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From Wasteland to Promised Land: Liberation Theology for a Post Marxist World. - book reviews
American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, Oct, 1993 by George Gilmore
DREAM AND VISIONS, a sense of wonder, Aristotle's source of learning, abound in From Wasteland to Promised Land: Liberation Theology for a Post Marxist World by Robert V. Andelson and James M. Dawsey (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, and London: Shepheard-Walyn, 1992).
The wonder includes multidisciplinary reflections in history, economics, philosophy, theology, Hebrew and Christian culture and ancient languages, and political science. Consequently, the book is vulnerable to professionals who have written multi-volumed studies of areas blithely water-skied over in a chapter, or indeed, a paragraph by our present authors.
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The book is an application of single-tax, or better, land (site) value taxation to the agenda of Latin American liberation theology. Another subtitle for the book could be "Progress and Poverty in Latin America." The contents of the book mirrors the moral outrage in the rhetoric of both the great Hebrew prophets of social justice, and of Henry George. The dismal science meets the prophet Amos citing "a preferential option for the poor" in Republican Alabama.
This reviewer found the book to be a stimulating and complete introduction to land (site) value taxation applied to Latin America. In the context of liberation theology, it gives succinct coverage of the history of Latin American colonialism, varying scenarios for economic and land reform, religious leadership and/or its idolatries, the scriptural foundations for social justice, economic patterns of free trade and dependency theory, Marxist illusions, the interrelations among national, populist and individual ownership, contemporary land value taxation in several US states and in various foreign countries. It appends a chapter on the life and thought of Henry George. And all of this in 120 pages! Surely this is two Davids taking up arms against a sea of Goliaths!
They are to be commended for the sheer chutzpah of leaping into an arena either suffocated by the sumo wrestlers of specialized learning, or, oppositely, an arena stark empty because all fear to tread into areas demanding such vulnerable breadth. Among the book's implications: 1.) Republican ideology of minimal disincentive taxation/maximal freeing of labor and capital, mixed with Democratic ideology of enfranchised populist welfare for the dispossessed through redistributed wealth. 2.) Enthusiastic Congregationalist and Methodist use of papal documents. 3.) Single paragraph summaries of the economies of Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Apropos of such brevity, the present reviewer does object to the apparently literalist use of Hebraic scripture accepting Israelite domination of the Promised Land. In the text of scripture, that domination occurred through genocidal holy war (herem) which legitimated a history of crusade and jihad: Deus lo vult! The authors' listing of putative Canaanite sins, which presumably legitimate genocide, sadly mirrors the rationale of any religious elite seeking moral or theological justification for its atrocities. The authors of the present book do disclaim any use of their material to justify expansionist Zionism. A forceful disclaimer would also seem to be in order which recognizes exclusivist Hebraic hegemony as allegory and metaphor. Thus all humankind, even Canaanite farmers, deserve social justice.
|George Gilmore, department of theology, Spring Hill College, Mobile AL 36608.~
COPYRIGHT 1993 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
