vocation. The concept of vocation is big in Lutheran thinking. It’s the idea that the work we do is not just a way to pay the bills. It’s bigger than a career or profession.
The concept of vocation is captured in the promotional material for a Business Leaders Breakfast hosted by the Free Enterprise Center, scheduled for Nov. 15. “Is business just a way to make money?” the flyer asks. “Or can the marketplace be a venue for service to others?
Dr. Ferguson puts it this way, “I refer to myself as a classical liberal. One of the things about the Scottish Enlightenment tradition is that there is a strong emphasis on the fact that in a free society people need to be virtuous.”
She is aware of the reality that free markets can breed unethical entrepreneurs who are in business for themselves only and are willing to achieve success by any means available.
She would agree with commentator David Brooks, who a couple weeks ago made the comment, “The rise of Donald Trump shows it’s an advantage [now in our society] to have no conscience, that you can rise and succeed in America, both in his business career and now in his political career, if you actually have no conception of right or wrong. You only have a conception of yourself.”
True to her ideological foundations, Ferguson, and therefore the FEC, argue that the antidote to bad behavior is not more government intervention but a society that focuses on virtue.
The FEC applies this moral perspective to how they respond to their neighbors. “We want to serve people who are very close to us geographically,” she said, “who are in declining neighborhoods.”
Part of the FEC’s approach to a compassionate relationship with their neighbor across the Des Plaines River is the attitude that the people in the neighborhood know what they need, which prevents the center from swooping in from an ivory tower with “the solution.”
That’s why they cultivate relationships with people they refer to as “persons of peace,” i.e. “anchors in the neighborhood, grassroots leaders like Bishop Reginald Saffo, the chairman of the Proviso Township Ministerial Alliance Network (PTMAN), who have already been trying to do good but need more resources.”
One of the complaints Ferguson kept hearing as she got to know the business community was how isolated many business owners felt, what Ferguson calls “network poverty.”
To address this issue, FEC and PTMAN jointly sponsored a daylong workshop, which was held at Concordia in August and led by a nonprofit called True Charity. At the event, poverty was compared to a hole that people at the bottom could not get out of.
One way of addressing poverty is to throw money and food down to people in the hole. That approach makes life for the poor better for a day or two but it doesn’t help them get out of the hole or free them from dependence.
Better to throw them a ladder called business and enterprise, which they can use to climb out of the hole.
So far, the rungs on the ladder have included the True Charity event on Aug. 5 and three networking breakfasts. On the calendar is a film called Vision on Nov. 7, followed by discussion at Concordia and the Business Leaders Breakfast, referred to above, and pluralism training, scheduled for Jan. 24, which will include the screening of the film Undivide Us.
Let’s hope they’re on to something.