Reinhold Niebuhr's Quest for Balance in the Public Oversight of Market Economies

Abstract

Three basic themes played indispensable roles in Reinhold Niebuhr's engagements with economic issues: (1) the foundational importance of a theological anthropology for his critical assessment of complex social, economic, and political issues; (2) his focus on two clashing theories of economic order: Adam's Smith's doctrine of laissez-faire capitalism and Karl Marx's revolutionary vision for the collective ownership of property within a centralized state system; and (3) his endorsement of a realistic yet viable alternative to these two classic theories, one that involved pragmatic and incremental steps toward fostering economic justice through the public regulation and oversight of a free-market economy. These pragmatic measures included allocating government resources for vitally important public goods and services at federal, state, and local levels. Though Niebuhr was initially drawn to some form of democratic socialism, he embraced this incremental strategy within the context of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's implementation of his New Deal agenda. My analysis of Niebuhr's contributions concludes with attention to new challenges confronting contemporary quests for economic justice in a post–New Deal era, one marked by an expanding global economy and substantial technical advances in the production and delivery of valued goods and services.What is most distinctive about Reinhold Niebuhr's critical engagements with social issues is his reliance on a theological anthropology to inform his examination of complex social processes. In this regard his Gifford Lectures on The Nature and Destiny of Man are foundational for his scholarly contributions. Of central importance is his emphasis on the dialectic between our intrinsic limitations as finite creatures and our radical freedom as creatures made in the image of God (Niebuhr 1941, 251–60). Niebuhr contends that our struggles to cope with this dialectic render sinful actions virtually inevitable, though by no means necessary—an insightful reconstruction of the doctrine of original sin. On the one hand, our finite limits may dispose us simply to accommodate existing social realities, no matter how unjust or immoral they may be, because we see no possibilities for achieving meaningful changes. On the other hand, our capacities as free agents may motivate us to naively invest our energies in efforts to reconstruct existing social arrangements in ways that have no realistic chances for success. Even more important is the fact that people in positions of power and influence are tempted to use their freedom to advance their own interests, largely disregarding the needs and priorities of fellow human beings in more subordinate or marginal positions. Given Niebuhr's focus on social issues, it is understandable that he portrays pride and abuses of power as the primary manifestations of human sinfulness. Such abuses, he contends, cannot be effectively constrained without the generation of countermovements that are capable of resisting oppressive forms of social, economic, and political power. Over the course of his extended career, Niebuhr engaged these complexities with a pragmatic vision of political realism. The goal was to devise strategies that could potentially contribute to higher levels of social justice, even in a flawed and imperfect world.1Niebuhr devoted considerable attention to the ways in which historical processes exemplify the complex interplay of human finitude and freedom. History follows no necessary order, he contends, precisely because historical developments involve multiple levels of causation, including innovative initiatives by free human agents. While these developments set conditions that both shape and constrain future possibilities for human action, they do not finally determine what we can or should do as free agents. Various branches of the human sciences, including psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, political science, and economics, can illumine some of the ways in which existing social conditions both constrain and facilitate concrete human actions and practices. Yet these studies cannot predict or explain what human beings will actually do because their methods of inquiry do not take into account the full nature and scope of human freedom. Niebuhr also maintains that studies in the human sciences frequently display an ideological bias, one that reflects prevailing interests and values in particular societies, and bestows a measure of legitimacy on those standards as well.2Niebuhr's intellectual autobiography reflects his emphasis on human historicity, because he had become convinced that historical circumstances provide the real milieu for authentic moral reasoning. Accordingly, he highlighted some of the ways in which historical conditions had informed his own evolving perspectives on social issues (1956, 1–23, esp. 15, 18).3 In the 1920s, during his service as a pastor in Detroit, Niebuhr emerged as one of the leaders of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and he described himself as a “pragmatic” pacifist. However, with the rising Nazi threat that led to World War II, he became a strong advocate for effective military action to defeat the Nazi regime and to restore world order. Active support for appropriate uses of military force continued to be a prominent part of his public witness throughout the remainder of his life, especially during the Cold War (Niebuhr 1959). Likewise, Niebuhr's first-hand experience with the auto industry's unjust treatment of industrial workers provoked his strong support for the rights of workers to form unions and to negotiate contracts with their employers for fair wages, reasonable hours of employment, and safe working conditions. Indeed, Niebuhr initially endorsed a form of democratic socialism, and he helped to organize the