Papal Freedom Regression?
by Donald Devine
Issue 137 - August 5, 2009
Conservatives were upset that Pope Benedict XVI’s first social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate , supposedly undermined the freedom and market teachings of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. As with much thinking on the right these days, they were confused.
The Google Groups conservative hotline buzzed. “While there are some valuable insights - which I take to be Benedict's,” concluded an executive at a large Catholic association, “when it comes to economic prescriptions it's an unmitigated disaster,” which he attributed to “the Peace and Justice crowd at the Vatican.”
A few minutes later, a “friendly non-Catholic” conservative concurred: “On a quick first reading, the encyclical looks like regression.” The most offensive phrase was: “The processes of globalization, suitably understood and directed, open up the unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale.” Redistribution is a dirty word on the right and the commentator found its use by the Pope “most depressing.”
Even without reading the whole (30,000 word) document, it was possible to respond in Google-time: “I cannot believe my dear compatriot can be upset at the idea of globalization leading to redistribution of wealth! Globalization--that is the world market--is precisely how we want redistribution to take place, freely, which it will in a truly free market. If redistribution takes place through the market governed by just property laws, is this not just what we desire? So far, I see no regression.”
It turned out that the source of the criticism against the pope’s new social teaching was the respected Catholic biographer of Pope John Paul II at Washington’s Ethics and Policy Center, George Weigel. Writing in National Review , he claimed
Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth)….seems to be a hybrid, blending the pope’s own insightful thinking on the social order with elements of the Justice and Peace approach to Catholic social doctrine, which imagines that doctrine beginning anew at Populorum Progressio. Indeed, those with advanced degrees in Vaticanology could easily go through the text of Caritas in Veritate, highlighting those passages that are obviously Benedictine with a gold marker and those that reflect current Justice and Peace default positions with a red marker. The net result is, with respect, an encyclical that resembles a duck- billed platypus.
Weigel interpreted the document as a political effort by a truly gentle soul,” Pope Benedict, who needed “to maintain the peace within his curial household” by retreating from John Paul’s clear preference for capitalism over socialism into a progressive “Catholic third way” by blandly blending the two opposing ideologies.
When one ponders Benedict’s entire document, one can understand the confusion – because the teaching is so profoundly subtle. It is partially so because as the perceptive Fr. Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute notes, Benedict “does not focus on specific systems of economics -- he is not attempting to shore up anyone's political agenda. He is rather concerned with morality and the theological foundation of culture.” But even that misses the subtlety. While Caritas in Veritate is at bottom about morality, it is also an intensely political document that has very much to say about economics. Benedict is not a gentle platypus but a philosophical fox.
While Benedict’s new encyclical does indeed appear to be regressive to those like Weigel who preach laissez faire capitalism and national greatness, it is devastating to progressive Catholicism, undermining the whole basis for its view that Pope John Paul II was a aberration from the mainstream of Catholic social thought when he did more clearly support the manifest benefits of the market, trade and capitalism and the defects of the centralized welfare statist alternative - in his great Centesimus Annus. Pope Benedict is trying to square the circle of progressive and conservative interpretations of the entire body of Catholic social thought reaching back to Pope Leo XIII in 1891. A synthesis could upset both sides.
Pope Benedict achieves this tour-de-force by firmly placing what Weigel correctly calls the “odd duck” among the social encyclicals – Pope Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio – into the tradition of John Paul II, cleverly citing him for beginning the incorporation. Benedict specifically rejects the idea of “two typologies of social doctrine, one pre-conciliar and one post-conciliar, differing from one another: on the contrary, there is a single teaching, consistent and at the same time ever new.” There is no Weigel gold verses red. This is of momentous importance because progressive “peace and justice” Catholicism used Populorum Progressio (and to a lesser extent John XXIII’s Mater et Magistra) as the very basis for its whole counter-ideology. Where Weigel sees only “incoherence” in trying to integrate Populorum Progressio into the mainstream, he misses the essential point that by this masterstroke Benedict ends progressive irredentism against authentic Catholic social doctrine that very much includes Centesimus Annus.
