Alternatives to Maximizing Profit and The Fragility of Power

by Peter Ulrich and Julia Lis Sunday, Mar. 22, 2020 at 8:44 PM
marc1seed@yahoo.com

We must look for the "signs of the times" that point to the coming of the Kingdom of God or, as John Holloway puts it, the signs "of the presence of the material power of the cry." The world of struggle against the instrumental power that oppresses and exploits often seems invisible.

"ALTERNATIVES TO MAXIMIZING PROFITS”.

Business ethics

[This 2009 interview with the Swiss economic ethicist Peter Ulrich is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/wirtschaftswissen/wirtschaftsethik-es-gibt-eine-alternative-zur-gewinnmaximierung-1828834.html?printPagedArticle=true#pageIndex_2.]



In a new encyclical the Pope denounces the profit motive. The Sunday newspaper has discussed the matter with business ethicist Peter Ulrich. He defends the Holy Father, criticizes managers and demands economics for fifth-graders.

In a new encyclical the Pope denounces the profit motive. The Sunday newspaper has discussed this with business ethicist Peter Ulrich. He defends the Holy Father, criticizes managers and demands economics for fifth-graders.

Professor Ulrich, the Pope has written in his new encyclical that money should not be speculated with. Is that really bad?

Generally, no. But if the speculative mentality detaches itself from any consideration of practical consequences in life, then that is irresponsible.

Moreover, as a lesson from the crisis, Benedict demands not to strive for the highest possible short-term profits, but to pay attention to the long-term benefit of an investment for the real economy. What does that mean?

Basically, he demands that the financial economy, i.e. all banks and investment companies, be put back into the service of the national and global economy, thus reversing a relationship that has contributed significantly to the current problems.

... When the Pope explicitly comments on the crisis, he obviously includes morality.

Certainly. If one tries to bring this crisis to its central point, it probably expresses the peak of an all too radically independent thinking about money.

Does this have anything to do with the complicated financial products that many buyers apparently have not understood?

Such so-called financial products - basically nothing is produced there - are a typical symptom of this profit maximization doctrine. In them, risks were concealed, securitized and scattered around the world. The essence of these products is ultimately to make money out of money without taking the tiresome detour via the real economy.

And that is bad?

The principle of making more money and more and more money by almost any means is not the solution but the core of the problem.

But in economic books it says that if everyone tries to make the biggest possible profit, and be it by investing money, it must be good for everyone.

We are just beginning to realize that an ideology that tries to sell particular interests as the common good or "prosperity for all" lies behind this idea of harmony.

What do you mean by this?

Some people benefit particularly from the market economy and say that we all benefit from it.

But the high returns of the banks have contributed to pre-crisis growth and thus increased general prosperity, which is good.

I disagree. The high returns are a consequence of one-dimensional thinking. After all, profit maximization means that I subordinate all conflicting value considerations to this one dimension, without regard to the consequences for the people affected. For all too long, the billions in profits made by the big banks were cheered in a simple-minded way and nobody really wanted to know how they came about.

Is there an alternative to maximizing profits?

I think there is. A fair, balanced economy would always begin by asking what legitimate claims are affected by economic activity.

The Pope also admonishes that. He criticizes that there is a "cosmopolitan class of managers who often only follow the instructions of the main shareholders".

Yes, and he rightly writes that good corporate management must also take account of employees, customers and suppliers, for example.

Is it reckless for a bank manager to claim a 25 percent return for his institution?

I do indeed consider this target to be vulnerable. After all, one of the minimum insights is that an excessive pursuit of returns is a major mental cause of the mess. In this respect, it is a fatal signal if figures such as 25 percent return are once again being used as the only binding target figure for the company's success. This suggests that a rethink has not taken place.

Don't managers - after all, their families also want to be fed - have to aim for high profits because otherwise the owners will throw them out?

This is exactly what I call "forced rhetoric".

It's strange: The same people who want to make us believe in Sunday speeches that the market is the epitome of freedom are constantly talking in this mode of having to - someone, usually the anonymous competition, forces them to do this or that.

But this competitive pressure is not imaginary.

Not that, but behind the constraints there are self-imposed thinking constraints! It is the profit maximization doctrine itself that ultimately generates the compulsion to do ruthless business. We citizens can expect more from real leaders.

