Whose Face is on the Coin? The Split Economy and Political Theology

[Nimi Wariboko]

 

Whose Face is on the Coin?  The Split Economy and Political Theology

 

By Nimi Wariboko

 

This essay addresses the question before us by wedding a theory of the economy’s fundamental antagonism to the notion of immunitas, or immunity. With this combination of economic theology and political theology, I am able to argue that coin—and for that matter the Caesar’s coin that Jesus examined—represents a twofold immunization that fights against communal flourishing. The coin (state-issued currency) is a symptom of an economico-body politic autoimmune disease. Roberto Esposito has clearly explained the notion of immunitas in political philosophy in his oeuvre. The theory of the economy and its fundamental obstacle is spelled out in my book: The Split Economy: Saint Paul Goes to Wall Street.

 

See the link for the rest of the essay.

 

https://politicaltheology.com/whose-face-is-on-the-coin-the-split-economy-and-political-theology/

 

 

 

Nimi Wariboko, Ph.D

Walter G. Muelder Professor of Social Ethics

Boston University

745 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 420

Boston, MA 02215, United States

Tel: 617-353-0814

nimi...@bu.edu-

 

[Biko Agozino]

Bro Nimi, 

It seems that you are having doubts about your vow of poverty. I guess that the catchy tune by Mike Okri, Time Na Money, must be sticking to your mind especially after it was used as a popular jingle on Radio FM Port Harcourt in the 1980s. I responded to that jingle in one of my poems by stating:

Mike Okri - Time Na Money

Most people work hard

Still yet they dey poor

A few people idle

How manage they dey rich?

Some people murder 

In order to prosper

Many people crazy 

But they no dey lazy

No kill yourself because of money

Money no be everything

Money no fit buy everything

Time and money

Na man dey make them so

Time and money

Woman dey make them too

Make them no control man

Woman go control them (see my collection, Today Na Today)

This essay by you, Wariboko, is an appetizer and it invites readers to salivate about the book main course. My initial reflection is that the split between economy and finance capital appears spurious because finance capital or imperialism is not separate from the economy. The real split is the one between labor and capital but St. Paul did not prophesy about that one as he commanded slaves to obey their masters like God while women should obey their husbands even whey they are abusive. 

Max Weber stated that the reason why capitalism originated in Protestant countries rather than in Buddhist or Catholic ones was because only Protestantism preached that money is a good sign of divine blessings but Marx, Du Bois, James, Williams, Fanon, and Rodney pointed out that it was the enslavement of millions of Africans for hundreds of years that created capitalist wealth, not protestantism. Neocolonialism, according to Nkrumah constitutes the last stage of imperialism which Lenin saw as the highest stage of capitalism. It will be interesting to see how you, Nimi, engages with these materialist theories that are not theological or psychic.

A Freudian slip is visible in the split when you see that contradiction in capitalism as a psychic one and not a materialist one. The critique of capitalism does not start from the assumption that money is the root of all evils. In fact, according to Marx, Capitalism is a damn good mode of production compared to feudalism and to slavery. The critique is that capitalism is not as good as it gets and that the inherent contradictions between capital and labor 

will be resolved through a revolution led by the working class. Nimi, you never even mentioned workers or labor power while invoking St. Paul as the psychic basis for giving to Caesar what is Caesar's.

Biko

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[Nimi Wariboko]

Dear Oga Biko:

 

Thanks for your insightful comments. Let me respond to some of the issues you have raised. First, I am not having any doubt about my vow of poverty. I never took an oath or vowed anything like that; this is not to say that I am busy running after money. A no dey kill myself because of money. I was an investment banker on Wall Street and in Lagos and in these circles vow of poverty was and is unappealing. Academics is my fourth career path as I wander on planet earth. In my past lives I was a journalist, investment banker, and pastor. I have taught even in business schools. My first set of books were in accounting, banking, and management. Religion is a late area of research for me. I was trained as an economist and I had to be retrained to do research in religion and theology. I say all this because the news of my vow of poverty is greatly exaggerated.

