Masao Ogaki
Journal of Economics, Theology and Religion, vol. 5, no. 1 (2025): 97-108
Abstract
In years to come, the “community mechanism” will become increasingly important. This is a mechanism in which at least one person voluntarily offers cooperation and is not rejected. The community mechanism complements the workings of the market mechanism (a mechanism based on price and competition) and the power mechanism (a mechanism that, for example, through the power of the legal system can coerce people to pay taxes). Given that many thinkers in the field of theology have offered influential insights on creating and developing communities, theology is a tool that can be used by a researcher in economics (even a non-believer) to examine and illumine the community mechanism. How can theology be used? It can be used in two ways: (1) in direct application when generating hypotheses (e.g., on type of leadership) and (2) through indirect application as background (e.g., by drawing on Augustine’s two conditions for the blessed life).
Keywords
community mechanism, market mechanism, power mechanism, leadership, happiness
Publication history
First view: 6 March 2025
Published: 20 May 2025
1. Introduction
As argued by Ogaki (2022), the community mechanism will become increasingly important in the coming years especially in many countries that have low fertility rates and an aging population and associated social issues. Because of aging, the number of people with cognitive decline (dementia and normal aspects of aging) increases. It is difficult for people with cognitive problems to utilize market mechanisms on their own. Nor can we rely solely on the power mechanism of the public sector which itself is subject to fiscal pressures caused by the same falling fertility rates and aging populations. It is also difficult for children to utilize the market by themselves, and the community mechanism will also become more important for childcare. Serious socioeconomic problems such as environmental crises, natural and human disasters, and infectious diseases also point to the likelihood of further reliance on the community mechanism.
Different definitions of the community mechanism have been proposed in the literature, and this paper adopts Ogaki’s (2022) definition that it is a mechanism in which at least one person voluntarily offers cooperation and is not rejected. With this definition, the community mechanism can equally be applied to a group or organization of two or more people, a local community, a nation, the whole human race, or even to different generations of the human race.
For example, there are cases in which a mother cannot feel genuine altruism for her own newborn baby (e.g., because of domestic violence). When that mother nevertheless offers a nurturing service to the baby, and if the baby does not reject it (for example, illness could cause some babies to refuse the service), then the community mechanism as defined above is at work. The community mechanism may be deepened as the mother and the child develop mutual trust, but this example serves to illustrate the nature of the community mechanism: a service or co-operation in a process is offered voluntarily and not rejected by the recipient(s). As another example for a much larger community, a future generation may reject a cooperation offer from a previous generation by destroying the earth with nuclear weapons. If a future generation does not reject the offer, then the community mechanism is at work.
Given that many thinkers in theology have expressed influential thoughts on creating and developing communities, theology is a natural tool to use in examining the community mechanism. To date, the use of theology for this purpose has not been explored in the literature on the community mechanism, and this paper aims to fill that gap.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews various definitions of the community mechanism offered in the literature.
Section 3 suggests that one way to use theology is in direct application for hypothesis generation. The section explains how the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth may be used to generate hypotheses on leadership. Given the significant influence that Jesus’ teaching has had on many people during the past two thousand years, it is not unreasonable to generate hypotheses from his teaching, even if one is not a believer. The believer in Jesus Christ may be convinced of the truth of his teaching, but successfully communicating the idea to a general audience requires the generation and testing of scientific hypotheses.
Theology can also be used in indirect application to develop thinking about the community mechanism. Section 4 explores the idea that one of the two conditions of happiness given by Augustine of Hippo is related to eudaimonia and to virtue, concepts that in one form or another are central to the community mechanism.
Sections, 5, 6, and 7 show the application of theology for hypothesis generation and for developing our thinking on various important issues in research on the community mechanism. Section 5 discusses how the biblical teaching of Jesus can be used to develop our thinking on the importance of worldviews for the community mechanism. Section 6 argues that integration of different worldviews can help a community grow toward its ideal form. Section 7 discusses biblical teaching on how the power mechanism should be used. Section 8 concludes.
