A More-with-Less lifestyle is a very good way to promote social justice in the world, because how we use money has an impact on others.
Living More-with-Less is not only about spending less money and living frugally, it is about using money in a just way.
Consider the words of Robert Martin, author of Abnormal Anabaptist, as he discusses the issues of justice as it relates to the Kermit Gosnell case.
‘How many times have I had the opportunity to use my money to help someone else and, instead, have used it on my own selfish desires?’
There are many reasons why women turn to the types of services that Gosnell provided – and a major one is poverty – and the feelings of despair caused by the inability to care for a new life. If we can change the structural violence inherent in our social systems that allow for great inequalities in income and power, we could greatly diminish poverty, broken families, and the other causes behind these difficult decisions women and their health-care providers make. We all participate in an unjust economic system that rewards the ‘1%’ to a very great degree while at the same time it leaves the remaining ‘99%’ fighting over the crumbs. Economists explain this as competing for ‘scarce’ resources.
I have to ask, are resources really scarce? Or are they simply used in unjust ways? Again, I turn to the words of Robert Martin, concerning the good stewardship of our resources,
‘We are all guilty. We all deserve punishment.’
‘I pray, fervently, for God to move in me, to show me what I can do in my community and world so that things like the Women’s Health Clinic will no longer have a place.’
Amen
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