Ever tried to buy some chocolate and ended up in a spiral of label-scanning and ethical cross-checking? Tom and Amber open this episode with the dizzying reality of ethical consumerism — and then zoom out.
They’re joined by Nien-Hê Hsieh, who grew up with the Doomsday Clock on his family’s kitchen counter — a daily reminder that money, power and human choices carry existential weight. Now a professor at Harvard Business School, Professor Hsieh teaches leaders how to navigate the moral gray zones where profit, fairness and human dignity collide.
From childhood lessons about generosity and anxiety to teaching The Spiritual Lives of Leaders, Professor Hsieh explores the tension between ambition and integrity. He challenges listeners to imagine a “spiritually mature economy” — one that treats money not as an end, but as a tool for care, justice and shared flourishing.
This transcript was generated using AI tools and may contain minor transcription errors.
AMBER HACKER: OK, Tom, I have noticed something.
TOM LEVINSON: Interested. What do you got?
HACKER: OK, so I have a friend and they told me that they are trying to buy everything ethically sourced. Fair trade, the whole thing. Only fair trade, only ethically sourced.
LEVINSON: OK. I mean, that’s good, right?
HACKER: Yeah, it’s good, except — maybe you’ve done this, I have totally done this — they tell me they’re spending all this time, 45 minutes at the grocery store. They got this app where they’re trying to scan the labels and figure out, is this fair trade? They’re cross-referencing websites. It’s a lot of work. And then they just give up, right? They just bought the one with the good-looking label. Maybe there’s a bird on it. And they’re like, OK, there’s a bird on it.
LEVINSON: It’s fine. Oh yeah, I love the label with the bird on it. Those are great. I tend to just go with birds.
HACKER: Yeah, right, right. And so the bird absolved them, right? But I resonated so much with their dilemma, which, frankly, I found a little bit like — perfect be the enemy of the good, right? Of spending all this time and effort and then just kind of giving up. But it’s a challenge that you have to commit to at some point. And even after all your efforts, there’s still not an obvious path forward. And so then it’s, well, it’s all too complicated, forget it — perfect is the enemy of the good. Or they decide, well, I bought the one with the bird on it, I’m doing my part, I’m good.
LEVINSON: Right. It’s all too complicated, forget it. And you just take a, you know, this doesn’t even matter approach. Or you spent a lot of time thinking, well, you know, I did buy the bird coffee, so I guess I’m playing my part. It might be that neither of those is actually true.
HACKER: That’s right. But they’re really tempting because you just gotta get out of Trader Joe’s right now and get home and get the groceries in the fridge.
LEVINSON: OK, can I just say one thing — in my family, we try to stay as long as possible at Trader Joe’s. Elizabeth, if you’re listening, it is my wife’s favorite store in the cosmos, and so we try to linger.
HACKER: OK, so that’s all I’m saying on that front. Some of us want to get out of Trader Joe’s.
LEVINSON: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Understood. The balance here — or the tension here — is that the first choice, the sort of “it’s all too complicated, nothing matters” choice, it leaves us cynical. And the other part, about like, look, the bird label is wonderful — that one lets you off the hook because it’s kind of hollow.
HACKER: Mm-hmm. That’s right. And also you have to put a lot of significance into this, say, coffee purchase.
LEVINSON: Right, which is exhausting.
HACKER: It’s exhausting. Who has time for that? I don’t. This is Money, Meet Meaning. I’m Amber Hacker.
LEVINSON: And I’m Tom Levinson. Money, Meet Meaning is a podcast exploring the surprising, practical relevance of the world’s spiritual traditions on our life with money.
HACKER: OK, Tom. So our guest today grew up with something on his kitchen counter that I think most of us probably did not have.
LEVINSON: And what’s that?
HACKER: It was the science journal called the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. It’s the one with the famous doomsday clock graphic showing how close we are to just all becoming extinct.
LEVINSON: Yeah, that is pretty deep. That’s kind of like existential angst for breakfast.
HACKER: That’s right, that’s right. Humanity ticking toward midnight as a kid on the kitchen counter.
LEVINSON: Could be terrifying, right?