2. Definitions of the community mechanism in the literature
The approach based on the term “community mechanism” is different from, but closely related to, the approach that divides the economy into the three sectors of community, market, and state (e.g., Hayami 1989; Bowles & Gintis 2002; Rajan 2019). A definition of the term community mechanism was proposed by Hayami (2009) as a mechanism that guides members of the community toward voluntary cooperation based on intensive social capital. He then divided the economic system into three main categories: the community mechanism, market mechanism, and state mechanism. Hayami’s definition and these three main categories are adopted with minor modifications by subsequent work such as that by Aldrich, Sawada, and Oum (2015) and Ogaki and Ohtake (2019).
Ogaki (2022) argued that an important advantage in using the term “mechanism” rather than “sector” is that we can analyze how the community mechanism is – and should be – combined with other mechanisms in each of the three sectors. For example, a non-profit organization may mainly use the community mechanism in relying on volunteers for some aspects of its work, but also use the market mechanism in hiring people in the labor market for other aspects, etc. By defining the power mechanism without any reference to a sector, we can free ourselves from the sectors to permit a new definition of the community mechanism. For this reason, Ogaki (2022), when reconsidering the definition of the community mechanism, contemplated a basic model involving two persons by examining Robinson Crusoe, a novel by Daniel Defoe (2007 [1719]). Crusoe spent 24 years alone on a remote tropical island, and during the twenty-fifth year rescued someone he named Friday from two cannibals who were chasing him. Friday was a cannibal, too. Crusoe first used his guns (the power mechanism) to prevent Friday from eating the two cannibals. After he began to trust Friday, Crusoe decided to alter Friday’s preference for human flesh by giving him goat meat. Using the story, Ogaki (2022) defined the community mechanism as a mechanism in which at least one person voluntarily offers cooperation and is not rejected. This example also allowed him to omit mention of any sector when he defined the term “the power mechanism.”
When compared with Hayami’s (2019) definition, the new definition proposed by Ogaki (2022) is seen to be different in two respects. First, the new definition does not require any social capital such as trust, nor altruism, nor any reciprocity in the community mechanism, as long as there is a win-win situation. Although the community mechanism may be deepened as, for example, when the mother and the child develop mutual trust, the community mechanism in Ogaki’s (2022) definition can exist without these. Second, the new definition excludes the sector element that is implied in Hayami’t definition of the community mechanism which was defined with the market and state mechanisms. The sector element is implied when the state sector is used in one of these mechanisms because the definition of the community mechanism implicitly assumes that it does not have intersection with the other two mechanisms.
3. Leadership
Leadership is centrally important for the community mechanism. There are many different types of leadership. As an example of the use of theology in this area, biblical teaching can be used to generate a hypothesis as to which leadership type is ideal. For example, the biblical teaching in Matthew 20:25-28 (New International Version, NIV hereafter) has this to say:
Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
A Christian economist can be convinced that an ideal leader is a servant. If the audience is solely Christian, Jesus’s teaching will be proof. For other audiences, an economist will need to carry out research and find convincing evidence and arguments. Part of this is might be an examination of leadership as described in the literature of “servant leadership” pioneered by Robert Greenleaf (1904–90), which is systematically reviewed in Eva et al. (2019).
From the perspective of creating a community with diverse members, servant leadership (the leader serves each member so that he/she can contribute to the objective of the community and grow) seems better than top-down leadership. Greenleaf (1977) describes servant leadership: “the servant leader servant first … It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.”[1] Spears (1995) and van Direndonck (2011) list the characteristics of servant leadership as listening, healing, empathy, stewardship, commitment to people’s growth, etc. Eva et al. (2019) make the criticism that the overwhelming majority of servant leadership studies do not provide clear enough definitions for empirical research and they provide a new definition:
Servant leadership is (1) an other-oriented approach to leadership (2) manifested through one-on-one prioritizing of follower individual needs and interests, (3) and outward reorienting of their concern for self towards concern for others within the organization and the larger community.
