Michael Novak's Commercial Republic
Lawler, Philip F.
Philip F. Lawler MICHAEL NOVAK'S COMMERCIAL REPUBLIC What's so special about democratic capitalism ? * .1[ he ~rq first of all moral obligations," begins Michael Novak, " i s to...
...Of course, the leaders of the moral-cultural realm can exhort people on to higher spiritual planes, but in the last analysis it is the individual, choosing among his available options, who decides his own spiritual fate...
...And suppose the shrine rffally is empty Is an empty shrine any more valuable, spiritually, than an empty barn...
...Just as socialism's historical failures point to concomitant flaws in its underlying ideology, so too the successes of capitalism point to unexamined strengths in the theory of the free market...
...If capitalism (whatever its faults) proves so much more successful in practice, can idealists justify their preference for a shopworn alternative...
...Novak argues (following Shafarevich) that socialism, the supposed hope for the future, is in fact the bane of the past: Insofar as socialism is a unitary system, dominated in all its parts by a state apparatus, socialism is not an improvement upon democratic capitalism but a relapse into the tyrannical unities from which the latter emerged...
...As he explains in his Introduction, he started out his career as a typical liberal moralist, contemptuous of capitalism and all its pomps...
...Critiques of democratic capitalism traditionally have centered on the regime's inability to advance the moral tone of the society...
...He did not encounter any memorable books that fired his youthful idealism with love for the system...
...they are striving after a divine ideal, which mere men cannot reach alone...
...So people who have not studied the question carefully come to assume that capitalism can be defended only on pragmatic grounds, never on its own ethical posture...
...This sense of pluralism, which Novak identifies as the single most vital ingredient of democratic capitalism, makes it difficult to judge American society according to any one exclusive perspective...
...As Novak puts it, "something new is universally held to have a p p e a r e d . . , and that something new is pluralism...
...When a priest condemns self-interested behavior, he is not thereby impugning capitalism...
...it is at least conceivable that an authoritarian regime could be installed by...
...But Novak seeks to go one step further toward individual autonomy , allowing each person to investigate his own approach to the ultimate truths of human existence...
...Just as the free 10 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1982 market keeps government out of everyday economic affairs, so too the spirit of religious pluralism sets moral questions outside the ambit of the political system...
...TocqueviUe recognized within the American democracy a plethora of informal governing structures...
...Capitalism succeeds, but in succeeding it lays itself open to charges of greed, selfinterest, and vulgarity...
...Regardless of the economic and political arrangements, rieither Jewish nor Christian leaders can ever be satisfied in this life...
...Yet the New Class clings to the besmirched ideal...
...Does our society not possess at least some minimal body of common faith...
...From Novak's perspective, such critiques are misguided...
...Therefore, Novak embarks on the project of constructing a "theology of economics...
...Democratic capitalism, as practiced in this country, neither challenges nor endorses the social order...
...By iactt~asmg the individual's realm ot discre*ion, democratic capitalism increases his opportunities for constructive spiritual commitments...
...To rehabilitate our society, we must first restore the moral force of our cultural understanding...
...Many writers, both good and bad, have assessed American democracy and American capitalism as political and economic systems...
...As he develops this thesis, Novak sheds some light on an entirely different question: the nature of American conservatism in particular and the American experience in general...
...So Novak takes the bold step of envisioning a society in which each individual is free to worship at his own shrine...
...Surely, the critics will say, morality is determined by good intentions, not by intellectual vigor...
...And if our culture is indeed decaying, is the economic system to blame...
...No amount of good intention will rescue the actor who fails to understand a moral question properly...
...True faith, like true morality, cannot be compelled...
...As a theologian trained in the scholastic tradition, Novak sees the danger behind the prevailing rhetoric: It does not match reality...
...Centers of power spring up and fade away without ever formally entering into the political process...
...Any such ground-breaking work inevitably has its flaws...
...a strictly democratic vote...
...he may pursue any false god, and indulge in any fetishistic rites, undisturbed by the society around him...
...If this is indeed the case, then there is all the more reason for spiritual leadership to address itself to the question of the empty shrine and the necessity that each individual address himself to moral questions...