HACKER: That’s right. And he remembers being terrified. But here’s the thing — his dad was a physicist who worked on nuclear stuff, his parents were deeply religious, and somehow that clock was just the household making sense.
LEVINSON: Science, faith, existential stakes, just sitting right there next to the cereal bowl.
HACKER: Right next to the Fruit Loops, exactly. And now he teaches future business leaders on how to navigate the moral gray zones where profit and fairness don’t necessarily line up, where every option comes with a cost.
LEVINSON: This all tracks.
HACKER: So in this conversation, we are getting into a lot of interesting questions. What happens when you try to give your money to the quote-unquote right place? But spoiler alert, there is no right place.
LEVINSON: What happens when the pressure to find purpose becomes itself a problem? Today we’re talking with Professor Nien-hê Hsieh. He teaches at Harvard Business School, where his whole focus is helping leaders figure out their responsibilities — not just to shareholders, but to democracy, to fairness and to basic human rights.
HACKER: And he co-teaches this course called The Spiritual Lives of Leaders, that brings together students from across the university — business school, divinity school, law school — to explore how faith and spirituality actually show up in leadership decisions, or maybe struggle to show up.
LEVINSON: And that’s basically the question we’re circling. If you’re trying to be a good steward, where does your money actually go? How do you actually make that decision?
HACKER: And in a minute, we’re going to widen the lens, because this next part gets into the messier stuff — what leaders do when the right choice is unclear, and when the search for meaning gets exhausting, and when aligning values with money is basically a lifelong practice.
LEVINSON: Stick around.
HACKER: Money, Meet Meaning is a podcast by Interfaith America and my co-host right here, Tom Levinson, and co-sponsored by Apella Wealth.
LEVINSON: Interfaith America is a Chicago-based nonprofit dedicated to embracing the power of pluralism, where we cooperate across difference for the common good.
HACKER: Apella Wealth guides clients to pursue what’s possible through client-first, evidence-based, values-driven advice for life.
LEVINSON: Money, Meet Meaning is distributed by Religion News Service with partnering support from the Faith and Work Initiative at Princeton University.
HACKER: And we would be thrilled — thrilled — if you would share, subscribe, follow and maybe even give us a review on wherever you find your podcasts.
LEVINSON: Do it.
HACKER: We are so excited to talk to you today, Professor.
NIEN-HÊ HSIEH: Thank you. Thank you very much for having me.
LEVINSON: So, can you tell us a little bit about coming of age with this doomsday clock sort of front and center, and the threat — really the threat — of existential oblivion, from an early childhood vantage point?
HSIEH: So, just to put it into context, my father is a physicist. And that’s what he was doing at the University of Chicago — he went there to get his Ph.D. in physics with John Simpson, who was one of the physicists who had actually worked on the — so, in some ways, the clock, you could imagine that having the kind of impact and formative moment in terms of one’s life. But in a weird way, actually, the clock was almost more a representation of what already was in the house. Just to give you some background, my father was very much concerned about the role of science in the world and how science could be done in a way that makes things better. Also, both he and my mother were Episcopalian — or Anglican, actually. And so, the idea of trying to think about humanity as a whole, and trying to transcend difference and think about everybody’s existence, was again something part of the household. So, in some sense, the clock is just a natural extension already of those kinds of values that were in the household, if that makes sense. But I think what it did do was press the immediacy of the situation, right? Because the hand is not that far off midnight. And that’s a vivid reminder. That makes things very concrete, if that makes sense. So, the underlying values were there, but the clock is sort of what made it concrete. And I think as a child — I remember being very scared. It was terrifying. And maybe from the perspective of parenting, we should not put that on the kitchen table — so, Amber, maybe that’s exactly your point as to why parents shouldn’t be putting it there. But I do remember it being quite terrifying, and trying to understand why would anybody think, right in their right mind, no matter what kind of opposition or conflict or disagreement you had, that it would be a good thing if nobody was around.
HACKER: So, I’m curious — what do you remember learning about money? Not perhaps the things that adults said out loud, but, as you were just talking to, kind of the atmosphere in your house. What do you remember about learning about money?
