This is one of a series of posts that will ask what the most pertinent question raised by a prominent influencer of political economy might have been, and what the relevance of that question might be today. There is a list of all posts in the series at the end of each entry. The origin of this series is noted here.
After the first two posts in this series, the topics have been chosen by me, and this is one of those. This series has been produced using what I describe as directed AI searches to establish positions with which I agree, followed by final editing before publication.
As this series has developed, it has become clear to me, and to others, that it is about those economists, political economists, moral philosophers and others who have most influenced the development of my own thought, either positively or negatively, and I do not differentiate, because we need both such influences to develop thoughts of our own.
It is in that context that the subject of this essay – Jesus of Nazareth – became an obvious person for inclusion. I was brought up in an evangelical Christian household, and then rejected that faith in my late teens, before discovering a very different understanding of what faith might mean in my thirties as a Quaker. Quakers were founded in the Christian tradition, but do not demand adherence to that faith now. The teachings of Jesus of Nazareth were, however, fundamental to the development of my moral understanding of life, and remain so. It is for that reason that Jesus of Nazareth – a person who I do not doubt existed, whatever else is claimed about him – makes an appearance here.
Jesus of Nazareth stands at a strange and revealing crossroads in the history of ideas. He was not an economist, nor a philosopher in the academic sense, and yet his teachings contain one of the most radical moral critiques of economic systems ever articulated. In the world he inhabited — a society marked by imperial domination, crushing debt, dispossession, and stratified hierarchy — he placed the poor, the sick, the excluded, and the burdened at the centre of moral concern. His message directly challenged the idea that wealth signified virtue and that poverty revealed failure. Instead, he insisted that justice began with care, that solidarity outranked status, and that a society should be judged by how it treated its most marginal members.
Hence, the Jesus of Nazareth Question: if the measure of a good society is how it treats the least of its members, how can any economics that tolerates neglect, exclusion, and inequality claim moral legitimacy?
A world shaped by empire and debt
The historical Jesus lived in a political economy structured by Roman imperial extraction, elite landholding, and the crushing weight of personal indebtedness. Farmers lost land to creditors. Families were pushed into servitude. Taxation, tithes, and rents hollowed out subsistence. In this world, poverty was not a moral failing; it was the predictable result of political and economic design. Jesus' repeated return to the themes of release, forgiveness, and reversal was therefore not abstract spirituality but a direct commentary on economic injustice. His call to “release the captives” and proclaim a “year of jubilee” drew on an older Hebrew tradition that recognised the corrosive social effects of spiralling debt and extreme inequality. His message was a challenge to a system built on extraction, hierarchy, and fear.
The inversion of moral worth
One of Jesus' most consistent themes is the inversion of status: the last shall be first; the meek inherit the earth; the poor are blessed; the rich are warned. This was not piety but an explicit moral critique of economic order. In a society where wealth conferred honour, and honour conferred power, Jesus insisted that the true test of a community was whether it upheld the dignity of those without property, privilege, or security. His teaching cut directly against the belief that prosperity was a sign of virtue. Instead, he emphasised that compassion and justice mattered more than accumulation. This inversion exposes the moral emptiness of any system that celebrates wealth while ignoring the suffering that often accompanies it.
Community over competition
Jesus' ethic was rooted in community rather than competition. He taught that relationships — not possessions — form the basis of a fulfilling life. His gatherings broke the social boundaries of class, gender, ethnicity, and purity that structured the ancient world, offering instead a vision of mutual responsibility and shared care. In economic terms, this is a rejection of the idea that individuals flourish in isolation. It asserts instead that human well-being requires solidarity, shared provision, and a willingness to bear one another's burdens. In modern language, he understood that societies disintegrate when competition becomes the ruling principle.
The critique of wealth without responsibility
Jesus' strongest language is directed not at ordinary wrongdoing but at those who accumulate wealth without regard to justice. The parable of the rich fool, the warnings to the rich young ruler, and the denunciations of those who “devour widows' houses” all confront the moral hazards of wealth in a system where poverty is widespread. This is not an attack on wealth per se but on unaccountable wealth: wealth insulated from the obligations of care. In modern terms, it is a critique of rentierism, financial extraction, and the hoarding of resources while others lack the means to live with dignity. His moral stance exposes the contradiction at the heart of neoliberalism: the idea that private gain automatically produces public good.