...But he refuses to lay the blame at the feet of the economy...
...By the same token, the American political tradition embraces a perspective on human freedom and initiative that Europeans do not readily grasp...
...Or, to put the same question differently, what activities can be excluded from the moral-cultural realm...
...What explains that change ? Did we advance along the moral-cultural axis, or did political tensions render slavery impossible...
...The American conservative traditiQn, at its distinctive best, insists that the experiment has proved successful...
...Now, after two centuries of empirical evidence, we are able to draw some solid conclusions about the results of that experiment...
...Instead, he learned at the fountainhead of experience...
...There is a tremendous amount of work left to be done, exploring the successes and failures of the American experiment...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1982 leader (acting on the moral-cultural continuum) is to inspire his followers to greater spiritual heights...
...In a genuinely piuralisticsociety, there is no one sacred canopy...
...So complex and delicate, in fact, that one wonders how useful this analytical approach can be...
...By allowing the maximum of individual freedom, and allowing each person to follow his own private dreams, capitalism unleashes the most productive powers known to any economic system...
...But is this book intended m convince his erstwhile radical compatriots, or to enliven his new-found capitalist allies ? Is it aimed to train theologians for economic analysis, or to make economists appreciate theological questions...
...Thus, in his ideal society even this one "sacred canopy" can be somehow confining...
...Economists, politicians, and theologian s can not only learn a great deal from one another, but also leave each other supreme each within his own realm...
...But whatever its faults and its omissions, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism grasps the most important points about American culture and society...
...Only a limited government--a republic--can allow the growth of such competing structures to determine the path of the society...
...Since he had never seen that theory adequately set forth, Novak took the job upon himself...
...By intention there is not...
...his argument is clear to the ordinary ~reader...
...Having disposed of socialism as an indefensible social arrangement, Novak devotes most of his energies to the rehabilitation of capitalism as a moral, as well as material, success...
...Not coincidentally, it is the unfettered imagination of the autonomous individual that furnishes the productive power of capitalism...
...But somewhere between the reign of scholasticism and the present day, the virtue of prudence lost its appeal, just as the word prudence itself was bastardized to connote nothing more than cautiousness...
...Our economy, like our polity, is nourished by a common faith and freedom...
...But the historical record points toward something more morally satisfactory than simple self-interest...
...Our society recognizes the "unalienable rights" of its people and limits the scope of the government's power in recognition of each individual's sacred freedoms...
...society will not compel him...
...That shrine is left empty in the knowledge that no one word, image, or symbol is worthy of what all seek there...
...The most crucial component of any social system is its moral legitimacy, and it is the moral legitimacy of our system that Michael Novak addresses...
...In his memorable Harvard address, Solzhenitsyn suggested that in fact our moral leaders had lost their ability to guide us, and that American society was losing its soul amid its material plenty...
...Is that 12 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1982 truly necessary...
...A system based on self-interest would seem ill equipped to ameliorate working conditions for laborers, or improve the lot of the impoverished, or increase the probability that an ambitious commoner will become rich, while a lazy patrician sinks into poverty...
...For a century, democratic capitalism proved compatible with slavery--a practice which, by our present lights, we regard as barbaric...
...In one sense, then, Novak might have been more accurate by labeling our system as one of republican, rather than democratic, capitalism...
...Contemporary American society is not as cohesive as that of medieval Europe, and Michael Novak is not a philosopher of the stature of Thomas Aquinas...
...In making this point, Novak is not breaking any new ground for ethical theory...
...I s socialism still morally defensible...
...Socialism fails, but while failing it spews out rhetoric about brotherhood and equality...
...Such a pluralist system is possible only when the legitimate claims of the sovereign government are carefully, deliberately circumscribed...
...Theology and economics are distinct, and a "theology of economics" makes no more sense than a "chemistry of music...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1982 13...
...Philip F. Lawler is Director of Studies at The Heritage Foundation...
...Today, our society's weaknesses stem not so much from political or economic failures, but from the growing weakness of the culture that sustains the socio-political system...
