Recently Ben Shapiro added another hot take to his history of bad media analyses when he went after It’s a Wonderful Life. He asserted that Mr. Potter had the right of it: lending should be run as Potter ran it, with sharp-nosed business acumen and an eye for the bottom line, not as Bailey does it, with a strong dash of charity,. Only through Potter’s procedure, Shapiro thinks, can the West keep its present heights of prosperity.¹

Such magnificent misinterpretation of the film almost deserves to be celebrated.

To get to the meat of it, we must analyze Potter’s actual business strategies. An element Shapiro does not acknowledge is that Potter is a crook. The clearest example of this is his straight-up theft of $8000 cash, a theft he uses to frame Bailey, a deed he compounds by, it is heavily implied, smearing Bailey around town as an adulterer and a thief. Mr. Potter is a vile man, in short; Shapiro’s adulation is like naming Bill Clinton an ideal example for marriage or Benedict Arnold for military strategy. Both Clinton and Arnold achieved some success in those fields, but they achieved it by methods which, like Mr. Potter’s theft, make them worse than if they’d failed altogether, and a terrible example for wider society.

In his non-criminal dealings, still, Mr. Potter is an exceptionally sharp dealer. He assesses everything in the numbers; he buys people’s characters; he crushes all who get in his way. We’re given no reason to doubt Paul Bailey’s summary of Potter as being one who above all, desires power. He calculates precisely what use of his money and power will get him the best return on investment; he leverages his comfortable position, owner of many assets like land which never fully depreciate and survive any Depression. He uses this defense a vantage point from which to gain more. Are you starving? He’ll give you money to buy food with, so long as you enslave yourself to him.

Most of his transactions, no doubt, are not basically immoral (except in their motivation- the lust for power is a form of self-idolatry). Asking for a man to pay his debts is not immoral, though we are called to have kindness towards our fellow men (Lev. 25:38-40). But Potter’s motivations make all the difference, even when he’s strictly within the law in external actions (such as when trying to buy off Bailey explicitly because Bailey gets in the way of his domination of the town). Potter acts on a calculus of what-makes-me-better, of outright greed, not of healthy desire for fruitful stewardship.

Above all, however, Potter represents an economic process essentially different from Bailey’s. Mr. Potter lives in a purely transactional world; Bailey lives in a relational world.

What do I mean by that?

Potter’s economic life is dominated by calculations and impersonal facts. Each person’s monetary potential is entirely compassed by their credit record, hard assets (though he’s not particularly interested in on-going income sources), and the like. These people, to Potter, might as well be robots; Potter operates on the premise that character is irrelevant.

Actually, that’s not quite right. Potter goes a little farther than mere transactionality. His approach to business demonstrates a basic belief that everybody is out for himself, without any nobility or care for others. Potter conducts his business that way, and he expects everybody else to do the same. When they don’t, he calls them suckers. Such an approach to life, replicated across society, is a recipe for a complete break-down of social trust. If I believe everybody else would murder me for a pack of gum, that’s bad enough; if everybody has that same lack of trust (if too many merit it), society just stops operating; it becomes a quiet fight to the death, every person desperately crushing the other in order to stay afloat.

Transactionality, as I mean it here, is an economic system which regards the math of the matter as the only material element. Such a society naturally degrades its own cohesion and social trust. Why? Because trust can’t exist if nobody trusts anybody. The transaction never considers trust; the other person is merely a set of numbers. In such circumstances, it is only natural to assume everybody else is out to maximize their bank account or power base as well. That goal is the goal pure transactionality excels in (short term), and therefore, if the world operates on pure transactionality, it’s perfectly rational to assume such self-advancement to be everybody else’s goal, in effect if not in theory.

The other possibility is a relational economy. Now, don’t mistake me: relational economies can go massively wrong. The result of izzat and similar shame-based, low-trust societies is a whole lot of suffering, and those are basically relational systems. In fact, transactional economies are technically a sub-type of relational economies, given that transactions and people-as-math is a form of relationship, just a dysfunctional version. But what we see in Bailey is the demonstration of a functional relational economy.

A functional relational economy is built around healthy personal relationships which become the foundation for mutual trust and compassion. In many cases, neither party really needs to owe the other; their transactions are sound by the principles of mere transactionality, each side getting what they bargain for, no risk. But always the transactions are made in the context of the relationship. I don’t just sell you the chicken because you gave me the money; I also sell you the chicken because you’re my friend and my neighbor.

Economic good senses is not abandoned in this system, but it is put in context. When I assess if you’re good for the loan, I’ll do so on grounds of my personal knowledge of your character, of our mutual trust, just as Bailey does (see about 31:00 in the film). I may even decide that, given your good character, I can regard the loan as a charity, never needing to be repaid, because I know that you will steward it well, using it to bless your family and your community.

In the context of the culture, too, I’ll have expectations even of people I’m personally not close to, simply because we both exist in an ecosystem which fosters and teaches and rewards good faith and reliability. I may doublecheck the money I’m given, but it’ll be as a guard against mistakes, not because I’m wary of scammers. After all, the very structure of the society, imposed by its people (not any top-down force), that very structure militates against scammers, driving them out of business quickly as they lose that good relationship which enables the people in general to thrive.

When we think of relational economies, we have a tendency to think of it in terms of trading favors. Favors, however, are not the right frame for how people will interact with each other in a healthy relational economy. Favors are intangible transactions; they’re delayed-action bargaining. ‘I’ll do this now, and you will do something for me later,’ is a transactional statement. It’s not immoral, but it’s not ideal. Much better is what we have in a righteous society: ‘I’ll do this for you now because I love you as a neighbor or a brother in Christ; I don’t worry about repayment, but I know that you love me likewise. You will likewise aid me in my need out of your love for me.’ In sociological terms, I’m not running up a tab: I’m investing in a relationship, from which both of us act towards each other with care.

We can see this in Bailey’s life-story. He spends his honeymoon money on helping out the people around him through the first shocks of the Great Depression. He very plainly doesn’t do so as a favor to be traded. He expects nothing of those he lends to except repayment when they’re well able to; indeed, he doesn’t require even that, though he receives it. He gives and aids because of a care for the people around him, a desire that they not be broken down by Potter’s abusive opportunism. When the time comes, they return that favor to him- not as a repayment for services rendered but in order to aid a friend, in order to stand by the one who stood by them.

Above all, a functional relational economy, one which incorporates both personal and mathematical-economic wisdom, is built upon and by a culture of good character and strong relationships. A society which prioritizes personal self-advancement or reputation may be superficially relational, but in the end it’s merely narcissistic, directing every person’s love towards himself. At best, its people do the right things for the wrong reason. A functional relational economy rises from and fosters a right relationship first with God, who sets man aright and gives him the motivation and understanding to live honestly, diligently, and lovingly, and second with God’s creation, particularly with other people, not abusing our stewardship of creation.

That right relationship with others, built on right relationship with God (both of which contribute to right relationship with self), that right relationship forms the foundation for wise dealings with others, recognizing their character and stewarding God’s gifts to us not in search of pure self-advancement, al a Potter or izzat, but in search of cultivating joy in each other and ourselves, of glorifying Him and helping others to do the same. This proper love works itself out (James 2:14-17) in healthy, healing relationships and an economy which fosters Godward prosperity, both of which cultivate good character in turn. God bless

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Footnotes

1. Some would wonder if some of the prosperity might not be sacrificed with advantage, if such is the cost of community. ↩︎