The politics of compassion
Jesus' focus on healing, feeding, and inclusion was not mere charity. It was a declaration that the structures of society must be arranged so that no one is left outside the circle of care. His teachings imply that compassion is not a private virtue but a public responsibility. In this sense, his vision aligns with the idea that public services — health, housing, education, and support — are expressions of collective moral purpose, not optional extras. To treat people as disposable is, in this framework, to betray the essence of community.
Economics as moral practice
The picture that emerges from Jesus' teaching is that economics cannot be morally neutral. Decisions about taxation, debt, labour, land, and care are always decisions about justice. They shape who is safe and who is vulnerable, who flourishes and who is left behind. Jesus' message confronts the idea that economics is a technical science operating outside moral judgment. Instead, it insists that society is accountable for the conditions it creates. If the pursuit of wealth harms the poor, corrodes community, or entrenches fear, then it is morally indefensible, whatever its efficiency.
What answering the Jesus of Nazareth Question would require
To take Jesus' teaching seriously as a political-economic critique would require:
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Re-centring the vulnerable in public policy, requiring that institutions be judged by how they treat those with the least power, not the greatest wealth.
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Confronting the ethics of wealth accumulation by imposing obligations on wealth, closing off rent-seeking, and ensuring that those who benefit most from society contribute proportionately most to its maintenance.
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Relieving the burdens of debt and insecurity as a consequence of recognising that chronic indebtedness, poverty, and precarity destroy lives and undermine community.
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Embedding compassion into the design of public systems meaning that healthcare, education, housing, and care are not treated as commodities but as expressions of shared responsibility.
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Reasserting that the purpose of economic life is human flourishing and not profit, or wealth accumulation, requiring the restoration of dignity, security, and hope.
These are not theological positions. They are the practical implications of a moral vision rooted in justice rather than accumulation.
Inference
The Jesus of Nazareth Question confronts us with a moral reversal. If the well-being of the poor is the true measure of a society, then much of what passes for economic success today is exposed as failure. Jesus' teaching demands a political economy built on compassion, solidarity, and responsibility — not because these are charitable virtues, but because they are the conditions of a just society. His challenge is contemporary: an economy that sacrifices the least for the comfort of the wealthy cannot claim moral legitimacy. The task he sets is therefore political and not devotional. It is to build a society in which the dignity of every person is upheld, and in which freedom is measured not by wealth but by the security, belonging, and hope shared among all.
Previous posts in this series
- The economic questions
- Economic questions: The Henry Ford Question
- Economic questions: The Mark Carney Question
- Economics questions: The Keynes question
- Economics questions: The Karl Marx question
- Economics questions: the Milton Friedman question
- Economic questions: The Hayek question
- Economic questions: The James Buchanan question
- Economic questions: The J K Galbraith question
- Economic questions: the Hyman Minsky question
- Economic questions: the Joseph Schumpeter question
- Economic questions: The E F Schumacher question
- Economics questions: the John Rawls question
- Economic questions: the Thomas Piketty question
- Economic questions: the Gary Becker question
- Economics questions: The Greg Mankiw question
- Economic questions: The Paul Krugman
- Economic question: the Tony Judt question
- Economic questions: The Nancy MacLean question
- Economic questions: The David Graeber question
- The economic questions: the Amartya Sen question
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I must confess I was surprised to see this chap make it into your series about major economic questions….. but on reflection, of course he should be there.
If I reflect on what makes me think what I think it started with him and how he profoundly influenced men and women who I admired. Those folk are long gone…. but his message still resonates.
I was also surprised. He was nowhere near my originally list. But when it occurred to me, it had to happen.
We’re surprised that Jesus of Nazareth’s name comes up on a blog primarily about economics (except it never could be just that) but I think one reason for this is because we’ve been brain-wahed into thinking it’s all about genetic evolution (and a poor slant on that Neo-Darwinism) when in reality the incredible enlargement of our brain means cultural evolution allows us to make up for our physical and psychological limitations as a species. Isn’t the tool of democracy driven by cultural evolution?