4. Happiness, eudamonia, and virtue
While the use of theology described above is a direct application, theology can also be used in an indirect way, just as philosophy is helpful for hypothesis generation and for deepening thinking. This section gives an example.
In the Economics of Happiness, there exist three concepts of Well-Being.
- emotional happiness: emotional happiness refers to the emotional state related to the frequency and the degree of comfort or discomfort related to momentary and/or temporary joy, sadness, and anger
- life satisfaction: this concept is close to the traditional economics’ concept of “(lifetime) utility”
- eudaimonia
The third one, eudaimonia, is a concept that was used by Aristotle, and it essentially translates as “flourishing” or “living well.” Eudaimonia is the fulfilment a person feels in growing by acquiring virtues and abilities and contributing to a community. In order to achieve eudaimonia, one has to cultivate virtues by practicing them, making this a habit, and living according to the virtues.
There are two important aspects of eudaimonia for the purpose of this paper:
- the learning aspect: the joy of knowing that one is acquiring the abilities and developing the virtues which will make a contribution to society (or community)
- the flourishing aspect: the sense of fulfilment to be found in using one’s abilities and virtues to contribute to society (or to the community)
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) in On Trinity (1963, the last sentence of Chapter 5, Book Thirteen) wrote “Therefore, he alone is blessed who has all that he wills and wills nothing wrongly.” Thus, Augustine lists two conditions of happiness:
- all the desires are fulfilled
- all the desires are good
The second condition is related to eudaimonia and virtue. The first condition requires us to live forever, which is beyond our own power: Augustine wrote “But who would not will that the life, whatever it may be in which he delights, and which he, therefore, calls the blessed life, should so be in his power that he could have it forever?” (Chapter 7, Book Thirteen). Thus, Augustine’s concept of happiness is spiritual.
As for virtue, 2 Peter 1:5-7 (Catholic Public Domain Version):
But as for you, taking up every concern, minister virtue in your faith; and in virtue, knowledge; and in knowledge, moderation; and in moderation, patience; and in patience, piety; and in piety, love of brotherhood; and in love of brotherhood, charity.
Thus, Peter commands us to cultivate virtue, develop communities in love of brotherhood, and eventually to learn to love unconditionally (charity=agape) others.
The reference earlier to Robinson Crusoe trying to alter Friday’s preferences makes it clear that some preferences are better than others, at least for the purpose of promoting the community mechanism (this is called meta-preferences). The meta-preferences approach can be combined with an endogenous preference model to create a mathematical model that incorporates virtue ethics as in Bhatt, Ogaki, and Yaguchi (2017).
5. Worldview
While this community mechanism can function in win–win situations alongside homo economicus as studied by traditional economics, Ogaki (2022) argues that it can be further activated by three factors that encourage cooperation: (i) social preferences, (ii) norms, and (iii) worldviews. This paper focuses on worldviews that are closely related to theology. Different concepts of happiness as mentioned in the previous section are examples of different worldviews about happiness.
According to Naugle (2002), Immanuel Kant first used the concept of worldview in work that was published in 1790, Kant (1987). According to Kant, we human beings exist in the world of things themselves which is eternal in the sense that there is no time dimension and infinite in the sense that there is no space dimension. Because of its limitations, our cognition requires time and space dimensions. Therefore, we cannot cognize anything in the world of things themselves, and we can only cognize the world with our own imperfect view: our worldview.
Since then, this concept has been used by many philosophers such as Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger (see, e.g., Hegel 1961, Kierkegaard 1966, and Heidegger 1982). These philosophers tended to use this idea to explain the cognitive aspect of how a person views the world. By adopting the anthropological definition that is reviewed by Hiebert (2008), Kubota et al. (2013) apply the concept to empirical research on how worldviews affect altruistic economic behaviors. Hiebert (2008, 25-6) defines “worldview” in anthropological terms as “the foundational cognitive, affective, and evaluative assumptions and frameworks a group of people makes about the nature of reality which they use to order their lives.” Thus, in anthropology, the concept of worldview includes not only the cognitive aspect such as the origin and the end of the world but also affective aspect (what is viewed as beautiful and kawaii, etc.) and evaluative aspects (ethical views and values).