Fellowship of Socialist Christians.4 Under evolving historical circumstances, especially the New Deal accomplishments of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he embraced a more incremental and pragmatic approach to the construction of sound government policies for regulating and overseeing economic enterprises, one that preserved space for market freedoms essential to a vibrant and growing economy.5In his critical engagements with economic issues, Niebuhr consistently focused attention on two sharply opposed models of economic order: (1) Adam Smith's conception of laissez-faire capitalism, with its emphasis on the self-sustaining dynamics of free-market economies; and (2) Karl Marx's revolutionary vision for socializing property under the control and oversight of centralized state power. In Moral Man and Immoral Society ([1932] 1960), which was first published during early stages of the Great Depression, Niebuhr was sharply critical of both of these classic economic models because they exemplified naïve presumptions about the best strategies for promoting and sustaining the common good in an expanding industrial economy. In particular, they failed to address abuses that would inevitably follow from concentrations of power that were integral to the systems in question.6 In his analysis of laissez-faire capitalism, Niebuhr placed special emphasis on the covert power of economic systems, and he gave Marx credit for directing attention to the ways in which market dynamics rendered virtually inevitable the widespread exploitation of workers by industrial firms. Modern industries had achieved unprecedented levels of efficiency by reconstructing the production of complex products into a well-organized series of simple, repetitive tasks that could be performed by low-skilled workers positioned in extended assembly lines. Given the simplicity of the work they performed, these workers could be hired at low wages with extended hours of employment, because higher paying jobs were not readily available. Such practices served the self-interested quests of industrial firms to maximize profits and to outperform competitors in a free-market economy.It is noteworthy that Adam Smith had himself acknowledged that self-interest was the driving force in the operations of a free-market economy. At the same time he contended that effective managers could best achieve their goals by responding sensitively to the preferences and desires of potential clients and consumers, a theme fully elaborated in his first major work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments ([1976] 1982).7 In that study Smith emphasized the centrality of “other regarding” propensities in human sensibilities. Such sensibilities, he contends, evoke “fellow feelings” that become manifest in our imagination, reasoning, and reflections. Equally important, these feelings dispose us to assess our own actions by viewing them from the perspectives of other people. Smith's central claim was that human beings are formed for society. They are endowed with an original desire to please others and a corresponding aversion to actions that others might find offensive. This perspective suggests that employers and managers would themselves be responsive to the needs and priorities of workers, even as they pursued their own economic goals. Such responsiveness could further motivate workers to diligence and efficiency in their labor, and to loyalty in serving their employers as well, though Smith did not give specific attention to dynamics of this kind. Smith is especially remembered for associating our “other regarding” sensibilities with an “invisible hand” that is operative in a competitive market economy, enabling the self-interested practices of human beings to contribute to a larger social good (184–86).8 For Niebuhr, claims of this kind were naïve at best, and they were not supported by concrete realities in ongoing industrial processes.Niebuhr considered Marx's revolutionary message to be even more problematic, because it envisioned the full integration of economic and political power within a highly centralized state system, rendering virtually all members of society vulnerable to the abusive policies and practices of ruling authorities. Marx's utopian illusions enabled emerging communist leaders to portray themselves as potential liberators for every class and nation, despite their persistent drives to maintain total dominion over their own people. For Niebuhr, these illusions generated an ideological rigidity in communist dogma, even though basic Marxist principles were allegedly grounded in rational scientific inquiries regarding the evolution and development of social and economic systems. The establishment and expansion of Soviet Communism into Eastern European territories, followed by similar developments in China and Southeast Asia, essentially confirmed Niebuhr's assessment of the Marxist vision, especially during the intensification of the Cold War that followed World War II. These developments posed threats of a nuclear holocaust, and they led to direct U.S. involvements in wars with Communist regimes in both North Korea and Vietnam.9Niebuhr initially identified democratic socialism as a mediating alternative to both laissez-faire capitalism and Marxist visions of communism. In principle, democratic socialism could foster higher levels of social justice and economic equality by incorporating economic processes into a free and open democratic government. Following the Second World War, Niebuhr also took note of the appeal that various forms of democratic socialism continued to have within Western European nations (1953a). At the same time he recognized that democratic socialism itself entailed an integration of economic and political powers, thereby concentrating power too heavily in the hands of government officials. In the course of time, Niebuhr embraced a more pragmatic approach to the construction of sound