Is the Pope Capitalist?
McGurn, William
VOL. 24, NO. 8 / AUGUST 1991 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR William McGurn IS THE POPE CAPITALIST? Not if you ask an American bishop. OOn May 2, 1991, readers of the Wall Street Journal opened their...
...It had to do, he suspected, with America's all-volunteer military, with Women's Lib and coed military academies...
...In the Philippines, for example, a finance minister whose efforts to bring down tariffs and exchange controls have been stymied by powerful Philippine business interests can now point to the Pope's warnings about the consequences of closing those doors...
...Some women and men now wanted women to have an equal opportunity to be honored not only on the Fourth of July, but also on Memorial Day...
...No less new is the Pope's straightforward celebration of a capitalism that "recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production as well as free human creativity in the economic system...
...Like Leo, John Paul II has mapped out the direction Catholic social teaching on the economy will take for a century to come...
...If this sounds different from what usually comes out of the Vatican, it's meant to...
...1. It was Mother's Day, and the San Diego cabbie crushed an empty Sprite can and filed it in his litter bag instead of chucking it onto Interstate 805...
...Many "myths" had been "buried in the Arabian sands," according to Life, including the notions that: (1) "Women can't perform under pressure," (2) "Mothers shouldn't —and don't want to—go to war," and (3) "The public isn't ready for female POWs or women in body bags...
...More to the point, these people like to cite the Pope's qualifying remarks about the market and his insistence that the collapse of Communism in Fnstern Europe not be interpreted as a unilateral triumph of capitalism...
...Both were efforts to adapt Catholic teaching to a world dramatically changed: Leo's by the industrial revolution and the concomitant rise of socialism...
...Rather, the Pope speaks of a market bound by a moral culture with many mediating institutions, the most important of which is the family...
...Of course, what really rankled the monsignor was not Neuhaus's timing but his message...
...The Pope explains the reluctance of earlier Popes to go as far as he does by denouncing "early capitalism...
...By closing off the exits with an unmistakable critique of socialism and the welfare state (both of which are cited by name), the Pope has finally slain the false god of Catholic social teaching: the idea of a "third way" between capitalism and Communism...
...Carr and Hehir like to speak about the market's "efficiency," its value as a "tool," and its undeniable superiority in "allocating resources...
...Not just because John Paul writes so clearly here, but because reliance on ostensibly neutral church institutions might lead one astray...
...Born free, capitalist man is everywhere in contract with his neighbor...
...So long as the debate is limited to how much state intervention we want in the economy, we will have missed the Pope's point...
...And how much sweeter this taste of freedom from a Pope who has known firsthand the bitter flavor of its absence...
...But this is the first time that the different facets of a market system have been presented within an overall struc12 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1991 ture of freedom that knits these accepted Catholic social principles together with unprecedented coherence...
...That's true as far as it goes, but it's important to understand the nature of the Pope's qualifications and his understanding of a free economy...
...But within the context of the encyclical's broader themes these are quibbles...
...Were there women among them...
...It is precisely the ability to foresee both the needs of others and the combinations of productive factors most adapted to satisfying those needs that constitutes another important source of wealth in modern society...
...In the Los Angeles Times, Rep...
...Now, certain libertarian absolutists may not cotton to the Pope's insistence that economics isn't everything...
...In short, the cultivation of virtue is essential lest trust in the market become idolatrous, a point George Gilder has made more than once in his writings...
...But it is safe to say that some developments are more breathtaking than others, and this is certainly one of them...
...Nor is it any accident that the author is a Pole...
...A serious type would have gone to the UCSD library and read the relevant books...
...Popularly debated as an economic treatise, Centesimus Annus is really a teaching about human nature and its relation to work and freedom...
...According to John Carr, Secretary for Social Development and World Peace for the USCC in Washington, "You do not have to persuade the American bishops about the virtues of the market...
...Here is how he describes the miracle of entrepreneurship: A person who produces something other than for his own use generally does so in order that others may use it after they have paid a just price, mutually agreed upon through free bargaining...
...The immediate argument against Neuhaus was somewhat disingenuous: that he had jumped the gun by publishing his article before the permitted deadline...
...May 2. The only people who could be said to have had an unfair head start were those who picked up their Journal before six that Friday morning...
...Less charitable observers might argue that this line was omitted because in section 154 of their own pastoral letter in 1984, the bishops argued that because "the market alone will not automatically produce full employment . . . the government must act to ensure that this goal is achieved...