HSIEH: One thing I learned about money is that it was the kind of thing that my father especially would give away to other people. So, he would be constantly writing checks to people when they asked for donations, supporting various kinds of causes. And, to be honest, that was a kind of source of friction between my mother and him. So, I think one thing I did learn was that, yeah, money could be a source of friction. And precisely because of that, I think the value was not in the money itself — that was not the idea of value in our house. Secondly, I actually remember being quite anxious about money as a result of that. Precisely because my parents actually didn’t talk that much about money, because my father was quite generous with our money. And I also realized, when I went to school — I went to Episcopal School, a private school — there was a varying range of affluence among the student body and families there. And I do remember being quite self-conscious of not having as nice clothes or as nice toys as others. And so, the fact that my father was sort of writing checks away, and the fact that money didn’t seem to be important in that kind of sense within the household, and the fact that I sort of felt like there were other people who had money in ways that I could imagine enjoying — I actually remember being quite anxious about it as a child. I actually went to my parents one night — I remember going to my parents one night when I think they were maybe paying bills or something at the kitchen table — and I said, you know, when are you guys going to teach me about things like insurance? And things like mortgage. And things like a checking account? Because if you don’t teach me that, I’m not going to learn about that. And then how am I going to survive in the world? And my parents sort of said, don’t worry, that’s not important. You’ll figure that out and the time will come.
HACKER: How old were you when you asked that question?
HSIEH: I have to think — like fourth or fifth grade.
HACKER: Wow.
HSIEH: Yeah.
HACKER: There are not a lot of fourth and fifth graders asking to learn more about mortgages and insurance. Harvard Business School was your destiny, it sounds like — that is the exception, not the norm.
HSIEH: We learn a lot also from our friends’ parents. And I had friends whose parents were quite successful in business — in real estate, for example, and things like that. And so, I might have picked it up around them, if that makes sense, and not necessarily — certainly not in my household. So, that’s kind of where it must have come from.
LEVINSON: You’ve said that your parents’ faith helped them bridge differences — Chinese and Japanese, different wartime histories, different worlds and at least potential worldviews. How has that spiritual inheritance shaped the way you think about financial life generally — values, fairness, all the things that spring from it?
HSIEH: I think it’s actually changed over the course of my life, if that makes sense. So, when I was younger, earlier — we were in Episcopal School, went to church every week — it was a really big part of my parents’ life and our family’s life. So, in that perspective, the idea of tithing 10% of your income, helping people who are less fortunate, thinking in terms of those kinds of lessons and values — I think that was pretty core to my thinking about money. That money itself should not be the object, right? The idea of “give unto Caesar what is his” — I think that was very powerful there. So, that was kind of a basic way of thinking about money. Then, as I got older, I actually in some sense had the opposite view all of a sudden. And I think this is natural for people who are going through a kind of rebellious phase or things like that. I thought, no, no, it’s actually really important to make a lot of money. Because if you make a lot of money, then you can actually benefit a lot of people, and you can influence things, and you could make a lot of change. And so, that sort of became the idea behind it. And I actually remember, when I graduated from college, making a promise to myself that I was not going to become an academic. And even more precisely — I went to Swarthmore College, which is outside of Philadelphia — the second promise I made to myself was, OK, after not becoming an academic, I’m not going to move back to Philadelphia.
LEVINSON: By the way, much respect to all of our Philadelphia-area listeners. We love Philly.
HSIEH: I love Philly, because, as it turns out, my first job was as an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
HACKER: So you broke both of those promises to yourself.
HSIEH: Early. Yeah, exactly. As a promise breaker — that’s why I teach ethics, right? As they say, those who can’t do, teach. So, money, in some sense, when you think about it from the perspective of faith, for me had this almost extreme positioning. Either, on the one hand, it was something that we just deny and don’t worry about and don’t think about as being important. Or, on the other hand — no, no, actually we should really focus on that, almost to the exclusion of other things, because that’s what’s going to help you change the world. And for me, trying to become a mature person — which is still a few years ahead of me — is really just trying to reconcile those two. Really reconcile the idea of faith, religion, spirituality, fairness, alongside this relationship with money, which is, on the one hand, something that seems like it shouldn’t be the focus and we shouldn’t worry about it. But on the other hand, can be a very important and powerful force in the world. And so, for me, that’s a tension that I reconcile with. And I imagine, if I understand the nature of your podcast, that’s kind of what you’re trying to reconcile with for your listeners as well.
