Two Chapters of the Same Book: the Church on Socialism

We are only 33 years from Pope Saint John Paul II’s encyclical Centesimus Annus, and only 35 years from the events which feature so heavily in it.  That is to say: the Soviet Union began to fall a mere 35 years ago, and officially collapsed only 33 years past.  How appropriate that such political happenings occurred almost exactly 100 years after Rerum Novarum, wherein Leo XIII warned of socialism’s dangers!  In truth, Centesimus Annus and Rerum Novarum are chapters out of the same book: they both respond to socialism’s evils, and they comment on economic activities.  Both encyclicals focus on the subjectivity of Man, and uphold a balance between unfettered markets and the principles of Solidarity and Subsidiarity.  Finally, both documents are written in light of new political considerations.  It is these political considerations that we must discuss here.

Pope Saint John Paul II begins his encyclical by praising Rerum Novarum, and offering a brief recap of Leo XIII’s valuable insights into the nature of socialism.  Though socialism for Leo was as of yet, “still only a social philosophy and not yet a fully structured movement.”  JPII writes, “It may seem surprising that ‘socialism’ appeared at the beginning of the Pope's critique of solutions to [class struggles] at a time when ‘socialism’ was not yet in the form of a strong and powerful State, with all the resources which that implies, as was later to happen (p. 12).”  And yet, Leo was able to succinctly and accurately offer insights into socialism at its core.  JPII lauds Leo’s assertion that socialism is, at its nature, the suppression of private property.  As a political institution, it does not see the person: it sees the individual as a mechanism in a societal organism.  It tries to consider the good of the individual while stripping him of free will.

The “New Thing” that Rerum Novarum was written in response to was a combination of economies changing to a wage-based focus, the rise of industrialization, and the resulting increase of class struggles.  All these factors gave rise to the notion that socialism would offer protection against he evils of unbridled capitalism.  The theory was that by causing more friction between the classes, by inciting the lower to violently rebel against the higher, equality before the state could be brought about.  These same things feature heavily for JPII in Centesimus Annus; however, the “new thing” in this later document is more specifically the collapse of socialism throughout Europe.  Whereas Leo focused on the rise of socialism, JPII was happily given the opportunity to comment on its downfall.

JPII offered some practical lessons learned from this happy occasion.  He pointed to the several contributing factors as evidence of Leo’s insights: the erroneous and fundamentally atheistic view of the human person, the inefficient economic model these societies were built upon, the unquenchable power of human freedom and his radical subjectivity - all these were lessons he hoped the world was paying attention to so as to avoid replication.  However, one lesson stands out among the rest: that the fundamental premise of socialism, that the friction between the classes must be capitalized on in order to be overcome, was entirely false.  He writes that the societal inequalities between the classes which were enshrined in socialism were overcome, “almost everywhere by means of peaceful protest, using only the weapons of truth and justice. While Marxism held that only by exacerbating social conflicts was it possible to resolve them through violent confrontation, the protests which led to the collapse of Marxism tenaciously insisted on trying every avenue of negotiation, dialogue, and witness to the truth, appealing to the conscience of the adversary and seeking to reawaken in him a sense of shared human dignity… The events of 1989 are an example of the success of willingness to negotiate and of the Gospel spirit in the face of an adversary determined not to be bound by moral principles. These events are a warning to those who, in the name of political realism, wish to banish law and morality from the political arena. Undoubtedly, the struggle which led to the changes of 1989 called for clarity, moderation, suffering and sacrifice. In a certain sense, it was a struggle born of prayer, and it would have been unthinkable without immense trust in God, the Lord of history, who carries the human heart in his hands. It is by uniting his own sufferings for the sake of truth and freedom to the sufferings of Christ on the Cross that man is able to accomplish the miracle of peace and is in a position to discern the often narrow path between the cowardice which gives in to evil and the violence which, under the illusion of fighting evil, only makes it worse.(p. 23, 25).”  Where it seemed almost certain that only another war could address the evils of the time, Freedom, Prayer, Negotiation, and Non-Violent Protests were the only lasting tools efficient in the downfall of Europe’s socialistic constructs.

Rerum Novarum and Centesimus Annus are two chapters in the same book.  In terms of Church history, they were written basically at the same time.  The mere 100 years or so required to prove Leo’s insights correct are a testimony to how fundamentally flawed the proposed solutions of socialism are.  Though the evils of unbridled capitalism remain a factor causing needless and immoral human suffering, these two chapters show that the only way forward is through an economic system built upon a true anthropology of Man, one that has a view towards his supernatural destination, and his radical subjectivity and creativity.  In short, it must account for the person of the human person.