...What is new is a devastating indictment of the welfare state and its depersonalization through programs that breed bureaucracy and dependence...
...to expect these same people, by and large blind to the moral underpinnings of a market, to adapt readily to an ethic of freedom is absurd...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1991 13 as only one facet of a free existence...
...On May 24, Higgins William McGurn is Washington bureau chief of National Review devoted his column in Catholic New York to the piece, in which he took particular exception to Neuhaus's statement that "capitalism is the economic corollary of the Christian understanding of man's nature and destiny...
...The message of Centesimus Annus ought not to be confined to Bulgaria...
...Precisely for this reason, the Journal piece became the focus of heated disagreement...
...John Warner (R-Va...
...Just before leaving, he had been called up, along with other 14 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1991...
...How many American Catholics know that among the "top priorities" of their bishops is increased regulation of Cable Television, $200 million in funding for the Asbestos School Hazard Abatement Act, support for the Democrats' civil rights bill, and so forth...
...The Israeli had heard National Public Radio airing the cons and especially the pros of the matter...
...Silly," says Father J. Bryan Hehir, one of the drafters of the bishops' letter...
...The real focus of the encyclical is the human per-son, stung by original sin but endowed by his Creator with a dignity and intelligence that find their full flowering in an atmosphere of ordered liberty...
...Whatever the other services were doing, the leathernecks were keeping women away, maybe by requiring that recruits have their heads shaved as smooth as bowling balls...
...In the meantime, the House Armed Services Committee, voting on the 1992 defense budget, had said that women should be able to volunteer to pilot combat missions...
...That may well be, but then again John Kenneth Galbraith has become filthy rich on the strengths and efficiencies of a free market he condemns...
...Maybe this was because Americans realized that "the idea that one life is more valuable than another insults both sexes...
...In sharp contrast to the faith the U.S...
...Just one week before the Pope released Centesimus Annus, the USCC put forth its list of positions on seventy-four legislative issues for this Congress...
...In these countries, many if not most of them rich in natural resources and pent-up human talent, John Paul's emphasis on participating in the international economy, coupled with his insistence on a fundamental human right to initiative or enterprise, the old protectionist ideas and classes may find themselves unable to answer this new challenge to their legitimacy...
...The Israeli was amazed...
...The Israeli tried to keep an open mind, but nothing proved Edward Norden is a writer living in Jerusalem...
...Those who expressed reservations about women in combat spoke with forked tongues...
...If Catholic intellectuals are a tad touchy these days, it's because they've just had the rug pulled out from under them...
...He was wondering how this American had gone all his life without meeting an aggressive woman—was this possible in California, land of the future...
...Besides, many goods cannot be adequately produced through the work of an isolated individual...
...No surprise, then, that in the U.S...
...Throughout Centesimus Annus John Paul takes pains to insist that it should not be read as a political treatise...
...With the exception of supporting restrictions on abortion, the list is virtually indistinguishable from the Democratic party platform...
...George Higgins, a veteran labor activist and member of the United States Catholic Conference (the bishops' lobby in Washington), complained about this alleged breach of faith in a lengthy letter to the editor, though this segment was not published...
...bishops continue to place in their government to redress problems, John Paul places his trust in human creativity nurtured in freedom and cultivated by virtue, hence his primary emphasis on moral climate...
...Women," said McCain in odd English, "have demonstrated again that they can perform any role they are called upon to make...
...They sat segregated in the second deck overlooking third base, the Israeli at field level overlooking first...
...From Eastern Europe to Africa to Latin America, Centesimus Annus can be seen as the spiritual complement to Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto's The Other Path...
...From coast to coast, it was a season for victory parades to honor the returning heroes...
...In his own letter to the editor, Neuhaus met the objection head-on: If by "capitalism" we mean what the Holy Father variously calls the "new capitalism," "the market economy," and "the free economy," I believe the formulation to which Msgr...
...They avoid any acknowledgment that the market has an inherent moral worth of its own...
...Catholics don't talk about changein authoritative church teaching, we talk about developments," says Neuhaus, who until last year was a prominent Lutheran theologian...
...But what, exactly...
...In fact, Journal editors had been operating under the assumption that the encyclical was to be released May 1 (an impression I shared until after the fact...
...His fare, an Israeli enjoying a break from the Holy Land, made noises of agreement to be nice...
...And heroines—in fact, a big push was on to let women fight, really fight, next time...
...This is not to say, however, that it is without awesome political implications...