...Does this approach make moral behavior any more or less likely...
...It is the social order...
...but not without the citizens' recognition of the obligations it entails...
...No doubt this problem was aggravated by the author's hectic schedule...
...Clearly, this division of society into three separate orders is an analytical tool, not an exhaustive definition...
...they spring out of a cultural setting that both defines and limits them...
...A clergyman cannot become an apologist for any economic system without compromising his primary duties to God and his calling...
...Is it ever possible to define a political system without reference to the culture from which it springs ? The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism," a book written by a theologian for an audience interested in the morality of our system, concentrates heavily on .the moral and cultural impact of democratic capitalism...
...Certainly the moral-cultural leaders should not be permitted to impose their own beliefs on the other individuals, but they should have the power at least to make people notice their spiritual needs...
...Lacking the ability to see things as they are, the most benevolent actor can produce miserable ethical results...
...Today, a host of moral theorists ignore clear thinking in their idealistic drive for Utopia...
...If he chooses to put the Almighty Dollar on the altar of his shrine, democratic capitalism will not stop him...
...Novak asks that question explicitly...
...Or, to be still more accurate, the individual person...
...Whig and Tory, reflects a history of intellectual battles never fought on these slaores...
...If Solzhenitsyn is correct, then our religious leaders have a problem far more fundamental than their inability to construct a theology of economics...
...Michael Novak is a trained theologian, an ex-radical, and a social critic with substantial experience in practical politics...
...During the second Vatican Council, the bishops issued a Constitution on Religious Freedom, explaining the vital importance of that fundamental liberty...
...the historical record makes argument on that point impossible...
...A republic, however limited its scope, thrives on a common, consensual agreement about the limits of government...
...They have too often been followers, _9 arriving breathless on battlefields only in time to erect monuments...
...If he chooses to join with others in their religious worship, he is free to do so...
...Capitalism works...
...Do we pay for freedom and success in cultural decay...
...True enough...
...Democratic government, in itself, provides no guarantees that pluralism will flourish...
...Michael Novak himself is a case in point...
...Democratic capitalism does not seek to impose judgments on citizens...
...But it is an empty shrine...
...But while it would be technically more accurate, such an approach would be less truthful to the argument Novak constructs...
...Similarly, European liberals (and their libertarian friends here) neglect the fact that within a democraticsocial structure Americans have always nourished a hierarchy of shared social values...
...If America's moral fabric is defined by the Judeo-Christian tradition-and it is--is it fair to theorize about a situation in which each individual chooses his own moral postulates...
...The United States has been democratic, capitalist, and Judeo-Christian since its inception, but the changes within American society have been enormous...
...It does .not enter into discussion about the questions outside those limits...
...Ordinarily, there is an unspoken cultural pre.,-umption about the republic's philosophical underpinnings...
...Fair enough...
...And yet those questions--about sin and salvation, life and death--must somehow be discussed...
...As Peter Berger expresses the problem, governments exist underneath a "sacred canopy '' provided by the cultural understanding in which they are found...
...Politics is defined ultimately by the ballot box, and economics by the marketplace...
...Mediating social structures such as families, schools, churches, neighborhoods, and corporations generate their own~systems of rules, spoken and unspoken...
...At first glance, that statement seems either trivial or wrong-headed...
...But in allowing for tFiat danger, it sets up a much more exciting possibility for truly moral behavior...
...Poets, presumably, belong to the cultural world...
...In The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, the main structural flaw' is a function of the author's own intellectual history...
...Michael Novak is devastating in his criticism of the clergymen who spout judgments of economic systems without bothering to study the field carefully...
...The function of the religious "Simon and Schuster, $17.50...
...front to the other...
...But is a booming free market morally enervating, as Solzhenitsyn suggests...
...Inevitably, that brings the author face to face with a powerful adversary: Solzhenitsyn...
...European conservatives (and their traditionalist allies on these shores) often forget that America never nourished an ar.istocracy of its own, and consequently the American drive toward social mobility does not include any admixture of contempt for existing social institutions...
...economists, politicians, and theologians alike can respect the competing claims of rivals within their own fields of expertise...
