Control Freaks (Not Normal People)

As the news cycles continue to spin absurd tangents off of the tragedy in Arizona, I'm venturing another opinion about an issue which I really think unrelated to the current events but which is the center of much discussion in the wake of them. The issue: gun control.

I'll keep this short.

I am not a member of the NRA. I do not own a gun. I have no inordinate love of guns.

Furthermore, I think that many of the defenders of gun rights give an absurd reading of the second amendment and present a figment of a constitutional right.

There is, however, a common sense approach to this matter which, if overlooked by gun advocates, is even more frequently missed by their opponents.

I have fired weapons in my lifetime. I've shot paper targets and tin cans. Perhaps, in my youth, I once or twice made sport of small birds and mammals with a carefully aimed bee-bee. [I do not doubt that this admission could itself form an inroad to a whole other controversy. Bring it on!] All in all, my experience with firing guns has been entertaining, a sporting affair - even when it was in the context of military training. In the back of my mind, I always prayed I would never have to use a weapon in earnest. I enjoyed the skill of marksmanship, learning my way around the weapons' intricacies, the thrill of the trigger pull after a controlled exhalation. And I've never shot anyone. Never even thought of it.

Now, sure, there's an argument to be made about defense of home and property that a person ought to be allowed a gun in the home. Most moderates (I consider myself, all in all, to be among that political class) will admit this. Ordinarily, the gun control argument gets hairy when someone drops this ballistic bombshell: "There's no reason that somebody needs a whole collection of guns or semi-automatic weapons in the home." And, as far as it goes, this argument is sound: there is, in the pragmatic way of looking at things, no reason. And, according to the same system of evaluation, there are many reasons indeed that such arsenals ought to be "controlled".

But - here's the rub - it all depends on what we regard as most reasonable. It all depends on what we consider to be the reasons - that is, the philosophical causes - that inform our day to day existence in the most profound ways. For me, those reasons are not ultimately the practical and the pragmatic. They are more holistic. In my ideal view of things, man's pleasure is often found in the things that don't have the immediate reason the rationalist looks for: stamp collections, idle walks, improvised whistling, falling in love, joining a political party, shooting a gun at inanimate objects.

Why does a man need a machine gun? I don't know that any man does. But I can think of why a man may want one. If a man likes shooting cans or paper targets, he might like shooting them in a variety of ways. With each weapon comes a different skill, a different pleasure, a different art - art, the quintessential pleasure of man, and what Dante calls the grandson of God. Indeed, there is much in our divinely imprinted nature that shines through in our ability to manipulate machinery to such precise ends, to aim and to cause reactions faster than our physical natures could ever cause without our artifaction.

There are some who will find this a weak argument for non-restriction of weaponry by device class, and I respect their concerns. The truth is that the effect of certain weapons can be very much more terrible when aimed at a living being than other weapons'. However, the aim is the most terrible part. And it is more causally, more philosophically, related to the effect which we all (of course) desire to avoid. The question is whether we want to cede control of a thing which may be used harmlessly and for pleasure because of the perverted individuals who use that thing for pernicion.

This relates, of course, to what I said in my last post about our propensity as a people to respond categorically to aberrations and to try to "control" every aspect of our lives; I've tagged this post with many labels, including subsidiarity, and there is the reason why. We are always and everywhere giving up ordinary freedoms and passing laws to restrict the liberties of normal individuals in order to control against those abnormal few who abuse the gifts of freedom and will. It is a strategy which perhaps is justified in a Kindergarten, but it has no place amongst the affairs of civilized men and women. I need not make any of the slippery slope arguments (which only may be fallacious) about how a restrictive society will continue in its rut; for, if you, dear reader, have not yet felt sympathy for my philosophical appeal, I don't know whether we'll ever come to agree on this.

For my part, I doubt I'll ever start a gun collection: it's cost prohibitive. But I'd like to know that I may do so if I choose - if I win the lottery or get my wits about me and get out of academia so that I can earn money. My aim in doing so, however, would not be to take life, but to give it: to live more vitally, more freely, more artfully, more pleasurably. To shoot with friends at things which there is no harm and all fun in shooting, to feel the rush that it gives, to respect the awful power it represents, to deplore the terrible violence that is its perversion. In short, to revel in controlling what is my right as a normal man to control, and what needs no other to control on my behalf.