Namely?

At the top of influential companies belong people who are credible because they have integrity and do not divorce their economic thinking from their self-image as decent citizens.

What would they do better?

They would never just talk about returns, but would always demand of themselves at the same time to serve all stakeholders, and thus not just the owners, in a fair way.

Do we not also need better incentive structures to make such behavior possible?

Deterministic thinking in incentive structures is itself a problem. Intellectually, it degrades us all to puppets. Then we wouldn't need expensive managers, because they would have almost nothing left to decide and justify. That is not the case, of course.

What is it like?

Companies are highly elastic entities. Managers can and should very well determine the direction according to responsible principles.

What is left for politics?

First of all, it has the task of shaping framework conditions that are beneficial to society, which means that it too should no longer think of the economy in such a technocratic way; behind all "incentive structures" there are certain ideas of what is good and right...

...and it follows that...

...that we cannot answer the question of what economic activity is efficient for with purely economic categories. These should be practical and social criteria.

Specifically: What do we do for?

A colorful bouquet of lifestyles blossoms for a good life in a liberal society. The problem with existing structures of practical constraints is that they restrict rather than extend the real freedom of citizens. Our aim should be a society in which as many citizens as possible live in real freedom. The problem is that the increasingly fierce competition of the market economy increasingly restricts rather than extends the real freedom of citizens. Our aim should be a society in which as many citizens as possible live in real freedom. To achieve this, we must make a clear distinction between citizens' freedom and the free market.

Are we not free in the market? We can choose between many products and training courses.

After all, real freedom is not just freedom of consumption, but the ability to lead a self-determined life.

Can we even manage such a new economic mentality?

Education is the key. We need a comprehensive economic civics education analogous to civics education. It is not enough to know only the functional principles of the market economy system without understanding its appropriate role in a well-ordered society.

So economic civics is part of the curriculum from the fifth grade on?

For example, if I learn as a young person that consumption alone does not make for the fulfillment of life, then I also want a corresponding social order in which not everything is subordinated to economic logic. On the other hand, if you see having more money as an end-in-itself, you naturally feel threatened as soon as politicians try to influence this.

And what if someone really just wants to earn more money?

In a pluralistic, open society, individuals should be free to think as money-oriented as they wish in their private lives. They should just not be allowed to expect others to have to orient everything according to their philosophy of life. That would be as intolerant as any religious fundamentalism.

Finally. you founded the Institute for Business Ethics in St. Gallen twenty years ago. Did your message get through?

Yes, it's even more important. Twenty years ago you often heard the sentence of the satirist Karl Kraus, in which a student comes to his professor and says that he would like to study business ethics, and the professor replies: "Now you make up your mind, young man: one or the other?" Fortunately, we are far from that today.

___________________________________________________________________



For Peter Ulrich, the integrative business ethics he founded is about "clarifying from the ground up the relationship between economic factual logic and ethical reason, which has literally become questionable, and redefining it in a sustainable, life-sustaining way. (Ulrich 2001: 20) There should be an economic-ethical primacy of the aspects of life service over the logic of the market. In an overview there are three basic tasks of business ethics:

The critique of "pure" economic reason (economism)

Clarifying the ethical aspects of a vital economy

The determination of the "places" of the morality of economic activity

However, in order to counteract the steadily advancing tendency towards economism, Ulrich sees the "critique of economism as the most important task of basic reflection on economic ethics" (Ulrich 2001: 15).

Peter Ulrich, like Karl Homann, has from the outset addressed the widespread view of the two-world concept of economic rationality on the one hand and ethical reason on the other. The specific basic idea of the integrative approach is to overcome this two-world-concept "in an (integrative) idea of socio-economic rationality that already has the rational-ethical point of view in itself. (Ulrich 2001: 17) The point is to integrate the economic system with its own logic into "rational forms of political-economic decision-making" (Ulrich 2001: 335). Market forces must be integrated into the ethical and political principles of a well-ordered society. Ulrich himself writes: "It is one of the defining features of the integrative approach that he understands economic ethics in this sense as a piece of political ethics of embedding the market economy in a well-ordered society of free people". (Ulrich 2001: 17) The integrative approach consistently maintains a moral point of view. It is about a methodologically disciplined ethical reflection that takes all socio-economic and political circumstances into account. The position of man and economy is clearly defined: Since the economy is an instrument created by man to serve him, no moral reflection can take it as a starting point. The starting point can only be the rational man himself.