Ogaki and Tanaka (2017, 156-8) modify Hiebert’s (2008) idea of the three components of culture. On the surface, we have economic behavior and cultural behavior (such as organizing or participating in marriage and funerals). We consider everything that lies behind these as the worldview. The worldview comprises the explicit worldview consisting of belief systems and the implicit worldview, which is the core of the worldview and is usually unconscious.[2] Belief systems are mainly about the conscious cognitive aspect such as whether or not an afterlife exists, or whether or not God or Buddha exists. The deeper core of the worldview includes the cognitive aspect such as whether categories or relationships are emphasized when we recognize things and apply logic, the affective aspect of what we view as beautiful, and the evaluative aspect of ethics and values.
Religions affect worldviews, but people who belong to the same professed religion can have different worldview beliefs, and people who belong to different professed religions can have important common worldview beliefs.[3]
The teaching of Jesus outlined below (Matthew 6:19-24, NIV) can be interpreted as showing the importance of worldviews:
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
The healthy eye will have a correct worldview – seeing value in storing up treasures in heaven for ourselves by serving God, rather than by storing up treasures on earth and thus serving money.
6. The ideal community with diverse members
Even though an individual may have difficulty in becoming a perfect person who loves their enemies, as commanded by Jesus in Matthew 5:43-8, one needs to be aware of this ideal in order to make progress without straying. Similarly, we need to think about the ideal community, no matter how difficult it is to achieve it, so that our communities can make progress without straying from the ideal.
Given that the importance of the community mechanism is expected to increase in many countries in the coming years, it is important to think about the ideal community involving diverse members in diverse socio-economic conditions and possessing diverse worldviews (including different religions). Even though an individual has difficulty in becoming a perfect person who loves their enemies, as commanded by Jesus in Matthew 5:43-48, one needs to be aware of this ideal in order to move towards achieving it. Similarly, we need to think about the ideal community no matter how difficult it is to achieve it, so that our communities can make progress towards being that ideal community.
As for diverse socio-economic conditions, Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 25:37-40 shows that the ideal community will help the least advantaged members and is also open to helping strangers in need who are outsiders to the community.
Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?” The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
To give just one example of someone who found Christ in the person he cared for, writer, theologian, and Catholic priest Henri Nouwen took care of Adam, a core member of L’Arche community who had profound developmental disabilities. Nouwen (1997) wrote that he felt Jesus Christ in Adam.
As for diverse worldviews including different religions, values, and ethical views, how can an ideal community be formed when people with many different cultural and religious backgrounds have come to live and work together in a community that has global influences? Jesus tells us “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” in Matthew 5:9 (NIV). How can we be peacemakers and promote further use of the community mechanism in communities whose members have diverse worldviews?
The idea of persuading all members of a community to have one religion by pointing out that one worldview is more rational or justifiable than others is not going to work. Mihailov and Ogaki (2021) argue that it is not possible to do this and that in some cases it is not even feasible to facilitate debate about historical fact among rational agents. So, they argue that education to honor and understand other people’s beliefs is beneficial.