The Distributist's Bookshelf: G.K. Chesterton's What's Wrong With The World

What's Wrong With The World by G.K. Chesterton. ♦♦♦♦ ♠ ♠ ♠ ♠
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994).
200 pp.

"I have called this book 'What Is Wrong with the World?' and the upshot of the title can be easily and clearly stated. What is wrong is that we do not ask what is right."

- from the first chapter, The Medical Mistake

In 1910, G.K. Chesterton presented to the world this "thundering gallop of theory" because, as he put it in the Dedication, "politicians are none the worse for a few inconvenient ideals." The ideals which he presented for the consideration of both politicians and the man-in-the-street are as provocative and challenging today as they were when the book was first published.

Chesterton divided his book of impractical politics into categories addressing the three major subsets of any polis: men, women, and children. These categories comprise the three central sections of the book: "Imperialism, or the Mistake about Man"; "Feminism, or the Mistake about Woman"; and, "Education, or the Mistake about the Child". Like bookends to these varied discussions, Chesterton addresses in the first section "The Homelessness of Man" and recapitulates in the fifth and final section with "The Home of Man".

Apart from the figures of the man, woman, and child within society, three other characters figure into Chesterton's examination of modern society: Jones, the average man in the street, and his old mortal enemies, Hudge and Gudge, representing the liberal political aristocracy and the conservative respectively. Chesterton introduces the machinations of Hudge and Gudge in section one, demonstrating how their constant give-and-take about what to do with Jones only ends up disenfranchising and alienating Jones from the State which is as much his as it is theirs.

Hence, the homelessness of Jones. Hudge and Gudge, being practical men, set aside "idealism" in order to scrutinize the problem of Jones's poor situation and come up with a practical solution. Hudge builds tenement houses and bustles Jones into them in order to get him out of the ghetto, but his ideal charity ward degenerates into the slum of the modern welfare state. Gudge, reacting against Jones, repudiates the slums with vigor, but soon convinces himself - in support of his indignation - that Jones was better off where he was before and ought to have been left alone in his poor state. And Jones is left to choose between the poverty of abandonment and the poverty of degradation. "[T]he mistakes of these two famous and fascinating persons arose from one simple fact," Chesterton says: namely,

that neither Hudge nor Gudge had ever thought for an instant what sort of house a man might probably like for himself. In short, they did not begin with the ideal; and, therefore, were not practical politicians.

When, in his final section, Chesterton returns to Hudge's and Gudge's parsimonious practical politics, he proposes a theory which should give modern readers pause as they contemplate the binary political calculations to which we are reduced every election day:

And now, as this book is drawing to a close, I will whisper in the reader's ear a horrible suspicion that has sometimes haunted me: the suspicion that Hudge and Gudge are secretly in partnership. That the quarrel they keep up in public is very much of a put-up job, and that the way in which they perpetually play into each other's hands is not an everlasting coincidence. [...] I do not know whether the partnership of Hudge and Gudge is conscious or unconscious. I only know that between them they still keep the common man homeless.

The lack of idealism resulting in this age-old conflict also gives rise to the specific problems relating to men, women, and children. In the case of Man, the ideals of patriotism, comradeship, of self-rule and equality, give way to another poisonous philosophy, one which manifests itself in Imperialism and Social Engineering. Chesterton rails in one instance against the obsession with "hygienics" which was in vogue in his day, but we can easily see in this instance hints of our own current welfare projects: the tyrannical war against personal choice of lifestyle and health, the removal of table salt from restaurants, etc. Chesterton boils it down into what he calls "the huge modern heresy of altering the human soul to fit its conditions, instead of altering human conditions to fit the human soul."

In the case of Woman, the ideal of the domestic woman, Queen of her domain, gives way to a lesser ideal with the ironic pretense of trying to achieve something greater. The ideal of Woman becomes en-masculated and adopts ideals meant for men, which only serves to degrade the potential of women. A specific instance Chesterton uses here is the example of women's suffrage. One might take exception to his particular characterization, but one cannot deny the veracity behind his observation of the philosophy underlying the suffragist movement.

