No Es Bien

The Honorable Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, caused a bit of a stir recently by presenting Pope Francis with a crucifix made in the shape of the communist hammer and sickle emblem. As interpreted by many people, the pontiff’s response sent mixed signals.

Liberals — those inclined to socialism (although there are exceptions) — were pleased at what appeared to be a significant endorsement and affirmation of what they have taken as His Holiness’s socialist leanings. Conservatives — those inclined to capitalism (again, with exceptions) — were equally pleased at what seemed to confirm their worst fears about a pontiff whom they tend to regard as imprudent at best. The orthodox (those of us ignored by the media) for the most part didn’t know what to think.

It finally came out, however, that Francis, while not committing the diplomatic faux pas of rejecting the gift from a head of state (which came out of left field, so to speak), said to Morales, “No es bien” (“This is not right”). A Vatican spokesman hinted that the “communist crucifix” would be consigned to the limbo of embarrassing white elephants. In a masterstroke of diplomacy, however, Pope Francis left the crucifix and another gift at the foot of a statue of Bolivia’s patron, Our Lady of Copacabana — returning them in a manner that could not be taken as an insult by dedicating them to the Blessed Virgin and sidestepping political considerations.

What Morales intended to accomplish with his equivocal gift is not entirely clear; Bolivian spokesmen have somewhat disingenuously denied that he meant anything by it. Whatever Morales’s intention, however, he did not make a good impression, especially on Francis. While sympathetic with some of the goals of the Theology of Liberation (notably a preferential option for the poor), Francis rejects the implicit offenses against human dignity and apparent denial of certain fundamental Catholic doctrines found in the movement.

The incident, however, is useful to highlight the problem of socialism in the Catholic Church. For good or ill, many people see no difference between Catholic social teaching, and the principles of socialism.

This has created serious rifts among Catholics. Those who accept socialism are encouraged to believe that there is no inconsistency in accepting both socialism and Catholicism, while those who reject socialism feel justified in rejecting the Church’s social teaching as well.

Neither position is correct or justified. As Pope Pius XI declared,

If Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth (which, moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have never denied), it is based nevertheless on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity. Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist. (Quadragesimo Anno, § 120.)

It is, primarily, this partial congruity of truth and apparent agreement on goals that makes socialism so deadly to generations of Catholics and others who have not been taught to reason properly from sound principles. This is why over a century and a half ago the noted Catholic controversialist — and former socialist — Orestes A. Brownson warned his co-religionists,

[Socialism] wears a pious aspect, it has divine words on its lips, and almost unction in its speech. It is not easy for the unlearned to detect its fallacy, and the great body of the people are prepared to receive it as Christian truth. We cannot deny it without seeming to them to be warring against the true interests of society, and also against the Gospel of our Lord. Never was heresy more subtle, more adroit, better fitted for success. How skillfully it flatters the people! It is transformed into saints, and invested with the saintly character and office. How adroitly, too, it appeals to the people’s envy and hatred of their superiors, and to their love of the world, without shocking their orthodoxy or wounding their piety! Surely Satan has here, in Socialism, done his best, almost outdone himself and would if it were possible, deceive the very elect, so that no flesh should be saved. (Essays and Reviews. New York: D&J Sadlier & Co., 1852, 502)

What, however, is the essence of socialism?

At heart, socialism is the belief that the human person does not have rights by nature. Instead, only the collective (an abstraction created by human beings), or the State (a social tool created by human beings) has rights, or rights are purely a human invention. Any right anyone has can therefore be taken away if those in power deem it expedient or necessary.

Of the essential triad of natural rights, life, liberty (freedom of association and contract), and property, the most immediate right — the lynchpin of both individual and social life — is property. Without the power that necessarily follows property, life and liberty become effective nullities. Control what people own, and you control people. As the late Louis O. Kelso, the lawyer-economist who invented the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) pointed out, “Property in everyday life, is the right of control.”

We find Karl Marx and Pope Leo XIII in full agreement on this point. Asserting communism as the purest form of socialism, Marx declared in The Communist Manifesto (1848), “The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.” Leo XIII concurred, identifying (and utterly rejecting) “the main tenet of socialism, community of goods.” (Rerum Novarum, § 15.)

This requires explanation. Property is not the thing owned, but the natural right to be an owner inherent in every human being. It is also the socially determined and necessarily limited bundle of rights that define how an owner may use what is owned. In general, no one may use his property in a way that harms others or the common good, but is otherwise entitled to the full stream of income attributable to what is owned, and to control and dispose of it as he will.

The problem is that in today’s global economy, fewer and fewer people own the capital that carries out the bulk of production. This is because the purpose of capital is to replace human labor. This, in turn, drives down the price of labor relative to capital, making it impossible for most people to be able to purchase the capital instruments that take away their jobs.

As a result, socialism that abolishes private ownership of capital and purports to guarantee that the productive capacity of the economy redounds to the benefit of all, seems more consistent with the Christian message than capitalism, in which capital ownership benefits only a few. That is, socialism seems more consistent with the Christian message if we base our understanding of it on wrath and envy instead of justice and charity.