...These are people who have experienced the strength and efficiency of a market economy...
...To the antenna of his Chevy was tied a yellow ribbon...
...A reservist in the Israel Defense Forces is stunned by post-Gulf War moves to allow American women front-line combat roles in the next war...
...As any other East European could tell you, the opposite of free competition is not cooperation but collusion...
...No, these Marines were as unisex as the Padres and Expos...
...Msgr...
...was all for repeal of the sexist statutes, as were Sens...
...Just as important, many of those on the free-market side of the debate too easily dismissed the church's teachings about morals because previous Popes seemed to be saying that cultural decadence, depredation, and rot were an integral part of free societies in general and capitalism in particular...
...In many ways the Pope's description echoes similar observations made 150 years ago by Tocqueville, when he observed that, although America boasted an individualist ethic, the salient feature of daily American life was a spirit of cheerful cooperation and the proliferation of voluntary associations...
...OOn May 2, 1991, readers of the Wall Street Journal opened their pages to find an op-ed piece by Richard John Neuhaus pegged to the release of the Pope's new encyclical...
...In previous encyclicals, a tendency toward over-abstraction probably accounts for the naive trust reposed in the State, a trust that ignored the degree to which economic powers given over to a state to assist its citizens might easily be wielded to tyrannize them...
...No one...
...This progression from actual experience to conclusions is itself a dramatic departure, and a welcome one...
...Accordingly, the encyclical's celebration of capitalism is not an endorsement of a specific system but a recognition that the market's foundation on free associations and contracts between labor and capital best enables man to carry out "his role as a cooperator with God in the work of creation...
...Higgins objects catches the gist of Centesimus Annus quite precisely...
...The Stars and Stripes were everywhere...
...That capitalism draws participants into free associations with others to advance both their causes is what Thomas Aquinas might have called virtue formed by habit...
...The main reaction thus far appears to be shock...
...Life magazine, which he was charmed to see had been resurrected, had come out with a handsome spread, the text of which endorsed women's "right to fight...
...to him so neatly how far the so-called Gulf War had been from a genuine war than cries he had heard to junk the laws barring American women from combat...
...At other points the encyclical implies that the poverty of the Third World is in some way related to the greed of the industrialized world (it would be interesting to have the Pope compare countries that have received huge amounts of Western aid with those that have not...
...It wasn't enough that 33,000 of them had been shipped to the Gulf, where they had faithfully spotted artillery, loaded bombs, maintained aircraft, driven trucks, sorted mail...
...The sentence left out noted that the State could not guarantee everyone a job "unless it controlled every aspect of economic life and restricted the free initiative of individuals...
...Readers who may be confused by Msgr...
...On an intellectual level, the more interesting developments will be in the US., where the bulk of Catholic institudons and thinkers have invested so much time and effort calling into question the legitimacy of market institutions...
...O n a practical level, this change in emphasis will have its most direct consequences in the underdeveloped Catholic world, where—to paraphrase Czech finance minister Vaclav Klaus—"third way" rhetoric has led to Third World poverty...
...As George Weigel, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, puts it, "It's pretty clear who's on offense and who's on defense here...
...San Diego t'Va gotta have 'em for fighting...
...In connection with the last ex-myth, Life recalled that two women had been captured by the Iraqis and ten killed (of whom two by enemy fire), yet "the public remained composed...
...the main critics of Centesimus Annus have come from the clergy...
...Said Life: "Officially, keeping women out of combat positions is supposed to reduce their chances of being hurt...
...The bishops were incensed by Neuhaus's admonition in the Wall Street Journal that they reexamine their controlling assumptions...
...The American bishops, so the logic goes, simply draw the line at acceptable state intervention a little more loosely than the Pope...
...You might not have known this if you had to rely on headlines like the New York Times's "Papal Encyclical Urges Capitalism to Shed Injustices," which misleads on tWo counts: it ignores part of the story, and the part it reports is not the part that's news...
...Finally, something called the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, by a vote of 29-4, had asked Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney to work for repeal in all the services...
...The document itself was entitled Centesimus Annus ("The Hundredth Year"), celebrating the centenary of the first and greatest of all social encyclicals, Leo Kill's Rerum Novarum...
...But if this high-tech war proved anything, it proved that the traditional concept of the combat zone has been blurred...
...Edward Norden RIGHT BEHIND YOU, SCARLETT...
...And, although the time was ripe for abolition, "women in the military fear that no one in Congress will be brave enough to stand up for them...