LEVINSON: Yeah, that’s the wrestling that we’re doing with all of our guests and back and forth in our conversations with one another.
HACKER: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel like what you just said, Professor — mic drop. That was really good. I think what you said around the tension is exactly right. I wonder, do you have an example or a story that comes to mind, Professor, as you think about that tension — either from your own life, or one that you’ve seen in your teaching or in your work?
HSIEH: I think it’s less about earning money than rather thinking about giving it away, for me — that’s the tension. And I’m fortunate, very fortunate, in the sense that I went into my profession not with the expectation of making the kind of money that I saw my peers making, and became an academic. But the irony of it is that I am on the faculty at Harvard Business School. And as far as the academic world is concerned, we’re very fortunate to be well-resourced here at the university. So, in some sense, I never felt this kind of tension in choosing one’s career with regard to some of these issues, if that makes sense — because I sort of chose it not wrestling with this issue, and yet sort of being in a position as an academic where we’re very resourced and supported in terms of our work. But I think where the tension does come up is in the question of what does one do with one’s money, especially if one takes a perspective — which again comes from an upbringing in the Episcopal Church — about thinking about what we have not in terms of our own, but really sort of being stewards of it. So, what does it actually mean to be a good steward of money? And that’s not so much on the earning side, I think, but that’s really on the question of what one does with it. And that’s something that I do wrestle with. Well, let’s — be completely honest about it, if that’s OK. Not that — I hate that phrase. Yeah, actually everything up till now was not true. But now we’re getting into truth. You had us fooled. Right. I was not born in Chicago. I’m sorry. No. Maybe the rector will be listening to this. But, you know, we are just in the season of stewardship in the Episcopal Church. And the Episcopal Church asks us to tithe to the church. I happen to go to a congregation, a church, that is well off. There are many other causes to which I could give that are much less well-resourced. So then what does one do with that in that kind of context? Because certainly giving it to other places is going to help the needy just as much as one might think one should do in the context of a religious tradition. So, that’s sort of one way of thinking about it. Children, I think, is the other really tough one. If I think about what kind of future do I want for my children — that would actually lead me to kind of do the opposite of what my father was doing when we were growing up. And I guess for me, the way I reconcile that one is to think, well, what we give our children isn’t just simply financial or material resources. We also want to help shape their view of the world and an understanding of what’s important in the world. And as I look back to my father, for example — I think at the time I felt like, well, he’s really doing this in a way that just doesn’t care about us. But in retrospect, I look back on it now, looking at both him and my mother, and I understand what they were trying to do. I don’t know if they were necessarily being deliberate about trying to impart those values, but certainly, as a result of what they did — in observing them — I learned a lot about what’s important in the world. So, those are the kinds of struggles. Maybe I don’t know if they exactly get to the kind of struggles you’re talking about, Amber, but those are the sorts of things that come to mind.
LEVINSON: We’re talking with Professor Nien-hê Hsieh from Harvard Business School, and he just gave us a real-life version of the question a lot of us dodge a lot of the time: If you’re trying to be a good steward, where does your money actually go?
HACKER: And in a minute, we’re going to widen the lens, because this next part gets into the messier stuff — what do leaders do when the right choice is unclear, when meaning becomes pressure, and when aligning values with money is basically a lifelong practice.
LEVINSON: Stick with us.
LEVINSON: Professor, you co-teach a course at Harvard Business School called The Spiritual Lives of Leaders. The course brings together students from across disciplines to explore faith and leadership. From your perspective, what have you learned teaching that class — and in particular, what have you learned from your students about how spirituality shows up, or struggles to show up, in the lives of emerging leaders in the business world?