government policies for regulating and overseeing economic enterprises.Niebuhr became convinced that President Roosevelt's evolving New Deal agenda exemplified a pragmatic and incremental approach to the construction of sound government policies for regulating and overseeing economic enterprises, one that preserved market freedoms essential to a vibrant economy while also fostering the well-being of all people. He did consider Roosevelt's earliest efforts to address economic issues inadequate because he believed they did not go far enough. Roosevelt became president, of course, in the midst of the Great Depression, and his first responses were directed toward reviving the nation's industries. Equally important, he consistently opposed expanding budget deficits, and in 1937 he cut federal spending drastically. During that year the U.S. economy actually took a second dip into recession and 14 percent of the workforce remained unemployed. Full economic recovery was not achieved until the federal government invested substantial amounts of capital in military resources during World War II.Beginning in 1935, Roosevelt implemented unprecedented new government policies that were designed both to redistribute wealth and to respond to the needs of the most disadvantaged. Many of these initiatives became enduring features of public law. The Social Security Act provided publically funded retirement benefits. The National Labor Relations Act, also known as the Wagner Act, protected the rights of workers to form unions, conduct strikes, and bargain collectively for wages, benefits, and safe working conditions. The Fair Labor Standards Act outlawed child labor and set a federal minimum wage for workers. The Works Progress Administration employed 8.5 million people in public projects between 1936 and 1943, drawing on their existing labor skills. The Wagner-Steagall Act provided subsidies for low-income housing, and the Home Owners Loan Corporation sold government bonds to purchase faltering mortgages from banks, and to refinance those mortgages for homeowners at long-term low-interest rates. These laws reinforced a long-standing U.S. emphasis on the importance of private property for free citizens in a democratic society. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 formed the Securities and Exchange Commission to oversee banking enterprises, and it established a wall between commercial and investment banking, thereby excluding commercial banks from high-risk investment activities. The Wealth Tax Act of 1935 increased tax rates for the wealthy, and the Revenue Act of 1936 imposed new taxes on undistributed corporate profits.During the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, Roosevelt's achievements were further expanded by the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid, programs that funded health care for the elderly and for the poor. The establishment of these various programs, combined with government funding for public goods and services, more or less embodied Niebuhr's realistic assessment of the government's proper role in the economy. Their purpose was to foster higher levels of justice within the complex dynamics of a free-market economy. Niebuhr had no expectations that public laws and government agencies would produce definitive solutions to the problems posed by market operations. He recognized that such efforts inevitably had flaws and limitations of various kinds, and they required continual adjustments, along with new initiatives. Such modifications had to be informed, moreover, by ongoing critical assessments of evolving social conditions, especially conditions that embodied abusive uses of economic and political power.Within the context of these developments, Niebuhr provided a more systematic account of sound and balanced strategies for sustaining market freedoms while imposing appropriate forms of government regulation and oversight. Of special importance is his essay “The Christian Faith and the Economic Life of Liberal Society,” which was initially published in 1953.10 In this essay Niebuhr emphasizes the positive values of a free-market economy. In his words, “It release[s] the initiative of men to exploit every possible opportunity for gain and thus to increase the resources of the whole of society, at first through the exploitation of commercial opportunities and subsequently through the endless development of technical and industrial power” (1968, 139). The challenge was to preserve the indubitable benefits of free initiatives in economic life while utilizing political power to redress its most obvious “disbalances.” The proper use of political power included both public initiatives to protect social values to which the market is indifferent, and government programs designed to prevent or mitigate periodic financial crises to which a market economy is subject, such as recessions or a deep depression (142).Niebuhr gave special attention to the role that labor unions played in maintaining balance within free-market economies, a point not addressed by Adam Smith or other classic economists. He credited unions with resisting the exploitative practices of industrial and financial enterprises, and with strongly advocating appropriate government interventions in economic processes in order to protect the welfare of the people as a whole. At the same time, Niebuhr was critical of the way power had become centralized in labor organizations themselves. He insisted that unions should be reconstructed in ways that would protect the democratic rights of union members. Otherwise, union operations would require government regulation as well, lest their own leaders should misuse their positions of power for personal gain.11 Any form of power, Niebuhr contended, can be an occasion for sin, even though some viable structures of power are necessary for ordering human affairs. The challenge is to distribute economic power, both by prohibiting monopolies that override