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2218222120
Solon – 600BC – same approach & by 450BC the Greek playwrights (tragedies) were emphasising the importance of empathy & compassion. However, the Greeks, whilst worshipping an assortment of gods did not need to couch their social/societal approach in religious terms.
That said, there is much good stuff in New Testament is is great work of literature & Tyndall’s translation has stood the test of time. I still need to make the pilgrimage to Vilvoorde where there is a monument/garden to the man.
Greek democracy has been over-rated (largely by the capitalist class as protection against over-reaching monarchs). Their city states ran on a high usage of slaves, women and people without property (paupers) who were denied the vote and the city states were constantly at war with each other. Not much difference between Greece and this country in its early years.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mUdisni1J9dGtVA2thBRVHJDb30ciLSx/view
https://voidnetwork.gr/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Democracy-by-Charles-Tilly.pdf
See page 9
Tyndale is one of my heroes – I think the King James bible is 70% Tyndale . These modern translations have lost all the poetry. Getting burnt at the stake for his pains. Pity the Church didn’t take Jesus’s teachings to heart.
I don’t think there is any contemporary historical evidence that JC existed although there were quite a few similar ‘prophets’ around that time.
As a member of my book group said – darkness at noon, the temple curtain rent in twain, earthquake etc – ‘you would have thought someone would have noticed’
Rachel Reeves, if administering the wealth of this so called Christian country, would be well advised to follow the egalitarian teachings of Jesus of Nathereth in her prospective budget.
There is a question about the definition of society to be addressed, for there is a smorgasboard of options. There’s a Latin phrase whose name escapes me to describe a question with a false premise. MHT was sceptical of claims of society saying something like “There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.”, and she got re-elected on multiple occasions. Of course, i’m not saying that the definition of society is on the ballot, but if how we think of society can be inferred from how we vote, then all of us get to decide what society is.
I wouldn’t want to live under that level of collectivism.
So, your selfishness means you don’t believe in democracy then, because it can only be about the collective.
Oh come on to have reached an age where you’re denying that life in the universe is a mixture of selfishness and collectiveness which we consistently have to work at balancing beggars belief. What on Earth do you think democracy is all about from which you have undoubtedly benefitted?
That’s OK, Alfred. You are free to reject your community. But your community will not reject you if it is based on caring. I realise that must be hard for you to accept.
I can’t help wondering if “Alfred Rosenberg” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Rosenberg) is the same person as “Alfred Jodl” who also sometimes comments here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Jodl).
There’s probably a Latin phrase to describe obvious trolling, but I’m afraid it escapes me.
Probably, they are.
And that is why he had to die! We should never forget the magnitude of the fight that is required to bring about justice. And his message has been misdirected ever since – mainly by the established church(es).
This is excellent, and I say that as someone with a theological and devotional commitment to Jesus.
Since retiring from a wealthy market town to a large pre-war council estate on the southern edge of Bristol, I have found myself reading both Hebrew & Christian scriptures again from my new context – the context of poverty, oppression, discrimination, injustice, inequality, authoritarianism, arrogance – I could add plenty more words, you get the idea – and discovering so much that I hadn’t paid enough attention to before – I knew it was there, I worked in a foodbank and on a small social housing estate but was not immersed in it as I am now – it hadn’t controlled and dominated my thnking and choices before, as it does now.
Equally powerfully the current situation in the Holy Land made me more aware of the colonial/imperial context of the New Testament, as well as the covenantal obligations laid on the “chosen” in the Hebrew scriptures, which they so often failed to fulfil.
My theological convictions about who Jesus IS, which go beyond what you write above but which I believe are consistent with it, are both empowering and motivating me, and give me hope (and I definitely need hope, the grimness of the world is so often overwhelming) – in the sense that the things Jesus taught and lived out, are not just inspiring ideals reflecting the best that humans can and should be, but are woven into the very fabric of the universe, AND human nature, by whatever lies behind it – which I call God, and both the hope, the pain, and the contradictions, the unavoidable theodicy issues (why does God allow such injustice? etc), the cries of incomprehension, the suffering and apparent defeat of death, are expressed in the life and death (and, I believe, the resurrection), of Jesus of Nazareth.
