Building a Moral Economy

<p>This introductory volume in the Building a Moral Economy series invites readers into a new vision for the future of economic life together. Ethicist Cynthia Moe-Lobeda crafts a compelling case for a new moral economy: its vital importance the pivotal role religious networks can play and the varied forms of action needed. <i>Building a Moral Economy: Pathways for People of Courage</i> is grounded in the stories of real people with real struggles triumphs and creative energy. Moe-Lobeda invites readers to imagine an equitable ecological and democratic economy for themselves and their descendants and provides wise guidance for living into that vision.</p><p>Readers will re-see economies as webs of relationship and will root economic life in the great love story--the story of God's astounding love for all creation and God's call to align our lives with that love. Readers will encounter the work of economic transformation as a sacred journey--a journey of healing diseased relationships with Earth with self with neighbors far and near and with the Sacred Source whom many call God. Moe-Lobeda conveys this as a journey of freedom to live as beings in community--human community planetary community and community with God.</p><p>Moe-Lobeda's accessible prose explicitly faces the paradox of enormous moral challenges such as climate change held together with infinite hope. Welcoming readers into the vibrant global movement to build life-giving forms of economic life she seeks to develop a sense of empowered agency. Are we the disinterested individuals motivated by material self-interest that neoclassical economics declared us to be or are humans called to think with others past present and future seeking communion with all creation? Moe-Lobeda argues that our lives and Earth's well-being depend on choosing the latter path. The work is urgent; the time to embark on these pathways of restorative justice is now.</p>