[T]here has happened a strange and startling thing. Openly and to all appearance, this ancestral conflict has silently and abruptly ended; one of the two sexes has suddenly surrendered to the other. By the beginning of the twentieth century, within the last few years, the woman has in public surrendered to the man. She has seriously and officially owned that the man has been right all along; that the public house (or Parliament) is really more important than the private house; that politics are not (as woman had always maintained) an excuse for pots of beer, but are a sacred solemnity to which new female worshipers may kneel; that the talkative patriots in the tavern are not only admirable but enviable; that talk is not a waste of time, and therefore (as a consequence, surely) that taverns are not a waste of money.

Thus, according to Chesterton, the modern Woman has abandoned her role of the Universalist, the Queen of a much larger domain within the domestic household, for an ancillary role in the much smaller domain of the larger State.

Finally, in the case of the Child, Chesterton observes that modern education has gone wrong by trading in the ideals of Tradition and Authority for trendy scientism and novelty. He says, "It ought to be the oldest things that are taught to the youngest people; the assured and experienced truths that are put first to the baby. But in a school to-day the baby has to submit to a system that is younger than himself." In education, says Chesterton, there's a certain "need for narrowness," a discernment. The modern educator dissembles the fact that he is indoctrinating youth by indoctrinating them with the firmest and most stifling dogma that was ever known: namely, the impossibility of dogmatic fact. And so the modern educator abandons "the true task of culture," which is "not a task of expansion, but very decidedly of selection — and rejection. The educationist must find a creed and teach it." This is an inescapable practical fact; the educator, whether he would or no, instills fundamental attitudes about the world into his student, which take the form of a practical creed in discerning facts about the universe. Chesterton simply suggests that the broadest of such attitudes - which also happen to be the oldest, classical postures - ought to be the ones used.

To the Distributist reader today, some of Chesterton's examples and the exact issues he chooses for debate may seem antiquated. But his project of discernment, and his fundamental distinction about the practicality of idealism is an ageless sentiment, and one which ought to be brought to every debate about politics today. Every Distributist should have this work on his shelf and return to it often, in order to absorb the spirit of that project into his own worldview, to begin viewing the world as Chesterton did - with clarity and insight, and with a solidaristic love for Jones.

A Welcome British Invasion

Last Monday, I had the opportunity to hear Phillip Blond of Res Publica deliver a lecture at Villanova University about the future of Western politics, "After the Market State." The University has just published videos of the event, which I am pleased to post here:

On the Libertine Getting His Way

[NB: I am highly indebted in the content of this post to some of the fine research and writing done recently by my friend Doctor Thursday over at the American Chesterton Society. His ongoing commentary on the principle of Subsidiarity has touched upon many of the same issues that I will address here, and I will be borrowing several of the Chesterton quotations which he has culled in support of his own project.]

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

G.K. Chesterton, The Thing

"'Common good'!? That's a Russian term!" The girl grew redder in the face as she boldly pronounced this truly novel assessment of the time-tried ethical construct.

I only overheard the interlocution she was having with my colleague, but I felt exasperated in sheer empathy. Invincible ignorance and pseudo-knowledge had married with all of the emotionalism and fear of the Red Scare in one facile phrase, and what could be done but to shrug?

The offense against reason occurred during just one of several conversations all of which followed a predictable outline. First, a youthful zealot would approach our booth at CPAC with feigned interest and invite us to expose our position. The invitation was charitable at least. I'll even give them the benefit of the doubt that more than half of them more than half listened to what we actually said in response. But even those who may have attempted to digest our reasoning had their canned reply at the ready: "I think the Government should just get out of it altogether."

The institution under consideration was Marriage. Now, it is not my intention to here debate the public good of marriage or its fundamental definition (which, indeed, lies beyond the power of any man-made authority to re-construct or de-construct); nor even is it my purpose to show that there is a benefit or at least just cause for "the Government" to be "in it."

My issue here is with Libertarians. Or, at least, that's what they called themselves. But they weren't. They were Libertines.