"THE FRAGILITY OF POWER” (JOHN HOLLOWAY)

Political-theological reflections on the possibility of a liberation practice today and the role of social movements

by Julia Lis

[This text published in 2018 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.itpol.de/lis-die-zerbrechlichkeit-der-macht-holloway/

The text is a revised version and was first published in: Prüller-Jagenteufel, Gunter/Perintfalvi, Rita/Schelkshorn, Hans (ed.): Macht und Machtkritik. Contributions from a feminist-theological and liberation-theological perspective, Aachen 2018. Lis Die Unterbrechung der Macht (Holloway) This and other articles can be found in the "Texts" section.

1. "There is no alternative?!"

Margaret Thatcher's repeated statement about an economic and social policy based on neo-liberal reforms and dismantling of the welfare state, that there are no alternatives, has become a much criticized word for years. In German politics, it has met with inflationary reactions since 2009, so that "without alternative" was even named the unword or nonsense word of the year in 2010.1 Linked to the TINA principle ("There is no alternative") is a way of thinking that sees politics as determined by unavoidable constraints and can only think of actions within a given framework of capitalist order.2

Behind the popularity of the dictum of the absence of alternatives is the widely hegemonic conviction that politics and economics must necessarily follow the logic of the capitalist market. The prosperity of humanity can only be secured in the long term through the free play of market forces, based on competition and the pursuit of profit.3

In their book "Empire", Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri have described the capitalist order as we experience it today as a project in which economic and political power are brought together.4 The title "Empire" is intended to illustrate the basic imperial structure of the present world: The ethically political conception of Empire is based on the understanding of one's own order as a space that encloses the entire civilization and at the same time is presented as unchangeable.5 "Empire presents its order as permanent, eternal and necessary.6 Empire is not based on violence, but rather on a consensus in which the use of violence by the Empire is legitimized as being in the service of law and peace and is thus based on the consent to its own power.7

Hardt and Negri describe the concept of bio-power, which they take over from Michel Foucault, as being linked to the phenomenon of Empire. It is about a transition from a society in which rule is largely based on the external disciplining of subjects through rules of thought and action, the observance of which is monitored and sanctioned by external instances, to today's predominant form of the control society.8 Here, subjects are no longer monitored from outside and rule is no longer enforced by external coercive means, but disciplining and control increasingly take place in people's heads and shape their everyday practices. Thus not only the production of goods and commodities is subjected to capitalist logic, but also needs, social relations or bodies are adjusted and produced according to this logic.9

Foucault has described this development as the "entry of life and its mechanisms into the realm of conscious calculation "10. It is precisely the "responsibility for life that gives power access to the body "11 Through the processes of individualization, the individual is declared responsible for his or her life. This can be accompanied by greater possibilities of autonomy and self-determination, but it also contains a deep ambivalence: With this responsibility, the individual now also becomes responsible for the control over his body and ultimately for the success and failure of his life. Bio-power is thus not a power technique based on violence or coercion, but rather a way of reaching and guiding the consciousness of the individual.12 Biopolitics or bio-power thus serves "not to inhibit, break or even destroy the forces of life, but to continuously train, enrich and stimulate them with the intention of optimization and economization "13.

Thus, under the sign of a neo-liberal world order, power can be described as domination over human life based on the establishment of ideological hegemony. The term hegemony can be understood in Gramsci's sense. It is not a matter of forced subjugation, but of one that includes the consent of those subjected, so that they redefine their own needs and interests, starting from the hegemonic order.14

This hegemonic order is based on the fact that capitalism appears worldwide as the only possible form of organization of life, to whose constraints all other areas of human life must be subordinated. Thus the logic of capitalist exploitation permeates all areas of society and no longer makes transcendence, in the sense of an outside of the capital relationship, conceivable.15 To ask the question of alternatives, to break through this given logic, is by no means easy under the given circumstances. But protest and resistance against an order that is perceived as unjust and life-destroying is made possible precisely by the fact that something else, an afterlife to the existing and the evident, is conceivable and imaginable at all. In this sense, the counter-proposal to the TINA principle with which the globalization-critical movement had started out was: "Another world is possible". But how can this possibility be believed and reasonably represented in the face of a neo-liberal order which, despite all the rhetoric of crisis, is still firmly in the saddle here in Europe, but also globally?