HSIEH: Well, one thing is I’ve learned a lot not just from the students and the guests that we’ve invited to speak, but I’ve really learned a lot actually from the other faculty who are involved in the course teaching. So just to put it into context, I’m one of nine faculty who are involved in the course. And so, we have faculty members from the Divinity School, the Law School, the Ed School — we’ve had people from the School of Public Health involved, and also people who are executive fellows. So, in some sense, a lot of the learning for me has just come from our conversations together and thinking about what actually is it that we think should be in the course, and sort of watching people teach different parts of the course. And from that, I think one of the big learnings that comes to me is that the idea of spirituality — and what spirituality means to people — it can range pretty broadly. And I think as somebody who grows up in a specific faith tradition, it’s easy to have a certain view of what spirituality means in this kind of context. But to engage with people from different perspectives teaching this course — that’s, I think, probably one of the biggest learnings: to sort of say, OK, then what do we really mean by spirituality? What is the common thread in spirituality, whether it’s through a faith tradition or not through a faith tradition? So, I think that’s for me one of the biggest learnings in wrestling with the course. Another big thing that’s come out for me from talking with the students about it is how comfortable one feels in talking about one’s spiritual life in the academy. That level of comfort, I think, has actually increased over time a little bit. And I actually am encouraged by that, if that makes sense. I’ll tell you a funny story. When I was in graduate school here at Harvard — I was doing my Ph.D. in economics here — I would attend baseball chaplaincy. And I remember one day I was talking to one of my classmates’ girlfriends. And she said to me, “Nien-hê, you know what’s the most interesting thing about you?” Lots of things, I’m sure. And she said, “The most interesting thing about you is that you actually go to church.” I remember actually feeling not so comfortable talking or sharing that with people at the time. Whereas now, I like to think that the environment seems a little bit more conducive to that for students. So, that’s actually sort of one thing that I’ve observed in that. But at the same time, it’s still very hard, I think, for people to have open conversations about spirituality, faith tradition — and not just what it means for them personally, but also as they go out into the world, how do they reconcile that with the demands being placed upon them from the outside. We have lots of courses at the business school around purpose, or authentic leadership, or figuring out values, or meaning, or how do you achieve happiness. So, in some sense, you would think, if we have courses like that, we should be able to talk about spirituality and faith in that context — because for many people, that’s precisely either where they locate the meaning, or where they find purpose, or what gives them joy, or maybe that’s where they want to look in order to find those sources of joy. But in a way, despite going deep into that part of people’s lives, that part of spirituality and religion still seems like it’s kind of off-limits. And so, what we want to do in the course is sort of say, OK, on the one hand, we tell you in the school and around the university to find your sense of purpose or your mission or your calling. But yet we’re not doing that in a way that resonates with a lot of people’s experience about those precise things. And so, we wanted to do that in the context of the course, so that students who come to us — I’d like to think — will find a place to do that.
HACKER: I often joke on this podcast, Money, Meet Meaning, that my Southern grandmother — who is no longer with us, she’s home with Jesus in heaven — she would often say, in polite company, one doesn’t discuss religion, politics or money. And so, our joke is that we break two out of those three. We are polite company, though — just want to point that out. And so, it’s interesting to hear you say that folks struggle to talk about spirituality. That’s so true. And also folks struggle to talk about money. And so, we’re doing something a little extra in talking about how those two are connected. It’s just very interesting how these subjects are somewhat taboo and people really struggle to talk about them sometimes, because of upbringing. You talked about your own story of how — well, this wasn’t really talked about. That was similar to my house as well. So, just really appreciate those observations.
LEVINSON: A hundred percent.
HACKER: So, you have said that we can get into trouble when we demand that every part of our work be quote-unquote meaningful. And so, my question for you is: How can we stay spiritually grounded without forcing meaning onto money, or becoming cynical about it — especially when we’re leaders? This really stuck out to me as somebody who’s a leader of my organization. There are a lot of aspects of my work that are not that meaningful, not fun, can be really hard — you know, sometimes the mop-and-bucket work — but it’s still really important. And so, I’d love for you to talk more about that, what you meant by that and what that looks like for leaders.
