Episcopal economics:

...This may account for the fact that establishment spokesmen have studiously avoided comment on their critique of the distribution of income...

...I don't want to get involved in this conflict...

...The fox is in the chicken coop and I shall let the bishops pick at each other," he said...

...Montreal he Devoir, Jan...

...John Stuart Mill, perhaps the last of the classical economists, had affirmed one hundred and thirty years ago that while economics had to do with the production of wealth, distribution was a political question...

...Footnoting John Paul IPs Encyclical Laborem Exercens, they went on to say that "This orientation directly contradicts the ethical principle that labor, not capital, must be given priority in the development of an economy based on justice...

...While it is true that the CCPA, as an institution, is dedicated to a critical examination of current social and economy policy, it is remarkable that there was almost no dissent to the main positions taken by the Bishops' Commission...

...Here again, the business establishment was outraged...

...Jean-Louis Roy, publisher of the Montreal daily Le Devoir, was appalled at the "simplism" of the statement, and said so in a lead editorial published January 4th...

...Professor John C. Weldon, of McGill University and a former president of the Canadian Association of Economists, said that the economics of the bishops' statement were "de-cidely better than those of the last budget, and a full order of magnitude better than those of the recent reports of the Bank of Canada...

...In the opinion of the Bishops' Commission, "the current structural changes in the global economy . . . reveal a deepening moral crisis...

...Embargoed for January 5, 1983, it provoked a major controversy even before it was officially published...

...In addition to a number of professional economists involved in the Center for Policy Alternatives, members of the Bishops' Commission, labor leaders and representatives of the Anglican, Lutheran, and United Churches took part in the meeting...

...Trudeau, the Prime Minister, who was in Asia promoting Canadian exports, dismissed the paper as the work of"five prelates" (there are in fact eight in the Commission) whose economics did not appear to be very serious...

...Report from Canada EPISCOPAL ECONOMICS UP NORTH, ANOTHER CONTROVERSY TWO YEARS AGO the Canadian Bishops' Commission for Social Affairs published a statement entitled "Unemployment: The Social Costs...

...This, on the whole, was the line taken by the business establishment: the economics of the statement leave much to be desired...

...Through these structural changes, 'capital' is re-asserted as the dominant organizing principle of economic life...

...Marc Lalonde, Minister of Finance, said that he had no desire to get involved in a quarrel among bishops...

...And it is this political question which was addressed by the bishops...

...n Nova Scotia...

...that the rights of workers are more important than the maximization of profits...

...In fact, the paper had proposed controls on profits and said - following the well-established tradition of the papal encyclicals - that "the goal of serving the human needs of all people in our society must take precedence over the maximization of profits and growth...

...The Commission had in fact raised some questions that few people in business and governmental circles are prepared to debate publicly: these concern the distribution of wealth in Canada and basic policy options in the management of the economy...

...Despite the universal condemnation of the economics of the statement from business and government spokesmen, the statement has not been attacked by serious independent professional economists...

...A number of business spokesmen appeared to assume that the statement amounted to a condemnation of profits as such...

...On January 27th the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives hosted a meeting in Ottawa for the express purpose of discussing their statement...

...Another McGill economist, Professor Sydney In-german, says that it is unthinkable that the unemployment of millions of people should be used as a policy tool to bring down inflation...

...15, 1983...

...JORDAN BISHOP (Jordan Bishop, presently on sabbatical, is a member of the faculty of the College of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia...

...Professor Ingerman described the meeting as a "historic event," marked by a profound sense of the importance of the issues and by a great deal of tolerance...

...When this objection was made to Bishop Remi De Roo of Victoria, he replied simply that public debate on these questions was urgent, and that the mild and measured statements made on past occasions had been widely ignored...

...The statement has been widely criticized in business and establishment circles as being too forthright, too abrasive, too critical of governmental policy...

...The reaction to unofficial press leaks was immediate and virulent...

...In Ontario, provincial leaders of all three political parties (including the Liberals who are in opposition there) voiced approval of the position taken by the bishops...

...Perhaps more important, none of the critics appeared willing to tackle the main thrust of the statement...

...In this the bishops appear to have succeeded...

...For the most part, they have remained silent...

...For example, old rivals such as the Canadian Labor Conference and Quebec's CNTU sat down together for perhaps the first time...

...The aim of the statement was quite frankly to "stimulate public dialogue about alternative visions and strategies...

...This time they were not...

...The Archbishop of Toronto, Cardinal Emmett Carter, expressed doubts as to certain ideas and attitudes reflected in the document...

...The Hon...

...Having said this, none of them took the trouble to examine the economics that underlie the statement in any detail...

...This merited a vigorous response from Marie-Josee Drouin of the Hudson Institute:"They forget that the control of profits is an instrument that takes away all incentive on the part of enterprises to control their costs of production and to reduce waste...

...One speaker did suggest that they may have understated the seriousness of the problem posed by the distribution of wealth in Canadian society - the bishops had cited figures on the distribution of income but had not taken on the larger question of the distribution of wealth...

...Federal Liberals, who rightly saw the paper as an attack on current governmental policy, either avoided making any statements or questioned the economics in the bishops' statement...

...This statement, in the measured and moderate tones which often characterize official statements from the hierarchy, passed for all practical purposes unnoticed...

...Is it moral to encourage the waste of our resources...

...At the same time, Bishop Remi De Roo of Victoria, B.C., made it clear that the executive of the Canadian Council of Bishops had approved the controversial declaration...

...At the end of 1982 the same Commission released another statement, entitled "Ethical Reflections on the Economic Crisis...

...Reflecting the Puebla statement on the"preferential option for the poor," the statement proposed that "this option calls for economic policies which realize that the needs of the poor have priority over the wants of the rich...

...Participants agreed that there is in fact a crisis, not of the management of the economy as given, but in basic areas of public policy...