There are examples of communities with evangelical missions respecting other religions by adopting an evangelical approach to convey the love of God and the grace of Jesus, without forcing people to adopt Christianity. These types of communities can be found as part of the so-called “insider movements.” The Cape Town Commitment of the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in 2010 explains insider movements as follows:
So called “insider movements” are to be found within several religions. These are groups of people who are now following Jesus as their God and Saviour. They meet together in small groups for fellowship, teaching, worship, and prayer centered around Jesus and the Bible while continuing to live socially and culturally within their birth communities, including some elements of its religious observance (79).[4]
Bennett’s (1986) Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) seems useful for a community that aims for the understanding and respect of different worldviews.[5] In the DMIS, the underlying assumption is that as one’s perceptual organization of culture (and therefore worldview from the perspective of the present paper) becomes more complex, one’s experience of culture becomes more sophisticated. The DMIS describes six developmental stages in the experience of culture: denial (one denies the difference of cultures), defense (one’s own culture is better than the others), minimization (one admits that differences exist but think that they are not important), acceptance (one accepts the importance of other cultures), adaptation (one can understand and adapt to other cultures as necessary), and integration (one can integrate one’s worldview with other worldviews).
7. How should we combine the community and power mechanisms?
Given that many communities seem far from ideal, one idea may be to use the power mechanism of the legal system to prohibit all wrong behaviors. Since our interest here is to apply theological ideas to our understanding of the community mechanism, this section explores what the Bible has to say on this topic.
One example might be divorce: “I hate the divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel (Malachi 2:16a, NIV). Divorce is a wrong behavior that God hates, and God was in a position to be able to give any law to Israel through Moses. In Matthew 19:3-9, Jesus explains how God treated divorce in the Law of Moses:
Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?’ So, they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.” “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
From this, it seems clear that biblical teaching acknowledges that the power mechanism alone does not ensure that human beings have only good desires. With our hardened hearts, we will need to carefully combine the power and community mechanisms.
8. Conclusion and future research
This paper has argued that in future the community mechanism will become increasingly important, and that theology is relevant for economic research into the community mechanism in two ways: in direct application for hypothesis generation and in indirect application as background.
An example of the first is to use Jesus’ teaching on leadership to generate a hypothesis about what type of leadership is the best for the community mechanism. An example of the second is found in 2 Peter 1:5-7 which points to the importance of cultivating virtues in communities. This relates to Augustine’s second condition for happiness – to have only good desires: the ultimate goal of cultivating virtues is to have perfect eudaimonia.
Eudaimonia and the psychological state, the flow experience (Csikszentmihallyi 1990), are closely related (see, e.g., Waterman et al. 2008). The flow experience and other aspects of positive psychology have been recently studied in neuroscience (e.g., Green, Morrison, and Seligman 2016). As a topic for future research, the insights from this area could be introduced to the study of economics through neuroeconomics and the economics of happiness. This could be fruitful for the theology of the community mechanism.
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Notes
This paper is based on a keynote lecture at the ILSE conference on “Economics and Human Flourishing: (What) Can Economists Learn from Theology?” on June 30 and July 1, 2023. I would like to thank two anonymous referees, participants of the conference and of the Economic Humanist group meeting on May 13, 2023 in which I presented a preliminary version of the paper for useful discussions on various aspects of this paper. Special thanks are due to Lans Bovenberg, Arttu Makippaa, Gordon Menzies, Paul Oslington, and Steven van den Heuvel. This work was partly supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI Grant Nos. 21K18129 and 24K00240.
[1] As Sendjaya and Sarros (2002) emphasizes, even though Greenleaf’s conceptualization of servant leadership is appealing and refreshing, Jesus Christ taught the concept of servant leadership, and his practice of this leadership has been acknowledged and practiced for over a thousand years.
[2] See Lee et al. (2013) for empirical research examining a hypothesis that implicit worldviews affect altruistic economic behavior.
[3] For example, Okuyama et al. (2018) show in data from Malaysia that roughly 10% of Christians believe in reincarnation and that people with a belief in reincarnation tend to have better attitudes towards environmental protection than those without such a belief, even after controlling for religions and ethnicities.
[4] The full text of the Cape Town Commitment is available at <lausanne.org/wp-content/uploads/ 2021/10/The-Cape-Town-Commitment-%E2%80%93-Pages-20-09-2021.pdf>.
[5] A summary of the DMIS is provided by Milton J. Bennett at <www.idrinstitute.org/dmis/> (viewed on November 30, 2023).
