Parting thoughts

Jeff’s post (sorry, can’t insert urls where I am), inspired me to put down a few concluding thoughts on this whole matter of Catholic social teaching.1) Without fail, whenever the subject of Catholic social teaching and the Austrian School comes up some people can always be counted on to point out, as if we didn’t know this already, that material prosperity isn’t everything and that this is supposedly all that free marketeers care or think about. Talk about a straw man. Worse, though, is that this objection completely misses the point. The social encyclicals call for the things they call for, including state intervention in the economy, not because those things are morally desirable in and of themselves but precisely because the popes believe that these measures will make workers more materially prosperous! So the claim that we think prosperity is everything, and that therefore we’re morally obtuse, is about as misplaced as an argument can get. THE POPES, TOO, advocate the economic policies they do FOR THIS EXPRESS REASON, so if we are “materialistic,” then so are they. The debate centers around whether the papal approach to economics will or will not deliver the promised prosperity.

2) In Quadragesimo Anno #71, Pius XI says, “Every effort must therefore be made that fathers of families receive a wage large enough to meet ordinary family needs adequately. But if this cannot always be done under existing circumstances, social justice demands that changes be introduced as soon as possible whereby such a wage will be assured to every adult workingman.” What “changes,” exactly? Given the tone and content of this document, it is more than reasonable to conclude that they don’t involve lightening the tax burden on business and thus encouraging investment, etc. So what changes does he mean? Do we have confidence, based on this document, that these “changes” will really benefit the workers, which Pius clearly wants, or are they liable to make their condition worse?

In #73, on the subject of figuring out how to balance the demands of the just wage against the need for the business to remain solvent, we read: “Let, then, both workers and employers strive with united strength and counsel to overcome the difficulties and obstacles and let a wise provision on the
part of public authority aid them in so salutary a work.” What exactly will the “public authority” do here? Can anyone suggest something that would not be bad? Here again, Pius wants to improve the condition of workers (good) but turns to “public authority” (demonstrably counter-productive).

From #88, we get this: “Destroying through forgetfulness or ignorance the social and moral character of economic life, it held that economic life must be considered and treated as altogether free from and independent of public authority, because in the market, i.e., in the free struggle of competitors, it would have a principle of self direction which governs it much more perfectly than would the intervention of any created intellect. But free competition, while justified and certainly useful provided it is kept within certain limits, clearly cannot direct economic life – a truth which the outcome of the application in practice of the tenets of this evil individualistic spirit has more than sufficiently demonstrated. Therefore, it is most necessary that economic life be again subjected to and governed by a true and effective directing principle. This function is one that the economic dictatorship which has recently displaced free competition can still less perform, since it is a headstrong power and a violent energy that, to benefit people, needs to be strongly curbed and wisely ruled. But it cannot curb and rule itself. Loftier and nobler principles – social justice and social charity – must, therefore, be sought whereby this dictatorship may be governed firmly and fully.”

This is much more than an attack on Wal Mart, as some will disingenuously claim; this is something much more sweeping and much more coercive — a directing power over the economy. All in the name of improving people’s material condition. Again, I ask: is such an authority liable to improve or undermine people’s material condition? And is such advice liable or not liable to give aid and comfort to those who want to draw statist conclusions from the social encyclicals? A quick look around at the “social justice” Jesuits, the leftist American bishops, etc., should be all the answer this question requires.

3a) Then we have the fact — and it is a fact — that well over 95% of people who make careers out of writing about the social teaching have used Quadragesimo and other documents to support heavily interventionist policies.

3b) No Vatican official has ever rebuked a bishops’ conference or a lay expositor of the social teaching for putting too much emphasis on state power when expounding upon the social teaching.

3c) Thus it seems safe to assume that these heavily interventionist policies do indeed faithfully reflect Catholic social teaching.

3d) Why does this situation not seem to call for raising prudent and eminently reasonable questions about this entire line of thought, given where it has led in almost every single case in which the social teaching has been pursued?

4) For the zillionth time, I don’t deny the popes’ moral authority and I’m not destroying Christian civilization. If the Pope wants to say that an employer should not show reckless disregard for human life, he is absolutely right to do so. At the same time, it has to be borne in mind that everything has a cost, and that bringing about safer workplaces through state fiat, which Pius expressly praises in QA #27-28, will typically come at the expense of the workers’ wage rates. I suggested in my Lou Church lecture that market forces are more effective in balancing legitimate concerns about safety on the one hand against the workers’ desire for high wages on the other. Any other way of balancing the two is inherently arbitrary. People who want to understand my point will follow this; people who want to score points against me will not. I accept that.

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11:11 am on June 28, 2004