When I first arrived at CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference), I fully intended to have a good time. I largely sympathize with the Libertarian position, but I get a kick out of their rhetoric and their general posture. I thought instantly about approaching the Tea Partier in costume as a New England Minute-Man and asking whether he oughtn't to be dressed as an Aboriginal American. But I decided not. I hadn't the gumption to have a go at the gentleman with the "Pot should be legal - ask me why" tee-shirt. Perhaps I lacked the charity to offer him the opportunity of a defense; perhaps I had an inkling that I could infer his answer. Anyway, I think I was well-intended enough entering into the affair, and certainly felt that I had more in common with the revolutionary set than I did with your typical Cheneyennes and Palindrones.

I anticipated argument from Libertarians toward the position which I was representing: the defense of traditional Marriage, i.e., ya know, marriage. I even thought of it as an opportunity to provide a bit of an intro into what the Catholic Doctrine of Subsidiarity might have to offer regarding the issue: that it is a matter which the lower communities should define as they will, and that the State hasn't any rights to circumvent the logic of the institutions which sustain marriage (i.e., communities and Churches). I knew even then there would be some disagreement on whether or not marriage benefits and incentives from the State (even the independent States of the Union, which still theoretically exist) are a good thing.

But I suddenly found myself confronting a position I had not expected, and one which struck me as truly sinister. It was anarchism. Not the anarchism of passive resistance, the anarchism of mere complacency and compliance such as Dorothy Day espoused. No; this was anarchism with a gun in the pick-up truck, the anarchism of the dank holes of fin de siecle Europe, the full-bodied lowerarchy of upper Pandemonium. It was the anarchism of the Libertine.

"Government is just a loaded gun," they said, greedily licking their lips, with all the fervor of a Jacobin. Government is the enemy and sic semper tyannis; surely, these were the just progeny of our forefathers, no?

No. Because while our forefathers did revolt, they also wrote. They wrote a document of legal genius which these louts had tucked in the pockets of the breasts they thumped, with a foreword by Ron Paul to boot! It is the Constitution of the United States, and it establishes a government for the safeguarding of the common good. And this government was a free undertaking, a noble experiment, and no mere "necessary evil." It was an attempt to seat authority in Justice, the Authority derived of God in the Justice decreed by Him.

Now, please do not mistake me as criticizing the Libertarian position. I do not. Most Libertarians seem to have an implicit understanding of the principle of Subsidiarity, and also a due appreciation for concepts like authority and the common good. In short, most of them have sufficient knowledge. But a little knowledge... now that, it has been said, is a dangerous thing. These were not Libertarians at all; they were Libertines.

My young friends seemed to have at least a snippet of Mill and Locke under their belts, and certainly a Libertarian tract or two. But of deeper metaphysics and epistemology, there was sore little to be found. I tried illustrating a point about "discrimination" several times with an appeal to the square of opposition, and might as well have been stating the point in Greek.

Founded on their smattering of Enlightenment-dim reasoning, the young Libertines held forth on "victimless crimes" and sanctioned to the bedroom an obscurity and sacred inviolability fitting only to the Holy of Holies in Herod's temple. That a man's private choice of pederasty might impose a burden on society as a whole, for example, seemed a bridge too far for their principles. They made it a moot point, saying, "Anyway, that doesn't matter, because it's a crime against the other person; it's statutory rape." (Statutory, mind you - I had want of high-waters for the depth of the irony). But that such a crime was damaging to the larger culture, to the milieu of society, I dare say to society's morals: of this they would here none. To quote one, "Societies are amoral." And as for offenses against the "natural law," these too were swept curtly from the table: "Law must be decreed," one told me, he who had only minutes before commented on the "accidental" circumstance of the "shape of one's genitalia."

I wondered wryly how many of their platitudes they gleaned from textbooks purchased with Pell Grants, or whether when any of them ascended from adolescence and started trying to raise kids of their own "within the system," they might not change their tune. I wondered also whence they derived their concept of the liberty of which they were so fond, having abolished the natural law and being unable (usually) to articulate just what degree of government could even conceivably exist that would be "a good thing." How, say, would they respond to Chesterton on this point:

It is the fashion to talk of institutions as cold and cramping things. The truth is that when people are in exceptionally high spirits, really wild with freedom and invention, they always must, and they always do, create institutions. When men are weary they fall into anarchy; but while they are gay and vigorous they invariably make rules. This, which is true of all the churches and republics of history, is also true of the most trivial parlour game or the most unsophisticated meadow romp. We are never free until some institution frees us, and liberty cannot exist till it is declared by authority.

