Geen recht de moed te verliezen. Leven en werken van dr. H.M. de Lange (1919-2001)

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Not Allowed to Lose Courage
Life and work of Dr. H.M. de Lange
1919-2001
Summary

This study tries to answer the question what the contribution of Dr. H.M. de Lange to the ecumenical debate on social-ethical issues has been and still is.

To this end, in the first part, a description is given of the work of De Lange. His private life is dealt with only briefly. The main objective of a biography of an ‘ecumenical’ is to show how an individual was inspired by the ecumenical spirit and how that turned out. It is impossible to understand the ecumenical movement only through documents. Individuals with their specific qualities built the ecumenical movement. Through the individual Harry de Lange this study provides an insight in the worldwide ecumenical movement and the ecumenical work in the Netherlands.

The contribution of De Lange to ecumenical social ethics is that he consistently elaborated, propagated and practised the ideas that were developed in the ecumenical movement. To that end, De Lange built a huge network of people. In this study, some of them are introduced through a short biographical outline. To show the importance of De Lange, this network, the discussions he had in this network and the actions he set in motion, are described. This first, voluminous, part is as such an outline of recent history based on the interaction between De Lange and his time. In order not to loose sight of the thinking and actions of De Lange, the second part goes into three elements of them. The concept of the Responsible Society, developed within the World Council of Churches, is at the heart of De Lange's line of thinking. To understand how he uses it, an idea of where De Lange finds himself as an economist is indispensable (chapter five). His anthropology determines the way he approaches the concept of the responsible society (chapter six). The concept of the Responsible Society is introduced and treated (in chapter seven); the way De Lange interpreted it and the way he discussed it with others are elaborated as a specimen of the whole debate. The last chapter gives some conclusions.

The biographical part is divided into four chapters according to the periods of life and work of De Lange: first his youth and period of study (1919-1945), then the period he worked at the Dutch Planning Bureau (1945-1964) followed by his years at the Institute for Research of Standards and Values (1964-1981), and to conclude his years at university and retirement (1981-2001).

1. Herman Marinus - Harry - de Lange was born on the 2nd of March 1919. His parents were not affiliated to any church, but when De Lange happens to attend a church service of the Remonstrant church, he is impressed by the atmosphere, and, after some time, is confirmed, and engages himself with the ecumenical youth movement. De Lange was deeply moved by his experiences with the effects of the years of crisis on his family and with the Second World War. In several ways he noticed neglect, the guilty negligence of measures that could have prevented evil to take place. In his later work he tried to contribute to the prevention of such negli-

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gence in future. After finishing school, he studies economics in Rotterdam. After his B.A. exam, he has to go into hiding to prevent deportation to Germany (as a consequence of refusing to sign a declaration of loyalty to the occupation authorities). During that period De Lange has some important encounters that greatly influenced the rest of his life. His meetings with students from the Dutch Indies, result in a growing sympathy with the struggle for an independent Indonesia, and in general with the struggle of Third World nations for independence. Of great importance is also his acquaintance with the theologian Banning, a religious-socialist, and editor of the religious-socialist magazine Tijd en Taak. Banning became his tutor, and they cooperated extensively in later years. During the war, De Lange became member of the Dutch Union, in an attempt to overcome the sharp divisions between the denominations that marked the Netherlands before the war, and to create a greater sense of togetherness. After the war De Lange joined the Dutch People's Movement, and through this organisation he became member of the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) when it was founded, in 1947. Despite his criticism (e.g. the policy towards Indonesia) he remained a faithful and active member all his life.

2. After the War, the Dutch Planning Bureau (CPB) is founded, with Tinbergen as director. De Lange applies for a job at the CPB, in the expectation that deliberate economic policy will be able to prevent such situations as took place in the Thirties. He is appointed and after some years he becomes secretary to the director; in this capacity he is engaged in many debates on issues that are of interest to him. In his way of dealing with economics, he is greatly influenced by Tinbergen, who also raises his interest for the Third World. De Lange starts to write articles in a series of magazines on several issues, and gives lectures wherever he is asked to do so. Because of his ecumenical interest, he attends the youth meeting at the occasion of the first Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam in 1948. This started a series ecumenical activities like membership of the Commission on Social Affairs of the Council of Churches in the Netherlands. De Lange is chairman of the Commission until 1993. Within his own, Remonstrant, church he stimulates and supports the reflection on social affairs. In many ways he strengthens the educational work; he is a regular guest and lecturer at meetings in the lay-academy Kerk en Wereld (Church and World). In the Fifties he starts to write articles for the magazine Wending (‘Turn’), sometimes characterised as a kind of ‘educational work on paper’. After some time he becomes member of the editorial staff. In 1966 De Lange presents his doctoral thesis Shaping a Responsible Society, in which all his fields of interest unite. In this study he endeavoured to apply and test the criterion of the Responsible Society of the World Council of Churches to the Dutch situation. Looking back, it seems as if this study contains the program of activities and initiatives that De Lange will undertake in later years. In the same period De Lange publishes his influential book Rich and Poor Countries.