2. Hope for change as motor of theology

Johann Baptist Metz had once described the intention and mission of Christian theology as an "apology of a hope".16 Metz describes the hope at stake here more precisely by speaking of "that solidarity hope in the God of the living and the dead, who calls all people into subjectivity before his face "17.

Christian hope, then, as Metz recalls, if it wants to take the biblical tradition seriously, must embrace more than the hope of small, private happiness in the midst of all social contradictions and its extension beyond the limits of one's own death into a "beyond" imagined as a place of eternal individual happiness. The biblical promise speaks of a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21:1), of the possibility of another world no longer marked by injustice and violence. It postulates a world without oppression and exploitation is possible and can one day be reality. But such a hope also requires reasons: "Always be ready to answer to anyone who asks you about the hope that is fulfilling you" (1 Pet 3:15). Under the precondition, constitutive for the tradition of political theology as well as liberation theology, that there cannot and must not be a separation of profane and salvific history, since the salvation God has promised us already wants to be effective in this world, 18 it is clear that Christian hope must be related in a very concrete way to the transformation and transformation of this world.

According to Jürgen Moltmann, a "theology whose inner motor is hope [...] is therefore an interpretation of the biblical history of promise for understanding the present mission of Christianity in the world "19.

In Christian terms, the breaking open of the seemingly impossible new in the midst of the world's deadly reality is linked to the talk of resurrection. This connection can historically already be traced back to Paul, who formulates his theology of resurrection in the context of the imperial rule of Rome. In the face of the global power of Rome, Paul speaks of a Messiah, whose work is on the one hand to be understood just as globally, but on the other hand cannot simply be thought of in the categories of a military counter-power, but of an anti-power, in that the crucified one in particular becomes a liberator.21 Only through faith in the resurrection can this thought make sense, since from here a total change of life becomes possible, "that is, the perfect change of the conditions under which life must be lived".22 Thus Gerhard Jankowski writes in his commentary on 1 Cor 15 about Paul's message of the risen Jesus Christ: "The hope in the resurrection of the dead, in the new creation, the total change of conditions, in the new humanity has its firm foundation in his resurrection. This hope can already now permeate life. The new humanity has been given a face. 23 But what can we imagine today, 2000 years after the Corinthian Church, under this "rebellion against death"? Where and how can it begin?

3. "In the beginning is the cry"

For John Holloway, a reflection on the possibility of changing the world must start from the cry that is "a cry of sorrow, a cry of horror, a cry of anger, a cry of denial in the face of "the mutilation of human life by capitalism".24 For Holloway, this cry is the starting point for a theoretical reflection: anger about the given state of the world and pain over suffering and oppression condense into the perception "that the world is in some way not true."25 Against the dictum of lack of alternatives, such a cry clings "to the possibility of historical openness, it refuses to exclude the possibility of radical otherness "26 and is open to a different future, placing the crier in the inseparable tension between what exists, what is, and what is possible, what could be.27 The cry cannot and must not turn against itself and become mere despair, precisely to preserve its negative power. Rather, when correctly understood, it becomes the starting point for liberating action.

The biblical Exodus tells of such a cry as the starting point of a story of liberation and an act of liberation. Thus God reveals Himself to Moses in Ex 3,7ff. as the one who heard the cry of the oppressed and exploited people and wants to lead them out of bondage. In the cry of the people, one could read, lies already the beginning and possibility of their liberation.