Chesterton, Manalive [emphasis added]

History is rife with warnings of the dangers of revolution. How many permutations did the French Republic endure after sweeping away its monarchy? The fickleness of the revolutionary mob is a feature to be feared, and one should be wary to take a fallen crown upon his own head, because it may be marking him the next target.

My readers surely know that this blog is not fundamentally opposed to revolutionary sentiments. But it strives to found arguments on first principles and final causes. If I seek to tear down the current system, it's only because I have a sure and definite idea I'd like to replace it with. I may be right or wrong, but at least I can say I have more than a muddy conception of what I'm going to build upon the rubble. I myself appreciate, and have offered before to others, the caution of tearing down anything without a blueprint ready to hand.

If it is liberty we seek to secure by disrupting the current system, then it must be a liberty only to bind ourselves to the dictates of justice, to a firmer solidarity with the whole society across strata of income and diversities of race, to a subsidiary order with definite functionality and proper autonomy. This, as I see it, is the true liberty of Libertarianism. But, if our liberty aims merely at doing what each pleases, at tearing down what encumbers us, damning caution and reason and natural law with its "accidental shapes" - well, then, this is the foul and festering liberty of a libertine. And if ever such libertines get their way, we should all beware. For, having torn down all constraints that might have protected them, and with no laws by which to secure the liberty they so relished, they may very soon find that one particular Libertine rising above the fray seeks to take liberties with the liberty of the rest. Sic semper tyrannis.

The Pope Worships Gaia!

... at least, such a headline would not be a stretch to approximating the sensationalism in the press over the Pope's recently released message for the 43rd World Day of Peace.

First of all, it's worth pointing out that this isn't anything new.

Secondly, LifeSiteNews.com, at least, has a good editorial on the matter. They allude to the noteworthy fact that the Pope's document remained largely unnoticed by the media until somebody had a slow news day and decided there was something to be sensationalized here.

Third, the document itself isn't anything earth-shattering. Or, rather, it isn't remarkably innovative. It's earth-shattering in the sense that the Gospel and its ministers are like fire upon the earth and always seem supersubstantial in contrast to the mundane truisms we encounter each day. But it isn't like the Pope is sounding a clarion call of liberalism or saying that, after all, maybe trees is people too.

No, this is the same sort of thing we've heard before, although I have to say I love more and more Benedict's style. His message for last year on this occasion, as well as this one, have a neat style of recapitulation where the "theme" becomes something like an affirmative command at the end.

There's really not much in the document to parse. You really ought to read it yourself - it isn't long. And hopefully, if anyone tells you that this should be best understood under some divisive hermeneutic between the real Benedict and his Marxist "handlers," you can tell 'em where to go. (No, no, I didn't mean there. Here.)

It is noteworthy that the Pope does not in the document explicitly mention anthropogenic global warming, per se. He speaks of an "ecological crisis," which can mean anything from the depletion of drinking water sources to overfishing to deforestation. He also condemns any policies or philosophies that "end up abolishing the distinctiveness and superior role of human beings."

From a Distributivist point of view, there are certain passages in the statement which warm the heart. My favorite is from paragraph five:

Prudence would thus dictate a profound, long-term review of our model of development, one which would take into consideration the meaning of the economy and its goals with an eye to correcting its malfunctions and misapplications. The ecological health of the planet calls for this, but it is also demanded by the cultural and moral crisis of humanity whose symptoms have for some time been evident in every part of the world. Humanity needs a profound cultural renewal; it needs to rediscover those values which can serve as the solid basis for building a brighter future for all. Our present crises – be they economic, food-related, environmental or social – are ultimately also moral crises, and all of them are interrelated. They require us to rethink the path which we are travelling together. Specifically, they call for a lifestyle marked by sobriety and solidarity, with new rules and forms of engagement, one which focuses confidently and courageously on strategies that actually work, while decisively rejecting those that have failed. Only in this way can the current crisis become an opportunity for discernment and new strategic planning [emphasis in original].