If I were to place my own life somewhere on a gospel timeline, then the bit of the story that makes most sense to me right now, is Gethsemane. A lot of fear, wrestling, hard questions, pain, but also trust, faith, hope and determination.
Richard, we are coming to Jesus, and life, from different places, but your work, and this post, encourage me tremendously, so thank you.
KUTGW!
Thanks, and much appreciated.
For me Jesus of Nazareth for his time got close to explaining to human beings how the universe works with his purported injunction to love thy neighbour as thyself. Increasingly today we are discovering that caring for both self and others is built-into the universe as a mechanism. The problem is we don’t fully understand as yet the need to persistently and effectively work at balancing this caring and it’s this need that is driving our development of democracy. This country was at one stage at the forefront of developing democracy because it industrialised first now its capitalist class has undermined that democracy and sent us backwards. Today we badly need a “Full Democracy Party” which will restore that lost democracy and take it further.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mUdisni1J9dGtVA2thBRVHJDb30ciLSx/view
See page 183
There are many examples of how this double-sided caring, or reciprocity if you like, is embedded in the universe. I have previously posted some of them. The anthropologist Christopher Boehm’s “Reverse Dominance” theory is one. Eshel Ben Jacob’s discovery of it in bacteria is another, so is Stephen Kosslyn’s Social Prosthetic System. Here they are in more in detail:-
https://takku.net/mediagallery/media.php?f=0&sort=0&s=20150105180501874
https://ankara.lti.cs.cmu.edu/11780/sites/default/files/BacterialLinguisticsandSocialIntelligence.pdf
http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/42836/1/380.pdf#page=546
Here’s an over-view of caring in the universe:-
https://api.mountainscholar.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/c08c4ee8-632e-4735-8239-4ac0c73d270b/content
Another suggested name for the list: Mr and Mrs Smith
We can all be economists with the correct facts.
🙂
This has been an excellent series so far! Thank you! I hope it continues!
Of course environmentalism was not an issue that Jesus or many other economists addressed. I wonder then if you might consider further the perspectives of some ecologists and environmentalists since Schumacher (who you have included) whose work extends to considerations of ecological economics, in the light of climate and environmental resilience, people such as Kate Ranworth (Donut Economics), Molly Scott Cato (Green Economics), Natalie Bennett (Change Everything, 2024) and the like?
Kate Raworth is on the list.
Bring ‘em on! Mariana Mazzucato? Abby Innes?
Both are on the long list
I suggest that this and the list of Bible Quotes that @robertj has kindly compiled need to go somewhere in the ‘About’ or ‘Glossary’ section of the site and not just be ‘buried’ in the Blog
Perhaps a section is needed for the ‘Economic Questions’
They will become a downlaod, eventually
Richard excellent article as always.. Yet in American the only message of Christianity that has been warped and pushed down everyone’s throats is the prosperity gospel.. not that it is harder for a richer person to enter heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.. Would be interesting to hear you debate the Trump sycophant JD Vance!
Here is to 500,000 youtube subscribers very soon…
Vance, Trump and the prosperity gospelers are outright deniers of the Truth.
I guess the fact that the poorest people in the richest economies (which happen to be what you would call neoliberal) and many times better off than the poorest people in the socialist / left wing countries (that you support) is somewhat lost of you?
Where are these socialist / left wing countries?
And have you heard of purchasing power parity?
And what measure of “well off” are you using?
Please exp,lain in full: you made the claim.
@ Jim Bob
I will credit neoliberalism with being better at public relations than socialism. The reality:
❌”Everywhere the Chicago School [neoliberal capitalism] crusade has triumphed, it has created a permanent underclass of between 25 and 60 percent of the population”
❌”according to Brazil’s later-established truth commission, killings by the state became routine”
❌”In just over a month, at least half a million and possibly as many as 1 million people were killed”
❌”The exact number of people who went through the Southern Cone’s torture machinery is impossible to calculate, but it is probably somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000, tens of thousands of them killed”
❌”The economic plan has had to be enforced, and in the Chilean context that could be done only by the killing of thousands”
❌”the wars in Chechnya have killed an estimated 100,000 civilians”
❌”The years of criminal capitalism have killed off 10 percent of our population.”