What was so appealing to progressives in Populorum Progressio was Pope Paul’s argument that voluntary activities (free or so-called subsidiarity activities) “today undertaken by individuals and groups” to achieve a just society “are not equal to the task” without direction from a centralized welfare state (so-called “solidarity”). This was linked to Pope John’s statement that central state intervention now makes “it possible to keep fluctuations in the economy within bounds…to provide effective measures to avoid mass unemployment” and to reduce wealth “imbalances.” Both were used by progressives to morally subordinate voluntary to state activity. But as the present author had noted in his 1978 book Does Freedom Work?, these are empirical observations concerning “today” rather than moral doctrines and could be overturned by better future understanding of the underlying economic realities.
This hoped-for reappraisal of Populorum Progressio’s empirical assumptions is precisely what Pope Benedict has accomplished, specifically requiring that “an evaluation is needed of the different terms in which the problem of development is presented today, as compared with forty years ago” when Pope Paul wrote. The “heart” of Paul’s teaching is defined in his statement, “There is no true humanism but that which is open to the Absolute” and “gives human life its true meaning.” Benedict reaffirms the “importance of distributive justice and social justice” and the social responsibility of business. That vision is “still timely,” says Benedict; but the “world that Pope Paul VI had before him” has changed.
Perhaps at one time it was conceivable that first the creation of wealth could be entrusted to the economy, and then the task of distributing it could be assigned to politics. Today that would be more difficult, given that economic activity is no longer circumscribed within territorial limits, while the authority of governments continues to be principally local. Hence the canons of justice must be respected from the outset, as the economic process unfolds, and not just afterwards or incidentally.
Supporters of economic and social freedom should be reassured that this papal argument directly follows market theorist and Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek’s prescription that just rules must come first and distributional results must proceed from them rather than being allocated by political authorities afterwards.
Immediately following is the phrase that so offended conservative critics concerning redistribution. But read it.
Space also needs to be created within the market for economic activity carried out by subjects who freely choose to act according to principles other than those of pure profit, without sacrificing the production of economic value in the process. The many economic entities that draw their origin from religious and lay initiatives demonstrate that this is concretely possible. Economic life undoubtedly requires contracts, in order to regulate relations of exchange between goods of equivalent value. But it also needs just laws and forms of redistribution governed by politics, and what is more, it needs works redolent of the spirit of gift. The economy in the global era seems to privilege the former logic, that of contractual exchange, but directly or indirectly it also demonstrates its need for the other two: political logic, and the logic of the unconditional gift.
For Benedict, redistribution comes from politics, yes, but through prior rules adopted by people “who freely choose” them in the spirit of the unconditional gift. What spirit could be freer or more in accord with Hayek’s logic, including when he used religious orders and local communities as examples of communal actions freely undertaken and not at all inconsistent with the market? Benedict explains that a loving gift is not mere “sentimentality” that is “detached from ethical living” by political or economic ideologies where “social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power.” True charity is rather based on loving concrete actions guided by the truth that must be in the spirit of a gift. Weigel concedes the use of the term gift might be an “interesting” connection to John Paul II but he not only misses the fact that it surely was meant that way but that it is in fact a firmer foundation.
Benedict’s criticism of political redistribution afterwards as a replacement for gift and free exchange is actually a great advancement of John Paul, to say nothing of the Hayekian paradigm. Benedict does start with a different first principle than Hayek’s– which is why, contra Weigel, there is a third (theistic) way – but, if anything, it is a superior foundation for freedom, as America’s Founders recognized by also positing a Creator. Benedict goes well beyond nation and state or even tradition to make human freedom unalienable.
For believers, the world derives neither from blind chance nor from strict necessity, but from God's plan. This is what gives rise to the duty of believers to unite their efforts with those of all men and women of good will, with the followers of other religions and with non-believers, so that this world of ours may effectively correspond to the divine plan: living as a family under the Creator's watchful eye. A particular manifestation of charity and a guiding criterion for fraternal cooperation between believers and non-believers is undoubtedly the principle of subsidiarity, an expression of inalienable human freedom.
Having set freedom beyond the reach of any power or state, Benedict identifies liberty’s components as the individual and the freely established groupings he or she creates, which freedom remains inalienable even within the state, very much including the democratic welfare state.
Subsidiarity is first and foremost a form of assistance to the human person via the autonomy of intermediate bodies. Such assistance is offered when individuals or groups are unable to accomplish something on their own, and it is always designed to achieve their emancipation, because it fosters freedom and participation through assumption of responsibility. Subsidiarity respects personal dignity by recognizing in the person a subject who is always capable of giving something to others. By considering reciprocity as the heart of what it is to be a human being, subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state.