His holiness goes on to saliently observe that "the issue of environmental degradation challenges us to examine our life-style and the prevailing models of consumption and production, which are often unsustainable from a social, environmental and even economic point of view" [my emphasis]. This is a particularly important point for Distributists, who alone seem to be very cognizant of the economic imperative arising from legitimate sustainability concerns. Infinite wealth creation, or reliance upon price mechanisms rather than on changing and shaping values toward better stewardship, are ill-conceived plans by theoreticians who would view sustainability as a threat (see, for example, Tyler A. Watts, "Sustainaibility: An Assault on Economics" on Mises Daily).

I was also very pleased by the Holy Father's handling of the need for "intergenerational solidary," which he called for in his encyclical. This is a sort of late-comer onto the scene of Catholic Social Teaching, and has very profound economic implications, especially with a fiat currency, money-as-debt system fueling Western nations' economies. We're running future generations not only into an unsustainable position with regard to natural resources, but in terms of financial sustainability as well. This all ties in very well with some research I'm doing currently into the idea of a "demographic winter" - that the homes and resources being used up and required by the current aging population will leave us, 30 years down the road, in quite a predicament. We think there's a bad housing market now? Well, what will happen if people continue to conceive and bear children at such a severe deficit compared to their grand-parents' generation? What will happen when only a quarter of the number of people currently retired in Florida, for example, are set to retire in a future generation when all those folks have died? Only every fourth house may be occupied. Think that won't cause problems to banks on the mortgage front? And that's just one of many scenarios in which we face disaster in light of current demographic trends. Intergenerational solidarity is going to become increasingly important: but all this is a for a future post. I'll be reviewing the documentaries Demographic Winter and The Demographic Bomb in the days to come. So stay tuned.

In the meantime, if you haven't yet, go and check out the Pope's message and keep an eye out for these important economically relevant points. Of course, really, the whole thing is economically relevant - a fact which is, itself, a major point which the Holy Father is making: "economic activity needs to consider the fact that "every economic decision has a moral consequence'."

I'm sure there are plenty more points worthy of discussion that I haven't hit. Please come back to the combox and share them. I'll take this opportunity to reiterate that I want this to be a place of discussion. So, please, lend a hand!

Just a Quick One

I know this is old news in its way, but in an email I got today reference was made to the joint pastoral letter written on health care by the Archbishop of Kansas City and the Bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph. The letter contains a very interesting statement which I somehow passed over before:

Subsidiarity is that principle by which we respect the inherent dignity and freedom of the individual by never doing for others what they can do for themselves and thus enabling individuals to have the most possible discretion in the affairs of their lives.

Now, the reason this quote strikes me is because it isn't, really, the definition of subsidiarity. While this extrapolation may be just - while the meaning the Bishops derive from the teaching could be argued to be implicit in what has been said about the principle - I'm not aware of a precedent for applying subsidiarity in a lateral way like this. Now, in context, the letter is speaking about the higher order of the State not interfering in the functions of lower orders (such as the health care industry privately run, or families, etc.), and that notion is a strict interpretation of subsidiarity. But the sentence above doesn't really say that. It doesn't make clear the traditional "vertical" understanding of this principle, and seems to argue it on a "horizontal" plane.

The reason I bring it up is that it interests me. I wonder if it's fair to bring this horizontality into the discussion of subsidiarity, or whether a separate principle within the realm of solidarity is really meant for this application. Again, I'm not concerned with the broader point in the context of the letter, but I'm concerned with the exact meaning of this quotation (which, such as it is, is actually irrelevant to the context in which it is found if you want to get technical). Personally, I prefer keeping very closely to the Church's traditional language on subsidiarity and its application primarily to the question of the justice due to individuals on the part of the whole of society and the political organizations therein. But the "we" in this quotation might be, say, a next door neighbor. And is that relationship, and the demand "not to do for the other what the other might do himself," properly governed under the principle of subsidiarity as it has been explicated in Magisterial writings? Thoughts, anyone?

Reclaiming Homo Economicus

However, certain concepts have somehow arisen out of these new conditions and insinuated themselves into the fabric of human society. These concepts present profit as the chief spur to economic progress, free competition as the guiding norm of economics, and private ownership of the means of production as an absolute right, having no limits nor concomitant social obligations.

