All right, so they’re letting me have it over at a certain website, where I’ve been raked over the coals by people whose own views, of course, aren’t the slightest bit cranky. (This is the latest, though other blog entries here will direct you to others.) I still say that I’ve learned a lot from the people at the Rockford Institute and I would never want to give the impression that I hold them in contempt when I don’t.

Still, there are a few things I’d like to know. If I am guilty of the atrocities attributed to me, why no mea culpas from my critics for not being supporters of the United Nations? Pro-U.N. sentiment to the point of being embarrassing has been central to papal statements for at least four decades now — who made the anti-U.N. Rockford folks the arbiters of what is and is not binding on us? John Paul has said that the U.N. should be the moral center of the global community. In this he’s only following Paul VI and John XXIII. You see where this kind of approach gets us.
Likewise, I do not see how it is possible to say that Leo and Pius are beyond question on economics, but Paul VI may be criticized — the strong implication of the most recent hit on me. That’s different, they’ll say. How, exactly? Because my critics are skeptical of the statements of one or two popes while I have pointed out difficulties with four?

If you read documents like Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno, you find a number of statements that take the form, “It is good for families to prosper. Therefore, the following principle [antitrust legislation, attacks on big business, taxation on wealth, etc.] is MORALLY OBLIGATORY.” In other words, we want X, so therefore we should have Y. (The connection between X and Y is often implicit, but it is there.) But what if either 1) Y moves you further away from X; 2) there are better ways than Y of getting X; or both? Quadragesimo is filled with such statements, so much so that it’s no easy thing to separate the basic principles from the recommendations. The problem, naturally, is that these are all debatable issues, though Quadragesimo gives the very unfortunate impression that they’ve all been decided, except for a few holdouts who obstinately refuse their assent.

What if, as the Public Choice school teaches us, the “public authority” to whom we are to entrust the responsibility of correcting “market failure” is not exactly a disinterested seeker after justice but rather is itself composed of self-interested individuals pursuing their own selfish ends? Is it not at least conceivable, as my Rockford friends would surely concede, that particularly in our day and age it would be simply unwise to entrust the state with the kinds of coercive powers that are clearly implied in Quadragesimo? (One of my critics denies that Quadragesimo praises or calls for any state intervention, but a quick glance at the document is all you need to see through that one.) Are these forbidden questions, or are they not? Are there additional considerations to be brought to bear here, or not? This is hardly the stuff of subversion.

For a century, with noble exceptions, heavily interventionist policy positions have been derived from Catholic social teaching. Have the American bishops been rebuked by the Vatican for this; have they been told that they’re woefully misinterpreting the social teaching? Need I answer that question? Is it just a weird coincidence that 95% of those who speak or write on Catholic social teaching support heavy interventionism? Are they all idiots who can’t understand their own Church’s documents? Even the Rockford folks wouldn’t support the bishops’ statements on the economy, but I have yet to hear even a single Vatican official deny that those statements faithfully reflect the social teaching.

In light of the above, it seems more than reasonable to raise fundamental questions about this entire line of thought. If there are people who cannot distinguish between what I’m saying here on the one hand and the stance of Martin Luther on the other, that is very much their problem, not mine.

The Best of Tom Woods