3. In 1964 De Lange joins the Inter-University Institute for Research into Standards and Values in the Industrial Society, INW. Here he is able to devote all his time to the things he is interested in and good at. In later years he becomes director. To a large extend, his work was to give lectures at the universities that cooperated in the institute. In addition, he organised debates on several issues, with academics, topmanagement of companies, etc. The period during which De Lange worked at the INW was turbulent, in politics, in culture, in the churches and in social and eco-

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nomic respect. De Lange joined many debates, in the churches, in politics and at his own office. Until then, De Lange had mainly been confronted with criticism from ‘right-wing’ opponents, but now he was also reproached for being conservative. In the INW the debate about the conception of science completely went out of control and co-operation was no longer impossible. This was the reason why he left the INW in 1982. His engagement with the WCC had become stronger during these years. He attended the Assemblies of Uppsala (1968) and Nairobi (1975), was member of the Working Committee of the Department Church and Society (C&S) and was member of the board of Bossey. To him, the Geneva-conference of 1966 was the most important ecumenical event ever, and he kept himself informed of the two most important issues of this conference, technology and development. His third book, Reality and Hope (1975), is a description of the development of the ecumenical debate on societal issues from 1966 to the Nairobi Assembly. All the topics he dealt with in the WCC, De Lange also put on the agenda of the Dutch Council of Churches. He was member of its Working group on Church and Development, of delegations that discussed the issue of Southern Africa with the Dutch government and Dutch companies; he initiated the WCC Program on Transnational Corporations in the Netherlands, and was deeply engaged in the founding of the Multidisciplinary Centre for Church and Society (MCKS). De Lange was also involved in the ecumenical work of the European churches in Brussels. Through his engagement with C&S he becomes acquainted with the churches in the GDR; this results in a series of encounters between the committees for church and society of the Dutch and the GDR churches. On the agenda are issues like the Conciliar Process and the Economy of Enough, a theme De Lange got engaged with during his activities within the group that later became the MCKS. The economist Goudzwaard and De Lange himself became the main representatives of this line of thinking. In the Remonstrant Church De Lange also stimulates the debate on these issues. Here he is confronted with opposition, because of his political stance and his sometimes fierce criticism on his church. In the PvdA, his political party, De Lange is not in the forefront. He puts emphasis on the discussion on the right of Christians to join a non-Christian party. And he stimulates his party to be interested in ecumenical thinking. Because of his active engagement with development issues, De Lange is asked to become chair of the development agency NOVIB in 1972 (he resigns in 1977).

4. In 1981 De Lange becomes professor in Applied Social Ethics at the Theological Faculty of the University of Utrecht (until 1984). He teaches economics and ecumenical social ethics. After his retirement Genoeg van teveel, Genoeg van te weinig (in the English editions translated as Beyond Poverty and Affluence. Towards an Economy of Care) is published, and two years later, in 1988, Wij moeten ons haasten. Meedoen met het Conciliair Proces (We have to hurry. Joining the Conciliair Process). The accent in his ecumenical work is now more and more on the Dutch situation. His last activity in the WCC was his engagement with the document Christian Faith and the World Economy, published in 1992. In the Dutch Council of Churches De Lange stimulates the Conciliar Process, and is engaged in discussion and action on the increasing poverty in the Netherlands, the debate on the welfare state, the EU, Southern Africa and workers' participation. In the MCKS (founded in 1980) he is the motor of many initiatives, especially on economic issues. All these activities come to a halt when he is struck by a brain infarct in August 1997. On the 27th of September 2001 he dies.

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Part II of this study is titled ‘Harry de Lange and ecumenical social ethics’.