HSIEH: So, I think what I mean by that is, if we say, look, bring your whole self to work, or you need to find meaning in your work — I think it’s important, and we certainly don’t want to foreclose those possibilities to people. But I do worry sometimes that for some people it comes across as though, if I’m not finding meaning in my work, or if I don’t feel comfortable bringing my whole self to work, then there’s something wrong. And it doesn’t have to be wrong. It’s perfectly fine to not necessarily want to bring and share your whole self at work. I think it’s perfectly fine to not find meaning in one’s work. It would be a problem if, in not finding meaning in one’s work, the kind of work one is doing is really just not great — that would be a problem. But it can be possible — there’s certainly great work that one does that doesn’t have that kind of sense of meaning. And so, part of the reason for saying that is just simply to give people permission, in some sense, to feel like they can compartmentalize a little bit, or to give them permission to recognize that maybe some things in my job, yeah, aren’t great — and then sort of think about, OK, then where, how can I be my whole self in other parts of my life? Or how do I find other parts of my life in which to sort of make myself whole? Or similarly, how do I find other things that I do that, in conjunction with my work, will allow me to sort of have that sense of meaning? So, that’s really all I kind of want to suggest in that idea. I think part of the role of leadership, then, is to impart a sense of meaning and to give people permission to sort of be themselves. So, that’s maybe where leadership steps in — to, A, make it OK for people not to feel those things, or to have the pressure to feel like they have to find meaning or bring their whole selves; but at the same time, give them permission to do so. So, that’s probably the role of the leader in that context.
LEVINSON: So, from your perspective, Professor — from your teaching, from your research, and from your own personal experience — in times of moral conflict, say when a profitable path feels spiritually corrosive, what practices or questions can help someone discern their right next step?
HSIEH: Well, I think the first thing is to figure out what is the sense in which it feels spiritually corrosive. And if it’s spiritually corrosive in the sense that it feels like it’s going against something that I myself really hold dear in virtue of my engagement with the spiritual world, then the question is a personal one. And we have to discern — what am I willing to live with, and what are things I can’t live with? And I think that’s the kind of discernment that one makes. And that sort of goes back to our earlier comments and thinking about what’s the relationship between, say, faith and money and one’s personal career and life and things like that. And if that’s the case, it may be a personal decision — because especially if one’s a leader and in a position of leading others who may not necessarily share those same views, to sort of go down that road, even if others don’t share that view, may sometimes be a mistake, because there’s a broader set of responsibilities that one has to the organization and the people that one leads. But sometimes there may be things that are spiritually corrosive in the sense that that sense of corrosion or compromise that we’re feeling is about something that is larger than oneself, and may actually reflect a way of living in the world that is harmful, or isn’t necessarily treating others in the way that one would want to. And if that’s the case, that becomes a different kind of leadership moment, I think, where you have to really figure out — is the organization feeling this as well? And can we explain this to people in a way that simply isn’t about my personal faith or my personal spiritual engagement, but can we explain it in a way that appeals to broader values, broader principles? And then we have to say to ourselves, OK, is this the kind of place where we sort of take a stand and decide that yes, there may be something that could be profitable, better for the organization, but it’s just going to cross a line that we as an organization don’t want to cross.
HACKER: I want to keep on this train of some interesting ethical questions. I often hear folks say, when we’re having this conversation about money and ethics and spirituality — folks say they want to align their values with their money. This is a common refrain that we hear.
LEVINSON: I think you hear that from me a lot too.
HACKER: Well, I do hear that from you.
LEVINSON: I’m throwing myself in that bucket of people who are saying that from time to time.
HACKER: Which, by the way, there are things that Tom and I agree on on that front, and things that we disagree on. So people often say this, including my fabulous co-host. And from an ethical standpoint, do you think that alignment is always possible? And let’s go even trickier here — is it even desirable? I want to align my values with my money. What do you think?
HSIEH: I don’t think it’s always possible. And I’m trying to think of if there’s a moment in which actually trying to align your money and your values is in fact not desirable. I remember I tried once, very hard, to buy products that I felt I could guarantee were ethically sourced, or manufactured under conditions of fair working conditions, or were done in ways that didn’t harm the environment. It was pretty hard — in part because the whole system that we’ve set up, depending on how you think about it, a lot of the choices we make are just really affecting other people, and it’s very hard to do that. So I’m not sure if that’s what you mean by sort of trying to align your money with your values. Or if you think about investments — do you want to invest in certain kinds of — so I also was very conscious about, OK, maybe I should invest in certain industries or not in other industries, and thinking about where my stocks went. Is it not desirable to do? I mean, I suppose if it makes one so miserable and so tortured, and you spend all your time thinking about it and never end up buying anything or investing anywhere, then maybe — yeah, maybe that’s not a desirable way to do things.