free-market competition and by protecting the rights of workers to negotiate fair-labor standards. Undistributed centers of power had to be brought under democratic control so that the highest level of justice might be achieved. Niebuhr recognized that we have to move from case to case and from point to point in achieving justice while preserving freedom in a technological society. He believed that the “unplanned improvisations” of the New Deal embodied a purposeful political pragmatism.In discussing these matters, Niebuhr could have given more attention to Adam Smith's own recognition of “market failures,” in other words, that societies require for their effective operation certain public goods and services that cannot be produced or sustained by free-market dynamics alone. Smith's theory of capitalism largely restricted the legitimate roles of the state to issues of national security and to the enforcement of domestic laws through fair judicial processes, and he was sharply critical of improper government intrusions in market operations. At the same time, he acknowledged that certain public goods and services essential for a flourishing market economy could only be provided by government actions. The goods and services in question included the construction and maintenance of highways, bridges, canals, and harbors to facilitate public transportation; the construction of forts and garrisons in colonial territories to ensure the safety of ships engaged in international commerce; and the provision of public education for the common people, enabling them to read and write, to gain basic competence in math and in mechanics, to become acquainted with “eminent men of letters” in classic Greek and Latin resources, and to develop skills in gymnastics and the martial arts. Smith also cited the importance of an educated clergy, with special references to John Calvin's legacy. Finally, he stressed the need for state action to dismantle monopolies that were undermining free and competitive markets.12 Smith's basic claim was that markets are not capable of providing certain vitally important public goods and services because the goods in question require substantial up-front costs that would undermine any realistic possibilities for free-market enterprises to profit from such investments. He acknowledged, moreover, that states had to impose taxes in order to cover the costs of essential government operations, including expenses for maintaining the “dignity and opulence” of ruling sovereigns. At the same time, he believed that ongoing costs for maintaining public goods should be covered by tolls or duties imposed on people who directly benefitted from the goods in question. Thus, Adam Smith was himself a supporter of pragmatic and incremental efforts by governments to provide goods and services essential to a flourishing market economy.Over the last thirty years we have witnessed a steady unraveling of Roosevelt's New Deal legacy. The most obvious change is the dramatic increase in economic inequality within the U.S. population. The top 10 percent of the population now holds approximately 70 percent of the nation's wealth and 43 percent of annual U.S. income, while the bottom 50 percent have about 2 percent of the nation's wealth and 13 percent of annual income.13 In effect, we have returned to the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, or to the Roaring Twenties that preceded the Great Depression. Equally important, large corporations and their primary beneficiaries, especially financial institutions and investment firms, have been aggressively promoting their own interests in the political arena, and organized labor now has far less capacity to serve as an effective counterforce. Market dynamics have, of course, played a crucial role in the weakening of labor unions. Advances in technology have increased the efficiency of industrial production, reducing the size of the labor force. In the context of an expanding global economy, moreover, a substantial amount of production has been relocated to other parts of the world where workers can be hired with lower pay and fewer benefits. Corporations have also aggressively promoted “right to work” laws that prohibit contracts with unions that would require all workers employed by a given firm to pay union dues. These laws have significantly reduced the financial resources available to organized labor for actively promoting the rights of workers to fair wages, essential health and retirement benefits, reasonable hours of employment, and safe working conditions. The rise of large commercial enterprises with global market connections has had a similar impact. Even public sector unions have been facing increased public resistance with priority directed toward reducing the size and cost of public services. Public unions are faulted for focusing on job security and strong wages and benefits while essentially disregarding questions of quality and efficiency in work performance. This perspective gained noteworthy public attention in Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's successful defeat of a recall effort in the state, which followed his enactment of state laws prohibiting public unions from engaging in collective bargaining for wages and benefits.Given the growth of powerful financial interests over the past thirty years, three goals have gained increasing dominance in U.S. political priorities: (1) lowering federal taxes for the wealthy, especially for income derived from capital gains, dividends, carried interest, and nondistributed corporate income; (2) reducing the size of government at both state and federal levels, thereby substantially limiting resources for public goods and services; and (3) eliminating or sharply restricting government regulation and oversight of market enterprises, especially banks and financial institutions, opening the way for abusive and corrupt practices.Reductions in taxes have been achieved by