 

Second, thanks for reminding me of Mike Okri’s song Time Na Money. Money and time are two topics that fascinate me as a scholar. Check out my books, God and Money: A Theology of Money in a Globalizing World (2008); Ethics and Time: Ethos of Temporal Orientation in Politics and Religion of the Niger Delta (2010); Economics in Spirit and Truth: A Moral Philosophy of Finance (2014), and Ethics and Society in Nigeria: Identity, History, Political Theory (2019).

 

Third, okay, I will find time and money to purchase and read your collection, Today Na Today.

 

Fourth, you said the split between finance and economy appears spurious. We cannot debate the issues here until you have read my book, The Split Economy. Permit me to say that the antagonistic split I am talking about predates capitalism. In the book, I give an account of how the “economy” emerged in the primordial time as human beings began to make provision for the future. I also offer an explanation of the emergence of money (not paper money or coin, but the fundamental concept of assets and liabilities. Money is simultaneously an asset and liability. See my God and Money and Economics in Spirit and Truth). I also argue that the primordial split between the economy and finance somewhat anticipates the internal split of the commodity between use value and exchange value that Marx talked about. The use value of a commodity, the bundle of qualities that is a sign of need and the consuming subject, became separated from its quantitative aspect. In the book there is plenty of Marx to satisfy to you—maybe.

 

Fifth, all these complicated historical and theoretical descriptions and explanations are compressed and, perhaps, a little distorted in the blog essay that you read. Let us wait until you have read the Split Economy and we can re-engage. In the book I did not ignore the split between labor and capital. I only argue that it is not the first split in the economy. Mind you, my book is not limited to making the argument that capitalism is the only form of economic organization and is what has been with human beings from the inception of time.

 

Sixth, the split I theorized in the book is not primarily a psychic one—at least, not that alone. It is precisely materialist, but not reduced to Marx’s sense of materialism. There are many contradictions in capitalism, and I do not by any means deny that the contradiction between capital and labor occupies a prime place in the scheme of analysis. But one should not ignore the psychic investment of consumers in the appeal of commodities. This is an investment that is undergirded by the feeling that one’s satisfaction is always incomplete; no one specific commodity will ever fulfill desire. Desire becomes drive in the Lacanian sense of the word. There is jouissance obtained from circling around the fantasmatic object or dimension of the object. Marx himself argues that human needs have two sides: bodily needs and fantasmatic needs (Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin Books, 1976, p. 125). Marx states in the second volume of Capital: “For capitalism is already essentially abolished once we assume that it is enjoyment that is the driving motive and not enrichment itself.” (Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 2, trans. David Fernbach (New York: Penguin, 1981, 199). So Oga Biko, Marx did not dismiss psychic investment in capitalism as a site of scholarly interrogation of capitalism as I do not dismiss the contradiction between capital and labor in my analysis of finance capital.

 

Finally, I will advise that you wait until the book comes out and you offer a response. I am sure I will learn a lot from you. I really appreciate the response you have already offered for the essay. Thank you very much!

 

Nimi Wariboko

Boston University

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[Biko Agozino]

Thanks Oga Pastor for your generous response to my preliminary reflections. I done drink the pepper soup of your blog post finish, I dey wait the main course of the book before I go yab you again. But I agree say you sabi blow grammar well well. You done try. Keep it up.

Biko

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[Gloria Emeagwali]

Well the venerable pastor dodged the bullet on Paul’s sexism and his justification of inequality.

In the “Communism of the Rheinsche Beobachter,” Marx   points out that Christianity preached the necessity for a ruling class,  preached  cowardice and submissiveness, and

knew only one point in which all men were equal, namely, being born in original sin. He probably went too far.

I know that  there are  also some  theological references that may contradict the above tendencies.

But then, that is where the real split is, namely, between  being partly progressive,  on the one hand, and  being downright retrogressive, on the other, with both  tendencies justified and supported by  claims of divine infallibility. The unrealistic suggestion here is that you can consume  all your pepper soup on  Monday, for breakfast, and have it all on Tuesday for lunch.

GE

On Jul 25, 2020, at 2:54 PM, 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



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