HACKER: Yeah.
HSIEH: Now, I think you were getting at this earlier, Amber. The risk, right, of what I’ve just described is that one then falls into one of two camps. The risk is that, OK, look, it’s too complicated, too hard to do, and one becomes essentially cynical about the whole enterprise and we simply don’t care at all about where our money and our values are. The other risk we run is a version of what I just described to you — which is that, well, hey, it’ll be OK, we don’t really have to worry about it because we can sort of focus on the bigger picture. So there’s a kind of naivete, or almost even hypocrisy, in that view. And I think for me, that’s the real challenge, right? What we really mean by trying to align your money with your values is to constantly remind ourselves that we have to sort of push back against either cynicism in what we do, or this kind of unbridled sense of naivete and hypocrisy.
LEVINSON: I’m going to be chewing on that for a while. That’s fascinating. Professor, you’ve said that ethics is really about how we live with one another. If we extend that to how we think about and use and circulate money, can you share a little bit about what a more spiritually mature economy might look and feel like?
HSIEH: Depending on who you talk to, a truly spiritual economy might not be very big.
LEVINSON: That’s right.
HSIEH: It’s like — we don’t need the economy. So, look, I think there are a few ways in which, just based upon my work and the kind of teaching I engage in and sort of where I see things happening in the world — and certainly the kinds of questions I’m asking — where thinking about spirituality, and maybe if I add to spirituality the broader sense — if we think of spirituality in a sense that encompasses humanity, if that makes sense. So, the idea of recognizing the importance of parts of our lived experience that aren’t purely material or purely transactional. We’re thinking about parts of our experience that relate to other people in a way that sort of transcends our differences. So, if we think — if we expand spirituality to mean that, and then think in terms of what would that mean if that kind of sensibility and those attitudes and those experiences and ways of approaching the world were more mature — I can imagine a lot of changes that I would love to see. At a very basic level, how we see one another. Just basic acts of kindness, basic idea of recognizing other people as people. There’s that great saying in Ubuntu, which I think is very profound for spirituality — it’s the idea that “I am because we are,” or “I see you and you see me, and therefore I am.” That kind of recognition — and the recognition that we exist and see ourselves as people because of how other people see us — I think that’s something that can easily get lost in the economy as it is today, whether it’s in terms of work, whether it’s in terms of how people relate over social media, whether it’s the idea of thinking about customers simply as consumers. All these ways in which we interact — the whole idea of this kind of atomistic view of the economy, where basically it’s transactional, and what we’re really trying to do is basically advance our own — whether it’s preference satisfaction through buying things, or advancing our profits through making more money, or thinking about how do I get up in the world. The economy right now is structured in a way that pretty much is centered around individuals in that kind of way. And I think for me, a spiritually mature economy, at the very basic level, would say: Look, we’re not just individual atoms trying to buy or consume or make money or get promoted. We’re human beings, and we do that all the time in relation to others. So, I think that would be the first place to start. I think the second thing is to think a little bit about the kinds of ways in which we make money. And so, if we think about the ways in which we make money right now — and especially the idea of the attention economy, or thinking in terms of engagement. Attention and engagement — if those are the metrics by which we are trying to make money with people, we have to ask ourselves, are we engaging them in a way that is relevant to appealing to these broader kinds of things? And I’m not sure we necessarily do that either. My worry is that as algorithms become more and more sophisticated and able to target and increase that kind of engagement — and if the kind of engagement we offer people ends up getting a pretty good approximation or simulation of a lived experience — we risk running into a world that is kind of solipsistic for every person in it. And that to me — solipsism — seems to be the exact opposite of what a spiritually mature world would be, right? Because it’s all basically about yourself and nothing else. And that’s exactly to me the opposite of what spirituality is trying to achieve and what we’re talking about here. That is kind of what I want to avoid. And so, anything that we can do to increase the kind of engagement across people — not engagement of me with the platform, but the idea of recognition of other people — that’s a kind of more spiritually grounded economy. I think another dimension is care — demonstrating care and concern for other people. That’s kind of a part of a spiritually grounded economy. And then I think some people would say — and I haven’t thought deeply enough about this — but there are many people, maybe students in my class, for example, who would argue that a spiritually grounded economy actually also requires us to think more broadly about the natural environment. One of our speakers in the course is the head of the Arnold Arboretum, and he comes in and talks about trees and the importance of trees, and how engaging with nature is a way to expand one’s engagement with the spiritual world. So, you could say a more spiritually mature economy is one that also takes into consideration the impact that we’re having on the natural world. So I think there are lots of ways in which one could imagine a more spiritually mature economy. I think the real question for us going forward is to what extent are some of the fundamental ways in which we’ve set up the economy in tension with some of the things we were talking about, or is it something that we can deal with going forward? And people give very different answers to that. If you think about the natural environment, some people are like, no, we just gotta change the whole thing. Other people are like, no, we can actually do it in the context of where we are today. And so I think that’s a challenge for you all on your podcast to figure out.
