Torch, Winter 1992

Wirt by Gordon Heffern ~ free m"'kot is built on tmst If we want our economy to work at its best, we have to be able to trust one another. Perhaps the best illustration of that is the continuing problem with the economy in the former Soviet Union. There, mistrust continues to hinder trade, even as the government makes some effort to loosen market controls. In my travels to communist Russia, I never saw goods displayed openly in stores. I would have to get a clerk to open a display case to show me an item. Then the clerk would give me a receipt which I would take to the cashier. Once I had paid for the merchandise, I would get a stamped receipt to take back to the clerk. Only then would the clerk deliver the item to me. It was a very inefficient system, and one built on a lack of trust. Even now, a Russian shopkeeper will not put goods out on a counter where people can pick them up, freely look at them, and take them to a cashier– because there would be rampant stealing. The communists claimed their system was a leveling process, where everybody got the same. But it did not work, and generations of unfairness taught the people to trust no one. That mistrust is thwarting attempts to move toward a capitalist system. When goods become available, people hoard them. Or when they have opportunities to save or invest money, people refuse, because they are afraid the government will take over their assets. Now reformers in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries have openly invited religious groups, especially evangelical Christians, to come and advise them . They recognize the need to start with the spiritual dimension of trust, morality, and ethics. Many welcome the Bible and Christian media as a way to begin programs in their schools to build a moral and ethical system. Ironically, just as the people who have lived under communism for most of this century are beginning to understand the moral underpinnings of a free economy, Americans are abandoning those ethical principles which allow us to trust one another. The communist system required a so-called "value-free" education in which the teacher would not espouse any code of right and wrong. In contrast, the historical American pattern of teaching the values of the Ten Commandments and the golden rule instilled in people a sense of integrity and honesty. The title poem from the book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum captures the essence of moral education. He learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don ' t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess....(p.6-8) Our kids have always learned those basics through the home, the church, even through peers on a playground, and certainly in school. But now Americans want a "value-free" education, and a "value-free" society. We no longer have prayer or Bible reading in school. It may be permitted under the law, but many school boards, administrators, and teachers are so afraid of lawsuits by either a parent or a civil liberties group that they decide not to use the Bible-even as a work of history. In the former Soviet republics, the government will have to start the process. of moral education because government 1s the only institution in that society. The schools have no independent status. Hopefully, reform will lead to a strong business community, an investment and banking community, and other areas whose leaders can support the market system.