...Higgins' crusty criticism of what I wrote will no doubt want to study the encyclical and find out for themselves what the Holy Father is saying...
...The issue thus becomes the degree of state intervention rather than the nature...
...Among liberal Catholic thinkers, the market's virtues are usually reduced to a grudging acknowledgment of its technical superiority, but it is hard to read the following section and not think that the Pope has gone much further than that...
...What the Israeli did instead was to have the cabbie drop him off at Jack Murphy Stadium for a San Diego Padres game, where two companies of Marines from Camp Pendleton were being hosted...
...A second tack has been to look for the fine print and assert that what the Pope says in Centesimus Annus is what the US...
...The theological heart of the encyclical is the argument, spelled out over many pages, that man's nature and destiny is to be understood in terms of God's call to freedom...
...Not least among the market's strengths is that it orders society so that success depends on consent rather than coercion...
...Many women (and men) in the military," Life explained, "contend that combat exclusion laws protect women from just one thing: promotions...
...Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo...
...But even a casual reading of Centesimus Annus demonstrates quite clearly that these are neither the only nor even the most critical limits John Paul sees on the economy...
...Golani—the Israeli marines, known affectionately as ha-hayot ("the animals")—would have brought their girls with them...
...This failure was not without moral consequences: "For a long time," he writes, "the most elementary relationships were distorted, and basic virtues of economic life, such as truthfulness, trustworthiness, and hard work were denigrated...
...That's where the testosterone comes from...
...Balls, I mean...
...And with the exception of support for increased tax relief for children, charity, and pensioners, almost all of the bishops' priorities call for increased government spending or regulation...
...Keep that date in mind...
...John Paul's by the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the rejuvenation of market capitalism worldwide...
...they require the cooperation of many people in working towards a common goal...
...It was a major campaign...
...This is not to say that Centesimus Annus has got everything right or even that all its parts fit neatly together...
...This is not an academic question...
...Between one pitch and another they suddenly got to their feet as one person and shouted their hymn, to stormy applause...
...and John McCain (R-Ariz...
...The middle-aged Israeli himself was used to being instructed in the arts of war by women...
...In any case, the flap over deadlines was much ado about nothing, inasmuch as the embargo was for 6:00 a.m...
...That is what it means to say that capitalism is "the economic corollary" of human nature and destiny...
...Organizing such a productive effort, planning its duration in time, making sure it corresponds in a positive way to the demands which it must satisfy, and taking the necessary risks—all this too is a source of wealth in today's society...
...Of course, Golani girls only instruct, they don't fight...
...For example, the press release put out by the U.S...
...No testosterone, no aggression...
...Good advice...
...But the rest of us capitalists have no problem seeing a free economy Popularly debated as an economic treatise, Centesimus Annus is really a teaching about human nature and its relation to work and freedom...
...Socialism took this error to the extreme, and John Paul clearly points out that the fundamental reason for socialism's practical failure is not economic but "anthropological": its treatment of man as a cog in a machine and not as an individual created in the image and likeness of God...
...Communism's collapse in Eastern Europe is John Paul's explicit point of departure, and he points to the pivotal role played by the free trade union Solidarity: "On the basis of a hard, lived experience of work and oppression, it was they who recovered and, in a sense, rediscovered the context and principles of the church's social doctrine...
...To be sure, various Popes have recognized the legitimacy of different components of a free market (e.g., Rerum Novarum's unabashed insistence on the legitimacy of private property), and non-Catholics may reasonably be bewildered at the claims and counterclaims advanced within the Catholic social debate...
...At one point—where the Pope is talking about limits on the State—there are ellipses in the middle...
...What a message of hope this is on the eve of the third millennium, not least to a developing world accustomed to World Bank studies and United Nations initiatives that treat people as mouths rather than minds...
...In contrast to the American Catholic Church, where the clergy has usurped many areas of activism best left to laymen, in Poland the dynamic between Solidarity and the Church is much more in line with the role for the laity promoted in the Second Vatican Council...
...Human freedom, the pope says in at least a dozen different ways, requires a free social order, including a free economy...
...In fairness to those on the Catholic left, the general drift of Papal teachings these past few decades (particularly under Paul VI) supported their interpretations...
...bishops have been saying all along...
...bishops is highly selective in its choice of quotations...
...And in a number of instances the Pope accepts without discussion dubious propositions about the relationship between, say, the environment and a free economy...
Vol. 24 • August 1991 • No. 8