HACKER: That’s a good assignment for us — tall order. Well, let me ask you one final question. Professor, you have mentioned that many of your students feel a growing tension between the demands of work and the pull of family life, that their sense of purpose at work doesn’t always fit where they find meaning in their life. And I’m interested — what do you think that tension reveals about the way we have built our relationship to money and success?
HSIEH: I don’t know if it’s necessarily a relationship to money, but I think what it is is maybe our awareness of money. So, it may not necessarily change the relationship to money so much as — I think what’s happened is that we live in a much more aspirational society in terms of money. So, maybe that’s the dimension of relationship to money that you’re talking about. We live in a world where we see how much more money people make and what they can do with their money in ways that I don’t think we ever saw before. And so, part of what’s going on, I think, is just that — the awareness of this is so great that it sort of affects things in that kind of way. Then we think, oh, we have to — it’s a kind of version of FOMO. If I’m not making that much money, I’m missing out on important things. And frankly, some of those things are actually really important things. Like, am I going to be able to provide my children the best life that they can have? Am I going to make sure that I’m going to be able to treat my spouse to the kinds of experiences that I would like them to have? So, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. But I do think what’s happened is, in part — I like to tell people that there’s more inequality in the top 1% than there is in the bottom 99%, and that’s been growing over time immensely. The idea of the rat race or keeping up with the Joneses has always been there. And certainly the pressure and tradeoff between family and work — that’s obviously become harder because of the demands on people’s time. But what I do think is that if you put those things that have always been there in the context of this increasing sense of awareness of what other people are doing — I think that’s, for me at least, what I see as driving part of it.
LEVINSON: Well, Professor Hsieh, we are really grateful for you taking the time to speak with us. We’ve learned a ton. We are really grateful for you and your time.
HACKER: Thank you so much.
HSIEH: No, thank you. It’s been great to meet you and have this conversation, and thanks for your questions. I hadn’t thought about many of them, so very probing and thought-provoking — left me with lots to think about as well. So, thank you.
HACKER: I’m so glad. Thank you so much.
HACKER: This is Money, Meet Meaning. Thanks for listening. I’m Amber Hacker.
LEVINSON: And I’m Tom Levinson. Big thanks to our very special guest, Professor Nien-hê Hsieh.
HACKER: Money, Meet Meaning is a podcast by Interfaith America and Tom Levinson, and distributed by Religion News Service and the Faith and Work Initiative at Princeton University.
LEVINSON: And special thanks to our co-sponsor, Apella Wealth. Elizabeth Windham is the supervising producer. Elizabeth Villa is our story producer. Julia Windham is the editor. Corinna Roozeboom and Hanna Snoeyink are the associate producers.
HACKER: Senior producer is Jonathan Woodward.
LEVINSON: Our theme music is by Martin Fowler.
HACKER: Schuyler Roozeboom designed our look.
LEVINSON: As always, if you’ve got something to share about your own views on money and faith and wisdom traditions, you can email us at
HACKER: And please share us with a friend.
LEVINSON: Money, Meet Meaning is produced by Windhaven Productions. Special Thanks, and Bluejay Atlantic.
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