❌”By May 2007, more than 900 contractors had been reported killed”
Source: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein
https://amzn.eu/d/fAmspcx
Sadly, much to agree with
As you are no doubt tired of hearing I am an atheist who lives in a so-called ‘Christian’ country he finds to be increasingly cruel and indifferent and seems to be governed by death.
Religion is part of that death cult, because we are told that the ‘here and now’ is meant to be crap because when we die there is apparently a place called heaven where everything is OK for ever. This is a major problem in human society and underpins why we treat each other and the planet so badly, and why we are effectively so good at self-destruction. Religion in that sense has a lot to answer for. Sorry.
Another thing is that we have an addiction to suffering present as well. I suppose we are made to feel guilty if life is ‘too nice’. No! There has to price for everything – even happiness. Oh dear……….
Looking at Jesus as I do as a man of ideas, I would have followed him in his day. I try to now – try to remember – and I fail a little every day somehow. His message to me was simple:- you can have happiness – guilt free – if you just treat those around you nicely – all you have to do is care, look beyond one’s self. It’s so simple, I could cry.
Yes – the Nazarene has to be included in your list because despite saying that we do, we do not. If you see what I mean.
Thanks
Understood
Thank you Richard. If you manage to have some quiet time today, have a listen to the piece at the link below. It needs no words from me.
https://share.google/U5TMBYuyVuOVIrj8D
The Tallis Scholars are brilliant. Great piece .
I see they are performing at The Apex, Bury St Edmunds on 21 December.¹
Noetd…
I was brought up in a so called Christian church, a small one with very strict rules. When I read the Bible as a young lad I was struck by the kindness and compassion of Jesus and watched as the church I was part of showed literally no kindness and compassion to anyone, and enriched its leaders. I left it and my family when I was 17, but have always been attracted to people who put kindness before money.
There are probably five or six people who have influenced me during my life, they all cared about people more than money.
Thank you for this, Richard.
I don’t really have a faith, but I believe, as you do, that Jesus was a good role model in life.
Sadly, his name has been hijacked by those who care only about themselves. They are without ethics or integrity. Hopefully they will be found out before it’s too late.
Thanks
Great book to read connected to this topic.
https://amzn.eu/d/0BXzkT3
“All things in common”
“if the measure of a good society is how it treats the least of its members” …. then inequality is an irrelevance. The far more important issue is absolute poverty and a society where no one starves should measure higher than one where everyone starves equally.
Politely, there is not the slighest logic to what you suggest. “The least” is relative, not absolute and entirely about inequality. What is it about words tht you do not understand? Might you explain?
there has been a theological movement in the direction you indicate, Richard.
It is not one I know much about but the Latin American ‘Liberation’ theology was/ is strong.
There were Marxist elements in it which Pope John Paul II didn’t like. He was a Conservative in many senses.
Pope Francis knew of it and the present Pope spent a lot of time in Peru. It is an influence which will probably grow and change but which will also divide. Christ did talk of a sword Matthew 10:34 meaning his teaching will bring division. It challenges the power structures.
This is longish but readers might be interested
https://www.globalsouthstudies.org/keyword-essay/latin-american-liberation-theology/
I am very aware of liberation theology, its hostory and the costs to some who have promoted it. Their task has been both worthy and wworthwhile.
Thank you Richard for all your prolific work in sharing your insights on this blog – it is very educational and thought provoking.
Jesus spoke in parable seemingly directly on the subject of money in the parable of the talents.
Until recently I thought the point of this parable was if you have an ability at something that you can use for good don’t let it atrophy – develop it and use it for good intention.
But then somewhere I read that a talent was a weight measurement in practice equivalent to a large sum of money today. In one version of the parable it is said that the servant with the least talents could have given it to the bankers but buried it as he feared his master who ‘reaped where he did not sow’.
I would love to know your take on this parable in particular and its meaning.
Also I am under the impression that at the time of Jesus fiat currency had not yet been invented hence the use of talents (correct me if I am wrong) – if this is the case maybe Jesus invented it in spirit with the feeding of the 5000?
Might I leave that to the theologians? I have always doubted the veracity of that parable, it seems so strange within the context of the Gospels.