As with Hayek and the Federalist Founders, freedom depends on subsidiary institutions that are closer to the individual and which check higher authorities, reversing the inferiority and subjection to a welfare state implied by Pope Paul. Benedict’s antidote goes even further to that international level in which Paul rested such hope.
Hence the principle of subsidiarity is particularly well-suited to managing globalization and directing it towards authentic human development. In order not to produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature, the governance of globalization must be marked by subsidiarity, articulated into several layers and involving different levels that can work together. Globalization certainly requires authority, insofar as it poses the problem of a global common good that needs to be pursued. This authority, however, must be organized in a subsidiary and stratified way, if it is not to infringe upon freedom and if it is to yield effective results in practice.
Weigel – often labeled a neoconservative as a critic of Vatican policy on Iraq - especially objected to Pope Benedict’s desire for international limits on the national state, although he welcomed Benedict’s criticism, when he warned that
international organizations might question the actual effectiveness of their bureaucratic and administrative machinery, which is often excessively costly. At times it happens that those who receive aid become subordinate to the aid-givers, and the poor serve to perpetuate expensive bureaucracies which consume an excessively high percentage of funds intended for development.
Weigel, however, did not consider Benedict’s limitations sufficient although they go well beyond those in Populorum Progressio: “such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth.” Clearly, international organizations seriously recognizing these principles would be very different than those in operation today and would deserve more respect.
To Benedict, the solidarity power Paul relied upon so heavily should not be assigned to government alone, especially not national government. “Solidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone, and it cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State.” Second, “attitudes of gratuitousness cannot be established by law.” Third, “large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale” should be accomplished principally by globalization – the world market – “suitably understood and directed” - that is freely, when not held back by “projects that are self-centered, protectionist or at the service of private interests,” as is so often the case with governmental activity.
It is true that Pope Benedict does not propose to eliminate the state, which is what progressives claim is the real conservative goal. But Hayek could not be clearer otherwise, that laissez faire without property rules is impossible. Freedom must exist within some rules set by government. He would not object to Benedict’s conclusion on the matter.
The principle of subsidiarity must remain closely linked to the principle of solidarity and vice versa , since the former without the latter gives way to social privatism, while the latter without the former gives way to paternalist social assistance that is demeaning to those in need. This general rule must also be taken broadly into consideration when addressing issues concerning international development aid. Such aid, whatever the donors' intentions, can sometimes lock people into a state of dependence and even foster situations of localized oppression and exploitation in the receiving country.
At bottom, love is the most important social attribute for Benedict. Yet, even the non-believer Hayek conceded that such religiously-based traditions are essential to creating and supporting a free society. He even recognized the need for supporting institutions like the family and children and community trust that Benedict found necessary for the market even to “fulfill its proper economic functions,” but that now through “moral weakness” are in decline today, somewhat echoing economist Joseph Schumpeter and his concern for the loss of social support for capitalism as traditional values and institutions have weakened in modern times.
“Development is impossible without upright men and women, without financiers and politicians whose consciences are finely attuned to the requirements of the common good,” Benedict insists. But the common good of society is not some collective reified in an abstract state: “It is the good of ‘all of us’ made up of individuals, families and intermediate groups who together constitute society.” It is individualistic, based on the individual and the free groups he creates. Even politics is individualistic through one’s personal influence on government as a responsible citizen or official.
Conservatives need have no concern. There is no regression under Pope Benedict. Indeed, there is no prescription in Caritas in Veritate that is in the slightest way contradictory to those in Does Freedom Work?, which while generally criticized by Catholics for taking aim at Populorum Progressio, was widely praised in libertarian circles. Indeed Benedict even includes a proposal made there “allowing citizens to decide how to allocate a portion of the taxes they pay to the State” as a form of fiscal subsidiarity even within the national government itself.
Caritas in Veritate favorably resolves every concern raised in that libertarian book concerning Populorum Progressio and integrates those revisions into a single coherent doctrine incorporating Centesimus Annus that establishes freedom unambiguously as the central element in human social life, subject only to the equally free gifts of love and truth.
Donald Devine, the editor of Conservative Battleline Online, was the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management from 1981 to 1985 and is the director of the Federalist Leadership Center at Bellevue University.
