Father, thank you for the response. I have a few general (perhaps too general) thoughts in response.

First, increased productivity, not increased consumption, is the key to generating wealth. Consumption, per se, does not add to social wealth, per se. The key for both society and the poor (though far, far more challenging for the poor) to emerge from an economic morass is to become more productive. This is not the same as just “making more stuff,” in which case consuming more stuff would indeed be important. It is making better stuff, or cheaper stuff or stuff that is either more efficient (less costly) or more effective (greater benefits) . . . or ideally both. By way of example, developing or acquiring the right tool can make all the difference at each step in the ability to plow, weed, fertilize and water the soil so as to increase the harvest. Likewise, low-cost and reliable refrigeration can preserve its transport to market, profitable distributions systems can deliver it efficiently to those markets and thus relatively low-cost food is offered to many. Each step in this complex system – from farm to market – benefits from marginal improvements in development and delivery. This creates wealth to varying degrees for each participant in the chain, including the end-user who can purchase more – and better – food for less, allowing him to focus on what he does best rather needing to use his energy to try to (inefficiently) grow food himself. All of which is to say that last growth is not the result of hyper-stimulated consumption.

Hyper consumption is dangerous, and potentially a sign of decadence. It certainly represents a shift from effort, productivity and discipline to ease, indulgence and potentially dependency. The combination of low cost, abundantly available debt and grossly mistaken assumptions (housing only goes up) allowed us to indulge our appetites for quite awhile. As every spiritual father recognizes, appetites – once stimulated – take on a life of their own. Like the prodigal son (who was the ultimate hyper-consumer), debt is a party on the way up, but tragic on the way down; as a result, institutions and individuals across the world (including the US and Greece) have been forced to take on austerity measures (forced asceticism, as it were) in order to repair their balance sheets. It is necessary, it works – and fortunately it is happening.

As for the poor, their resources are, by definition, inadequate for their needs and as such they are in no position to amplify consumption. The tradition route out of poverty is education (the development of valued skills) that will make the person more productive allowing him to command greater income.

The only people or institutions in a position to consume during difficult times is those with surplus wealth. It is the affluent who have the resources needed to be early adapters and buy expensive new products (and almost all new developments are expensive when first brought to market). As more of the wealthy buy these products this allows the manufacturer to make a higher volume, permitting increasing efficiency in production, allowing them to then offer them for less. This is why the CD, VCR and DVD players that were so exorbitantly expensive when first offered are now accessible to all but the very poorest. Likewise today’s “base model” car is far better than the general luxury car of thirty years prior.

Yet even when the wealthy consume, it must be done with discipline; their level of consumption can not exceed their resources or they too will deplete rather than increase their wealth. (In that sense, no matter how much one has, one either chooses discipline or he will have it forced on him by circumstances – and forced discipline is always much more difficult. The world is replete with bankrupt celebrities, lottery winners and beneficiaries who yielded to indulgence and are now faced with unpleasant constraints. Either way, discipline will be required; you pay now or you pay later.)

The solution, in simplistic terms, is two-fold. It depends in part on productivity: the ability to produce something that blesses my neighbor with something that improves his lot that increases wealth. Yet it also depends on my ability to live below my income so I can gradually build a pool of resources that can then be put to work for me (i.e., invested) – either through ongoing returns or through increased productivity, so I can increase my own resources (wealth). This in turn can (and will) then be used to bless those around me even more. At the risk of overstatement, the first – our offering (however mundane it may seem) to our neighbor – is essentially Eucharistic. It goes hand-in-glove with and builds on the second – our fiscal discipline (asceticism, as it were), by which we can then offer more to more around us.

When it works – and I have seen this in the lives of many, many (though not all) successful business owners – both are almost always present: their work truly is an offering of value to others and their efforts and consumption are disciplined to serve that end. (I have discovered that many actually enjoy the offering, being productive, much more than they do simply “consuming.” Though other things are certainly involved, I can’t help wondering if this is not a key reason why so many become absorbed in their work.) Conversely, when one is missing – and one sees this too often (see the comment above about celebrities, beneficiaries and lottery winners – or just think about how most of us treat “found money”), it does not work.

It seems to me that this is one more indication the God has designed our lives so that we must be both ascetical and Eucharistic if we are to realize any meaningful blessing.