The cry points ahead to what could be, and contrasts it with what is: the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey (Ex 3:8) is confronted with a reality that makes it impossible for people to live in dignity. Slavery and oppression do not belong to an inescapable order of things, which is endured and suffered and in which God can only offer a prospect of alleviation of suffering, but the cry of the people opens up a radically new possibility, beyond the relationship of oppression, for a life in truth and freedom. According to Johann Baptist Metz, "Israel's God-giftedness, its God-capability" thus shows itself "in its inability to be comforted by myths or ideas far removed from history "28. Metz contrasts such consolation with the cry in which the absence of God is contained and in which resistance to innocent and unjust suffering is articulated as a cry for God.29

The cry of opposition to existing conditions, in which violence and injustice often enough triumph and make human life impossible, is a cry in which the rebellion of life against death is expressed. Even the cry of the crucified one: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Mk 15:34) is thus not to be understood as an expression of despair. In the context of Ps 22, which is quoted here, it is rather an expression of holding on to the possibility of God's saving intervention on the side of the poor and oppressed. So also in this last cry opposition and negation of the existing is expressed:

The power of the powerful does not last forever, it will have to bow under the power of the one who saves and liberates the oppressed. Thus, already in this last cry the possibility of resurrection, which overcomes the power of death, sounds out. At the moment of death's supreme triumph over life, of power and violence over the hope of liberation, paradoxically, the possibility of the breaking of power is already revealed. In it, however, the horror also remains, of a God who does not (yet) intervene, a horror that reveals the God-missing in this world.30 But even final, death-bringing violence cannot finally extinguish the cry for liberation. Thus such a cry calls to mind "that the experience of defeat must not prevail over our hopes "31.

Holding on to these hopes means remembering that there is not only mere repetition of the always the same, that not everything must always remain as it is. This becomes possible if the possibility of change is understood as constitutive for history. The event, in the sense of a break with what is, thus becomes a possibility within history. Perhaps the "Arab Spring" could be described as such an event in recent times: a sudden break-up of apparently cemented power structures, opening up the possibility of hope that the quite different can also be conceived beyond the order of the existing,.

4. from cry to liberation

At the same time, however, the Arab Spring also points out that the cry, in which anger and hope appear in equal measure, is no more than the beginning of a possible liberation of the soul.

The liberation process can suddenly come to a standstill, as can be seen in Egypt or Syria, for example: The hope for a new beginning, which makes a decent life for all possible, is suffocated in new violence and repression. Beyond the scream, therefore, it must be asked how this can be transformed not only into the revolt of the moment, but into an action that becomes part of a liberation process that can overcome power. But then, at the same time, the question arises as to who the subjects of the liberation process might be. This question is particularly pressing today and is not easy to answer. It is still uncertain whether the protests of the Arab Spring, the squatting of the Occupy movement, the struggles in Gezi Park can give rise to a political movement that can transform the uprising that arises from the cry of the opposition and motivates people to hope for and fight for a different future, into a new, even international form of organization.

However, the heterogeneity is not only the weakness but also the strength of the protests of recent years: a new strength lies in the coming together of very different groups, in the common resistance of those who otherwise do not have much in common. But how does a subject of common struggles emerge from such heterogeneous groups with different interests? For Holloway, the question of how to overcome the fragmentation of the struggles and those fighting is a central aspect.

The cry is not limited to one particular group. The "we" of the screamers breaks up group affiliations and identity definitions. This does not mean, however, that it is an abstract scream, but it is directed specifically against oppression, exploitation and dehumanization. The scream, however, cannot be definitively defined and fixed either; it changes its form to the same extent as the thing against which it is directed changes its form and intensity again and again.32 The subject of the scream, the process of liberation, the struggle against oppression is thus not simply present, but is in the process of becoming. It is thus not yet-not yet, it does not return to its safe home, but is on its way into the radically different, into a process of liberation, which, as an uncertain becoming, means a "pushing beyond" that transcends the given.33

From a biblical, liberation-theological perspective this "pushing beyond the given towards the coming of the totally different can perhaps be described in the categories of a theology of the kingdom of God. In trusting in the coming of the kingdom of God lies the collective power to transform the existing conditions.34 The kingdom of God in its "going beyond" over the existing can be primarily determined as negation: It "opposes everything that is not presence but obscuration, even negation of the God of Jesus Christ".35 By believing in the possibility of the Kingdom of God as a world no longer marked by exploitation, dehumanization and oppression, the people of God is constituted, setting out on the path towards a life in freedom and dignity for all. The coming of the kingdom of God is not to be understood in a subject-less way, but is linked to a people of God that cannot simply be equated with the church.36 The people of God are called to make the kingdom of God a reality in community.37

5 And the Christians?

It is clear from the above that Christians cannot simply assume as a matter of course that they are part of the people of God or even embody it. Whether they belong to the people of God or not is determined rather by whether or not they meet the criteria that have just been established to characterize the people of God. But this makes it clear that the question of how Christians can become part of the struggles for justice and freedom is not a secondary question about the right Christian practice alone, but rather touches on a core point of Christian identity, which can hardly be thought of without belonging to the people of God.