implementing lower tax rates, especially for corporations and for individuals with the highest levels of wealth and income, and by significantly increasing the number of exceptions and deductions that can shield certain forms of income from tax liability. The result is that some people with very high levels of income and wealth end up paying lower tax rates than members of the middle class. These changes have been justified on the grounds that lower tax rates, especially for the wealthy, will release substantial amounts of capital for innovative new investments, thereby contributing to economic growth. In principle, such growth could offset losses in public funds due to lower tax rates, though there is no empirical evidence to support such claims. Reductions in the size of government have been advocated as strategies for eliminating wasteful spending by inefficient bureaucratic agencies. However, one of the consequences of reduced government spending is that important public works have not been adequately maintained or expanded as needed, such as highways, railroads, bridges, and harbors. Likewise, essential public services have received insufficient support, especially public education, job training, research and development, and environmental protection. Resources of the latter kind previously played a vital role in cultivating a productive work force with requisite qualifications for employment in industrial and commercial enterprises.Regarding the regulation of banks and financial enterprises, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, signed by President Clinton in 1999, removed barriers between commercial and investment banks that had previously been established by the Glass-Steagall Act. This change opened the way for the creation of megabanks that engaged in speculative, high-risk market ventures, especially in the packaging and sale of subprime home mortgages, many of which were expected to fail. These latter practices were key factors in the market collapse that resulted in the current recession. The irony, of course, is that the federal government found it necessary to bail out banks that were themselves in desperate financial circumstances because those banks were deemed “too big to fail,” and their default could have seriously harmed the U.S. economy as a whole. Thus, taxpayers bore most of the burden for addressing these harsh economic realities while bank executives continued to receive generous bonus payments. Equally important is the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission of 2010, which eliminated restrictions on corporate contributions to the political activities of independent organizations such as Political Action Committees (PACs). This ruling enabled megabanks, financial institutions, and large corporations to exercise their covert powers in abusive ways, and such abuses could only be effectively addressed through the generation of alternative sources of power capable of resisting unjust practices. Direct contributions to the campaigns of particular candidates are still restricted to $2,500 per election, a limit that applies both to corporations and individual donors. The result is that PACs now play a dominant role in political processes, both during political campaigns and in lobbying activities at state and federal levels.Public-policy shifts over the last thirty years have brought to the forefront a different set of divisions in economic and political theory, one that largely displaces Niebuhr's prior focus on contrasts between laissez-faire capitalism and Marxist visions of the collective ownership of property under centralized state power. Contemporary disputes primarily center on the proper role of government in facilitating, overseeing, and regulating a free-market economy, especially in response to what Niebuhr referred to as “disbalances” in market dynamics. This division actually emerged during early stages in Niebuhr's own career. It was manifest in the contrasting perspectives of John Maynard Keynes, a British economist, and Friedrich August von Hayek, an Austrian economist (see Wapshott 2012). In assessing the impact of the Great Depression on the British economy, Keynes concluded that markets could not automatically generate full employment. He was sharply critical of policy makers who were preoccupied with constraining rising government expenditures in response to falling tax revenues. He contended that long periods of large-scale unemployment would persist unless the government provided public funding to relieve the plight of the jobless and to restore aggregate demand for goods and services. Should the government fail to act, he insisted, a “vicious circle” of economic decline would follow.14During the same period, Hayek confronted devastating hyperinflation in the Austrian economy, a condition that was melting away the savings of millions of people. He concluded that attempts to cure unemployment by large-scale government spending would simply make matters worse because it would unleash uncontrolled inflation. He also believed that such spending would bestow too much power on the state, potentially leading to a form of political tyranny. In contrast, he called for government commitments to austerity policies because he was convinced that such policies would restore the confidence of both investors and consumers in the stability of the economy.In America, these contrasting positions regarding the role of government in the economy became manifest in the public testimonies of Milton Friedman (1912–2006) and John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006). Friedman strongly resisted any active government role in overseeing and regulating the economy, while Galbraith stressed the urgency of government intervention to reinvigorate a stagnant or depressed economy. Galbraith also emphasized government's essential role in addressing the needs of the poor.15 Thus, both Keynes and Galbraith would generally have