This is because the wrath (extreme anger) and envy (desire for a good that someone else has or the wish to deprive another of that good) that characterize socialism tell us that “charity” commands us to “love the poor” in such a way that we hate the rich, while “justice” commands us to take from the rich and redistribute to the poor. Bringing to mind Msgr. Ronald Knox’s definition of “enthusiasm” — an excess of charity that threatens unity — this flatly contradicts true charity and justice, and achieves exactly the opposite of what is presumably intended: bringing people together. As Pope St. John Paul II pointed out to the bishops of North and South America when speaking of the distortions of charity and justice that have infiltrated interpretations of Catholic social teaching,

As I have already noted, love for the poor must be preferential, but not exclusive. The Synod Fathers observed that it was in part because of an approach to the pastoral care of the poor marked by a certain exclusiveness that the pastoral care for the leading sectors of society has been neglected and many people have thus been estranged from the Church. (Ecclesia in America, § 67.)

Thus, the Christian message is not that you must love the poor by hating the rich, and take what the rich have for redistribution among the poor, although that may be necessary as a short term expedient in an emergency as prudence dictates. Instead, you must love your neighbor as yourself, whether rich or poor — “There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28.)

But what if your neighbor is greedy and without charity for others?

By whose reckoning? Yours?

Who are you?

Absent empirical evidence or logical argument based on proven assumptions, you have no way of knowing whether someone is greedy or without charity, except, possibly, in comparison with yourself . . . and you might not be the best judge of your own degree of perfection or your neighbor’s lack thereof. For example —

Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican. I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven; but struck his breast, saying: O God, be merciful to me a sinner. I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other: because every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled: and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. (Luke 18:10-14.)

In both civil law and moral philosophy, then, someone is considered innocent until proven guilty. That is why Christians are reminded not to try and enforce God’s law (human law is another matter — for duly constituted authority), for we are not omniscient and can make mistakes. There is also the fact that it is rather presumptuous to put yourself in the place of God. “Vengeance belongeth to me, and I will repay. And again: The Lord shall judge his people.” (Heb. 10:30)

What, however, is to be done?

The answer seems obvious. As Kelso said in a 1964 interview in Life magazine, “If the machine wants our job, let’s buy it.” That is, if we can’t get enough income by producing with labor, we need to own the capital that is carrying out production. As Pius XI declared:

Therefore, with all our strength and effort we must strive that at least in the future the abundant fruits of production will accrue equitably to those who are rich and will be distributed in ample sufficiency among the workers — not that these may become remiss in work, for man is born to labor as the bird to fly — but that they may increase their property by thrift, that they may bear, by wise management of this increase in property, the burdens of family life with greater ease and security, and that, emerging from the insecure lot in life in whose uncertainties non-owning workers are cast, they may be able not only to endure the vicissitudes of earthly existence but have also assurance that when their lives are ended they will provide in some measure for those they leave after them. (Quadragesimo Anno, § 61.)

Unfortunately, Pius XI assumed — incorrectly — that the only way to finance new capital formation and turn non-owning workers into owners of capital is to pay workers more to enable them to save out of consumption income. This gave both the capitalists and the socialists the excuse they needed to ignore the stated goal: make every child, woman, and man a capital owner so that no one would be dependent on either a private employer or the State.

The capitalists observed that it is impossible to pay people enough to enable them to save to purchase increasingly expensive capital instruments. By paying people more than the market wage rate, prices go up, and wage earners have to pay more for consumption goods. They remain unable to save to purchase capital.

The capitalists concluded that widespread capital ownership must be prudential, not a necessary element of a justly structured society. Propertyless workers must remain dependent on a private ownership élite.

The socialists believed that the only way to make everyone an owner of capital is to abolish private property by having the State redefine what ownership means, or (what amounts to the same thing) have the State redistribute what already belongs to the rich. Once the State controls or owns outright all capital, workers will be paid enough.

The socialists, too, concluded that widespread capital ownership must be prudential. If you can receive the benefits of ownership — income — without actual ownership, why bother? The other aspect of ownership, control, can be exercised by voting only honest politicians into office. These will ensure that the economy is administered in a way that benefits everyone.

Both capitalists and socialists missed the point of papal teaching. The idea is to get rid of “a yoke little better than that of slavery itself” (Rerum Novarum, § 3), not fix it ever tighter and heavier on the necks of workers. People must become independent adults through direct capital ownership. They must not be dependent on either a private sector or State élite. People must be free to choose to live a life of virtue, “the good life,” which (as Aristotle observed) is ordinarily impossible without capital ownership. As Pope Leo XIII explained over a century ago,

We have seen that this great labor question cannot be solved save by assuming as a principle that private ownership must be held sacred and inviolable. The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners. (Rerum Novarum, § 46.)

This can be done by opening up the means for people without capital or savings to purchase capital that pays for itself out of its own future profits, and thereafter yield income for the owner. This technique has been known for centuries, but has usually only been used to make the rich richer.

In response, the socialists have demanded not that the unique social good of money and credit be open to use by all so that everyone has the equal opportunity to own capital, but that private property in capital be abolished. It’s a little like burning down the house where one family lives because others don’t have houses, instead of organizing to build houses for everyone.

One proposal to transcend the evils of both capitalism and socialism is “Capital Homesteading,” developed by the interfaith Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ), http://www.cesj.org/). There are doubtless other viable proposals as well.

The point, however, is that it is not necessary to try and change human nature to benefit humanity, thereby throwing the baby out with the bath. It is possible, even essential, that human nature be preserved and maintained without surrendering to either the contradictions of socialism or the distortions of capitalism. There is a just, third way that transcends both systems.