So we must look for the "signs of the times" that point to the coming of the Kingdom of God, or, as Holloway puts it, the signs "of the presence of the material power of the cry "38. The world of struggle against the instrumental power that oppresses and exploits people often appears, according to Holloway, invisible. On closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that new struggles are constantly breaking out. What they all have in common is that they all try to make exploitation and oppression by power visible.39

It is in the context of such visibility that many of the struggles that are currently being fought in our context, both in the Federal Republic of Germany and in Austria, can be understood: the struggle of self-organized migrants in recent years, who break out of the invisibility of camps and shelters beyond the centers of the cities and go on hunger strike in tents in the middle of the city in order to publicly express their desperation about a deportation and isolation policy that deprives them of their dignity and their life perspectives; the struggle of anti-fascist and anti-racist groups who want to make visible the racism and indifference towards right-wing violence that reaches far into the "middle of society"; the feminist struggle against the conditions under which care work takes place and under which the needs and wishes of people to shape their own lives in a self-determined way are ignored, focusing on work that is all too often socially invisible.

For Christians, this gives rise to the task and responsibility of asking where and how they can become involved in these different struggles of making themselves visible in order to become part of the people of God in the process of liberation. This can and will only succeed if it is possible to articulate anew the cry that breaks up the lack of alternatives and makes the possibility of a "beyond" to the existing order appear, and to let it become a beginning in which the fragility of power already becomes visible. Thus, the question of the places of prophetic speech and action today, of the location and positioning of Christians in struggles of negation of oppression and dehumanization, of the resulting alliances and the communities emerging from these struggles becomes a central mission of the church in this time.

About the author

Dr. Julia Lis is a staff member at the Institute for Theology and Politics and co-founder of the network Church Asylum Munster (Kirchenasyl Münster). Her main areas of work are: church asylum, theology in the context of social movements, flight and migration, church of the poor, crisis protests. Most recently edited with Norbert Arntz and Philipp Geitzhaus: Remembering and Renewing. Provocation from the Catacombs, Münster 2018 and together with Philipp Geitzhaus and Michael Ramminger: On the Trails of a Church of the Poor. Future and Places of Liberating Christianity, Münster 2017.

NOTES

1In der Pressemitteilung der Jury hieß es dazu: „Das Wort suggeriert sachlich unangemessen, dass es bei einem Entscheidungsprozess von vornherein keine Alternativen und damit auch keine Notwendigkeit der Diskussion und Argumentation gebe. Behauptungen dieser Art sind 2010 zu oft aufgestellt worden, sie drohen, die Politikverdrossenheit in der Bevölkerung zu verstärken.“ http://www.unwortdesjahres.net/fileadmin/unwort/download/2010.pdf, abgerufen am 22.4.2014.

2Vgl. Institut für Theologie und Politik (Hg.): In Bewegung denken. Politisch-Theologische Anstöße für eine Globalisierung von unten, Münster 2003, S. 130.

3Vgl. Strobel, Katja: Zwischen Selbstbestimmung und Solidarität. Arbeit und Geschlechterverhältnisse im Neoliberalismus aus feministisch-befreiungstheologischer Perspektive, Münster 2012, S. 60.

4Vgl. Hardt, Michael/Negri, Antonio: Empire. Die neue Weltordnung, Frankfurt/New York 2000, S. 24.

5Vgl. Hardt/Negri: Empire, S. 26.

6Hardt/Negri: Empire, S. 27.

7Vgl. Hardt/Negri: Empire, S. 31.

8Vgl. Hardt/Negri: Empire, S. 38.