...The force of public opinion exerts a powerful~ subtle influence to control citizens' behavior...
...And like most authors, he writes for an audience of people like himself...
...In the case of the contemporary United States, for instance, a full description would include mention of our democratic polity, capitalist economy, and Judeo-Christian moral tradition...
...Productivity, like morality, burgeons when it is not forced...
...The enforcement of high moral ideals by coercion has been tried before...
...Novak sets out to assess democratic capitalism as a~system for moral growth--a plan for salvation, or, at least, a plan within which the individual can achieve his own salvation...
...It judges each and every system and finds each gravely wanting...
...it is a willingness to accept divergent opinions...
...Is it not imperative that society alert people to theexistence of the shrine, and the need to construct sound moral ideals...
...ity...
...Its emptiness, therefore, represents the transcendence which is approached by free consciences from a virtually infinite number of directions...
...The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism does not provide a full guide to a moral appreciation of our society...
...Democracy and capitalism do not exist in a vacuum...
...With The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, Michael Novak emphatically joins t-he chorus of this American conservative tradition...
...Once again, if a system works in practice, the underlying theory must be basically sound...
...Outside the limited range of the libertarian tradition, few Americans have heard moral arguments in favor of capitalism...
...Few people would deny that capitalism is more morally desirable in its ability to confer the fruits of freedom...
...In Europe, the distinction between liberal and conservative...
...It matters little that in practice socialism invariably brings authoritarian (or worse) government as its companion...
...Could it be that Adam Smith undersold the moral virtues of his favorite system ? In answering that question, Novak pauses to note that our society cannot be described simply as a capitalist economic system...
...Novak never fully engages the arguments of Solzhenitsyn, and of others who wonder whether freedom and faith are fully compatible...
...Novak purposely constructed his argument to accept this criticism, in order to allow himself a more powerful retort...
...Insofar as such clergymen have set themselves up as experts on comparative economy, his criticism is indubitably on target...
...But Novak goes further still, explicitly stating that the shrine is empty...
...During the last few years, the intellectual respectability of socialism has been perforated by a volley of powerful critiques: Solzhenitsyn on its historical record, Kolakowski on its ideology, Shafarevich on its utopian heresies, Billington on its mystical origins...
...In that respect, American traditionalists reflect the influence of their cousins on the Continent, whose hostility toward the free market can be traced back for generations, to the beginnings of the industrial revolution and t-he .demise of the aristocracy...
...Following Daniel Bell, Novak separates out the political order, the economic order, and the moral-cultural order...
...The necessity for such freedom arose, the Church explained, not because the faith did not furnish absolute truths, but because those truths could only be grasped by a free act of faith...
...In fairness to Novak, one must hasten to say that in his view democratic capitalism does not leave the shrine completely empty...
...this book was obviously written in numerous discrete bursts, rather than one concentrated period...
...Society thus is organized along three different lines...
...Amid this web of governing influences, the power of formal government is less important...
...they are free to follow their own preferences at both the marketplace and the ballot box...
...But poets sell books...
...theologians and other social critics in this country have been inexplicably blind to the virtues of their nation and especially of their economy: But is that entirely their own fault...
...Anyone schooled in scholastic philosophy, with its heavy Aristotelian overtones, appreciates the importance of experience as a mentor...
...From Adam Smith to Friedrich von Hayek, the proponents of capitalism have argued simply that the free market is the most efficient economic mechanism, since it relies realistically on instincts toward self-interest...
...Only gradually, as he matured and as he studied social questions in more detail, did he come to appreciate the immense spiritual resources of the democratic-capitalist system...
...In fact, the author has confessed privately that he considered the title The Spirit.of the Commercial Republic...
...Chapter by chapter, Novak switches focus from one...
...Since Novak is also a very skillful writer, the problem is not overwhelming...
...Philip F. Lawler MICHAEL NOVAK'S COMMERCIAL REPUBLIC What's so special about democratic capitalism ? * .1[ he ~rq first of all moral obligations," begins Michael Novak, " i s to think clearly...
...Until quite recently, America did not have a distinctive conservative political tradition...