5. In this chapter (‘Who moves the boundary stones?¹ On Harry de Lange as an economist’) De Lange is positioned as an economist. After that, the way De Lange deals with economics in two of his books is investigated. De Lange wanted to exercise his profession in a normative way, and challenged his colleagues to be explicit about their normative presuppositions (that everybody, wittingly or unwittingly, has) too. We can position De Lange in the circles of institutional economists, like Galbraith, who favour a multidisciplinary way of doing economics, who want to use their profession to solve social problems and are not averse to government interference in the economy. Economists who influenced De Lange are, among others, Galbraith, Tinbergen, Daly and Schumacher. De Lange also let himself gladly be taught by the specific knowledge of contemporary economists like Linnemann, Goudzwaard and Opschoor. In his dissertation Shaping a Responsible Society he aims to find out whether this concept of the Responsible Society (which in fact is a criterion) can play a role in the building process of an economic order and in the creation of economic policy. To that end he describes the background of the ecumenical debate on the responsible society, analyses the Dutch society, and confronts these two. He applies the outcome of that comparison in the second part of his study to some parts of the economic order and the economic process. His conclusion is that indeed a moral category like responsibility can play the supposed role. De Lange agrees with Mannheim when he states that within a society where the basic rules are contrary to the spirit of Christian teaching, it is not possible to be a good Christian. These rules (e.g. the incentive of self-interest) stimulate the sinful instincts of people in stead of tempering them. The concept of ‘responsibility’ can help to build a societal order with less room for sin. As people are not by nature willing and able to feel responsible, education towards responsibility is indispensable. In 1986 Beyond Poverty and Affluence is published. This book shows that structural flaws in economic theory lead to losses in society. We must work towards an economy where the need for care is placed in the centre and where the choice of production, consumption and income has been made subservient to that need. That is the economy of care, which requires a reorientation in several areas. Colleagueeconomists reacted mainly with the remark that economic growth is necessary, and that the authors underestimate the self-correcting abilities of the system. Progressive theologians reproached the authors for not fully taking account the existence of power in society. This chapter concludes by indicating the influence De Lange as had as an economist. In the Netherlands, especially in the churches, his influence was huge, as stimulator, as source of inspiration, as a networker and someone who took initiatives. In Europe and in the international ecumenical movement his role was above all that of a networker.

6. At the base of De Lange ideas of a Responsible Society is his anthropology. Central sentences in the anthropology of De Lange are: ‘Each human being is created by God in his image and likeness. He must develop himself according to the God given capacities and possibilities’ and: ‘God needs man. He looks for him. He invites him to take part in His work of creation. He counts on the cooperation of man.’ De Lange was challenged by the personalism of Banning, by the way the Russian phi-

1 A reverence to Job 24.

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losopher Berdjajew spoke hopefully of men, and by the moral philosopher De Graaf who with his study Russian Thinkers on Men opened up this line of thinking in the Netherlands. Frequently he also cites Jewish authors, of whom he appreciates the emphasis on the relational aspects of human being, their way of approaching ethics and theology (‘to know God is to know what one has to do’) and their fundamental optimism. He criticizes people who, under the influence of the Catechism of Heidelberg, think negatively of men. In the spirit of Moltmann and Picht he speaks of hope as a duty, because the road the world has taken leads into an abyss. The anthropology of De Lange was eclectic, not really thought through in all respects, but sufficient for the purpose he wanted it to serve.

7. This anthropology was fundamental for the importance De Lange attached to the concept of the Responsible Society that the World Council of Churches used as a criterion to judge the existing social orders and as a standard to guide people in their choices. If people are addressed by God, called to be responsible, society must offer room to really practice responsibility. ‘Where social structures restrain man from answering God, we have the duty to act and to cooperate in the process of liberation’, De Lange says. The concept of the Responsible Society was meant to be an answer in a great number of ecumenical debates (on an ethics of means or an ethic of ends, on a natural law or a biblical-christological approach) and had to be able to reflect on a variety of situations in society. For that reason, the concept continued to arouse questions. Especially the rise of the theology of revolution resulted in much criticism of the concept. The criticism of the theologian Ter Schegget in his thesis Het beroep op de stad der toekomst (The Appeal on the City of the Future) is dealt with as a clear illustration for this. Close reading shows that not all this criticism does justice to the concept. Too easily it identifies the concept with what its representatives made out of it, and often the concept is misunderstood as a call to accept personal responsibility irrespective of the circumstances. De Lange opposes all talk of responsibility that rejects government intervention, and that only stresses the responsibility of the person. De Lange stuck to the concept, although he welcomed the new concepts and programs that were introduced by the World Council of Churches. In the debate on the paradigm change that is said to have taken place in ecumenical thinking, and that led to these new concepts, sometimes a caricature is made of the so-called ‘old’ thinking. To De Lange, the central themes of the ecumenical social ethics remained justice, participation and sustainability, concepts with great relevance also for the problems of today. In recent years theologians go back to the concept of the Responsible Society and show that it is a useful tool in the struggle for a better world.

8. The concluding chapter summarises the main lines in the work of De Lange and asks whether his way of working would still be successful today. The answer is yes: his enthusiasm would still work, because it was not based on an optimistic calculation of the goals to achieve, but came out of the hope ‘that has a passion for the possible’.