been supporters of Niebuhr's pragmatic approach to economic issues, while Hayek and Friedman would probably have viewed Niebuhr's positions as extreme, and even harmful to a free-market economy. In the current climate, Paul Krugman has emerged as one of the most vocal American advocates for Keynesian economics, a perspective reflected in his scholarly writings and in op-ed contributions to the New York Times.16Barack Obama's administration has taken a number of steps to reverse at least some of the changes that have emerged over the last twenty-five to thirty years, and his initiatives largely exemplify Niebuhr's pragmatic commitment to political realism. Early in his administration Obama was able to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which set aside $878 million in public funds to stimulate economic growth and to provide urgently needed jobs. Included were tax breaks for corporate investments that were expected to create new job opportunities. While this program generated significant benefits, it too was criticized for not going far enough. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was designed to rescue major banks in financial difficulty because of the mortgage crisis. This program did stabilize the financial conditions of major banks, but it has been criticized for failing to hold banks accountable for their own roles in causing the mortgage crisis. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which was established to investigate possible fraud by major banks and financial institutions, simply received insufficient funds to undertake a thorough examination of questionable bank practices.17The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was an attempt to restore standards previously associated with the Glass-Steagall Act, especially the renewal of barriers between the commercial and investment operations of financial institutions. It established a new Financial Oversight Council for banks and investment firms, and it provided greater authority to shareholders for determining appropriate levels of compensation for corporate executives. However, as regulatory details are being devised to implement the Dodd-Frank Act, lobbyists and political opponents have taken aggressive steps to introduce new loopholes that will weaken the practical impact of this act. For example, some seek to provide exemptions for selected corporate users of derivatives and for foreign exchange swaps, and to restrict the scrutiny of corporate pension funds. Given the complexity of these regulatory details, prospects for the law's practical effectiveness in regulating bank practices are becoming increasingly uncertain.Other legislative initiatives by President Obama's administration are also highly important, especially the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a program designed to provide universal access to health care for virtually all Americans. Medicare and Medicaid continue to fund medical services for the elderly and for those who are poor. Programs have also been established to help households at risk of losing their homes to refinance their mortgages in ways that reflect current market values and provide more sustainable interest rates. Additional proposals are on the table as well. One proposal is to restore higher tax rates both for families earning more than $250,000 per year and for undistributed corporate profits. Another is to make additional public investments designed to increase jobs, including tax reductions for companies that provide jobs for the unemployed (especially military veterans), and that restore to U.S. boundaries industrial jobs previously outsourced to other nations. While these are all imperfect and incomplete undertakings, especially in the context of a sharply divided Congress, they are compatible with Niebuhr's pragmatic approach to political realism. At the same time, these initiatives confront vigorous resistance from powerful economic interests that primarily serve those who have benefited most from economic developments and political priorities that gained momentum over the past twenty-five years.18Given the reduced powers of organized labor, the challenge is to find viable ways of mobilizing social movements that can effectively resist public abuses by large-scale corporate enterprises. Is the Occupy Wall Street movement the answer? At a minimum this movement has heightened public awareness of growing disparities in income and wealth in the United States. However, it has not yet generated more specific political strategies for resisting abusive corporate practices, especially the dominant role that large financial institutions now play in shaping public debates about the proper role of government in overseeing and regulating economic processes. Nor has it offered specific proposals for fostering more just economic practices that maintain a fair minimum wage for workers, provide them with essential health and retirement benefits, and enable people in general to develop the knowledge and the skills they require for effective participation in contemporary market processes. In keeping with Niebuhr's conception of realistic strategies for fostering justice and fairness in a free-market economy, these goals cannot be realized without the mobilization of effective grassroots movements and organizations that are committed to the development of appropriate public policies at the local, state, and federal levels—policies that also take account of contemporary developments in an expanding global economy. Jeffrey Stout's recent book, Blessed Are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America (2010), provides an insightful account of what is at stake. Drawing on the larger American story, Stout also makes clear that churches must themselves play a substantial role in these processes if their goals are to be achieved, reinforcing the pertinence of Niebuhr's theological account of pragmatic realism for public issues.