...Hence the peg-sistent arguments that capitalism is an amoral system...
...Ultimately, as George Gilder has pointed out, productivity is itself a product of faith--faith not only in God but also in the future and in man's capacity to decide his own fate...
...Obviously the interaction among the three societal orders is extremely complex and delicate...
...A unitary, dominant, central state authority has been tried before...
...The three categories do not describe all possible societal arrangements, nor do they define every important aspect of the social order...
...Following John Courmey Murray, Novak argues that moral acts are made possible only by moral choices, and so the range of moral choice increases the potential for active moral behavior...
...Yet capitalism does all these things...
...Yes, democratic capitalism does allow immoral...
...More than that...
...he is merely urging his congregation to live by different lights...
...A eunuch derives no moral credit for his celibacy: Wbea flmre-is no choice, there is no morality...
...Consider, for instance, the moral-cultural realm...
...When the government steps aside from a controversial question, a host of competing claims arise to regulate it...
...If there is a single element that runs through the society, making it different from its" predecessors, it is, strictly speaking, neither an economic nor a political regime...
...is publishing therefore cultural rather than economic...
...locus of the moral-cultural world...
...The Word of God," says Novak, "is transcendent...
...Democratic political structures are equally important to the conduct of social affairs...
...Following the same logic, Novak reasons that society cannot actually promote moral behavior...
...But where is theprimary...
...Novak complains, at several different jfinctures, that some American conservatives have been as cool toward capitalism as their liberal adversaries...
...Time and again, the defenders of capitalism respond to criticism with hard-headed pragmatism, avoiding any involvement in moral or ethical questions...
...So before he explores any new ground, Novak must reclaim a great deal of lost ethical territory...
...The phrase itself is unfortunate...
...But if it cannot command the assent of the moral-cultural realm, capitalism cannot survive...
...Again, the miracle is made possible by expanding the realm of individual choices...
...Specifically, he must face the argument of the many moralists who favor socialism over s To these moralists, it matters little that socialism has added debacle after debacle to its sorry history...
...He can, however, learn to make informed judgments about the moral virtues and flaws of competing systems...
...But Novak, at the outset of an ambitious treatise on social theory, makes this point quite carefully...
...From his perspective, the main virtue of our political system is, clearly, its attention to the will of the people...
...Unfortunately, very few such people exist...
...If the individual chooses to leave his shrine empfy, democratic capitalism will not dissuade him from leading an iatterly meaningless life...
...pioneers do not blaze 11 neat, straight trails on their first expeditions...
...The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism is written as a primer for those learning to make such discernments...
...But at some point a clergyman's critiques cease to involve economic systems directly...
...Democratic capitalism allows each individual to be the sexton within his own shrine...
...In fact, his effort clearly involves a desire to do for twentieth-century Americawhat Thomas Aquinas did for thirteenth-century Europe--to devise a philosophical and theological system within which the entire society can be judged...
...Democracy, too, works...
...The American experience: has been a Social experiment, as our Founding Fathers recognized it- would be...
...But the author's intent is clear...
...At its spiritual core, there is an empty shrine...
...The scholastic philosophers listed prudentia--the capacity for making sound judgments--first among the cardinal virtues...
...Novak readily concedes that our country suffers from moral underdevelopment...
...In direct contrast to~ the history of socialism, capitalism has compiled a spectacular record of practical successes alongside a mediocre record for self-justification...
...Thus, "humans are not, in the end, fully plumbed by the institutions in which they dwell . . . . Democratic capitalism respects this transcendence by limiting its own reach...
...But then, who should be the audience for this book ? Novak is arguing precisely that there is no single authority to judge the virtues of a social system...
...Quite the contrary: Democratic capitalism suffers from the underdevelopment of guidance for a s p i r i t u a l life appropriate to its highly developed political and economic life...
...To some ektent, the leaders of our moral-cultural institutions must accept the blame...
...And if books belong to the cultural realm, what about television shows ? Commercials ? Newscasts ? Is there any walk of life unaffected by moral and cultural changes...
Vol. 15 • October 1982 • No. 10