9Vgl. Hardt/Negri: Empire, S. 46f.

10Foucault, Michel: Der Wille zum Wissen (Sexualität und Wahrheit 1), Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 138.

11Foucault: Der Wille zum Wissen, S. 138.

12Vgl. Hellgermann, Andreas: Erziehung zur ‚Inkompetenz‘ – Messianisch-widerständiger Religionsunterricht statt neoliberaler Kompetenzgehirnwäsche (Arbeitspapier II des Arbeitskreises der ReligionslehrerInnen am Institut für Theologie und Politik), Münster 2013, S. 6.

13Seibert, Thomas: Krise und Ereignis. Siebenundzwanzig Thesen zum Kommunismus, Hamburg 2009, S. 30

14Vgl. Merkens, Andreas/Rego Diaz, Victor (Hg.): Mit Gramsci arbeiten. Texte zur politisch-praktischen Aneignung Antonio Gramscis, Hamburg 2007, S. 19.

15Vgl. Seibert: Krise und Ereignis, S. 128.

16Vgl. Metz, Johann Baptist: Glaube in Geschichte und Gesellschaft. Studien zu einer praktischen Fundamentaltheologie, Mainz 31980, S. 3.

17Metz: Glaube in Geschichte und Gesellschaft, S. 3.

18Vgl. Ramminger, Michael: Mitleid und Heimatlosigkeit. Zwei Basiskategorien einer Anerkennungshermeneutik (Theologie in Geschichte und Gesellschaft 5), Luzern 1998, S. 14; vgl. auch Gutiérrez, Gustavo: Theologie der Befreiung, München 31978, S. 138f.

19Moltmann, Jürgen: das Experiment Hoffnung. Einführungen, München 1974, S. 66f.

20Moltmann: Experiment Hoffnung, S. 69.

21Vgl. Veerkamp, Ton: Die Welt anders. Politische Geschichte der Großen Erzählung (Berliner Beiträge zur kritischen Theorie 13), Berlin 2013, S. 256.

22Veerkamp: Die Welt anders, S. 259.

23Jankowski, Gerhard: Solidarisch leben. Der erste Brief des Paulus an die Korinther. Eine Auslegung, in: Texte & Kontexte 32, 2009, S. 139.

24Holloway, John: Die Welt verändern, ohne die Macht zu übernehmen, Münster 42010, S. 10.

25Holloway: Die Welt verändern, S. 11.

26Holloway: Die Welt verändern, S. 16.

27Vgl. Holloway: Die Welt verändern, S. 16.

28Metz, Johann Baptist: Memoria passionis. Ein provozierendes Gedächtnis in pluralistischer Gesellschaft, Freiburg im Breisgau 2006, S. 9.

29Vgl. Metz: Memoria passionis, S. 98f.

30Vgl. Metz: Memoria passionis, S. 94.

31Füssel, Kuno: Überwindung der Gewaltgeschichte. Die bleibende Mahnung des Martyriums von Oscar Arnulfo Romero, in: Collet, Giancarlo/Rechsteiner, Justin (Hg.): Vergessen heißt verraten. Erinnerungen an Oscar A. Romero zum 10. Todestag, Wuppertal 1990, S. 109.

32Vgl. Holloway: Die Welt verändern, S. 172f.

33Vgl. Holloway: Die Welt verändern, S. 175.

34Vgl. Weckel, Ludger: Um des Lebens willen. Zu einer Theologie des Martyriums aus befreiungstheologischer Sicht, Münster 1996, S. 292.

35Ellacuría, Ignacio: Die Kirche der Armen, geschichtliches Befreiungssakrament, in: Ders. / Sobrino, Jon (Hg.): Mysterium Liberationis. Grundbegriffe der Theologie der Befreiung, Band 2, Luzern 1996, S. 768.

36Vgl. Ellacuría, Ignacio: Eine Kirche der Armen. Für ein prophetisches Christentum, Freiburg im Breisgau 2011, S. 166f.

37Vgl. Ellacuría: Eine Kirche der Armen, S. 167.

38Holloway: Die Welt verändern, S. 178.

39Vgl. Holloway,: Die Welt verändern, S. 179.

Original: Alternatives to Maximizing Profit and The Fragility of Power