This unbridled liberalism paves the way for a particular type of tyranny, rightly condemned by Our predecessor Pius XI, for it results in the "international imperialism of money."

Such improper manipulations of economic forces can never be condemned enough; let it be said once again that economics is supposed to be in the service of man.

(Populorum Progressio 26)

With the Pope's new encyclical signed and set to come out, debate rages over at Father Z.'s blog, and I must say I am not very impressed with any of the interlocutors at this point - neither in their display of tact and charity, nor in their argumentation.

The "camps" in the discussion are such as one might expect to find. There are those arguing something of a "collectivist" programme; and then there are standard free-market apologists waving the banners of Hayek and Novack. Both sides claim the body of Catholic Social Doctrine to support their claims. Accusations are made in either direction of "cafeteria Catholicism" and a "hermeneutic of discontinuity." Some hope that the Pope will provide specific policy directives in his new encyclical (and of these, some hope for more liberal economic advice, others for a collectivist sort), and there are still some who tremble that the specificity will resemble past statements (like the one quoted above) which still unnerve so many.

To all of this, I have simply to say: let's wait and read what the current Pope has said, and in the meantime, let's spend time going back and praying over what the previous Popes have said (yes, all of them, not just John Paul II). But whilst we study, we can try to continue discussion on some fundamental issues which seem to shape our understanding of what the Papal Magisterium offers us in this regard...

I will be working through a couple of the major philophical question which seem to be logically prior to any consideration of what the Pope might say, as they seem to condition us as to how we'll read and interpret what he does have to say. Put more simply, and to use an illustration: Michael Novack and I read Centesimus Annus very differently. And at the risk of sounding presumptuous, I simply will not defer to Professor Novack's greater learning and experience on this because I have read his reasoning as to why he reads that document how he does, and I see fundamentally different philosophical approaches. It is not a matter of greater or lesser understanding on different levels. It is a matter of ways of understanding. I hope to provide here over the next few posts suggestions of ways to read the Papal Magisterium on Social Doctrine.

So, please stay tuned, and chime in at any time.

And, oh yes, my title.... As I hope to demonstrate, the differences between the arguers on the post that has me so miffed lie deep down prior to any technical discussion of economic policy. The differences are philosophical: they concern what economics is all about, what the economy is, and what it is for. They concern how economics as a science should relate to other disciplines and questions. Anyway, at the end of all this, I will suggest that the Distributist position understands economics in such a way that, really, we might say that man is indeed homo economicus with no harm to the school. This is because economics is wider and interpenetrated with other concerns and "humanized" so to speak. And thus, perhaps the recovery of a true sense of man as an economizer (in our sense of the term) is precisely what is to be desired.

And so let us proceed.

(NB: The quote from PP at the top is not meant to relate substantively to this or any of the following posts, and I do consider this to be one of the many statements in the Social Magisterium that needs interpreting and careful consideration. In fact, I picked that quote as an intro precisely because it invites that question of "What do we do with this?" - discussion of which I hope can take place on this blog and elsewhere in the weeks to come.)

Finding Our Cheese

“Here, try this – it’s good, you’ll like it.”

Such began a complex sociological and economical phenomenon known as “goods exchange” between a real, living acquaintance of mine and my own rational self, on an actual historical date not long ago. The good in question was a piece of cheese: to be precise, a sliver of Mahon Reserve.

Now, certain acknowledgments are in order. First, it should be noted that this experiment was not conducted under the most rigorous circumstances nor in a laboratory, but rather in a cheese and beer tasting emporium in a crowded industrial city. Second, the individuals in question, myself and my acquaintance, should be observed as having certain personal predispositions favoring the remarkable result which precipitated, to wit: we both like cheese, a fact which might have been inferred by our haunting said emporium.

Upon my recommendation of the Mahon, I made this commodity available to my friend by extending the plate across the table, and he – after hardly a moment’s consideration – summarily snatched up and consumed the morsel. His findings were that it satisfied the desire occasioned in him by my accolade. His expectation was fulfilled: the cheese, indeed, was good.

Now, I am not a trained economist. Neither do I expect that most of my readers are. I can, however, assure them that many trained economists probably would find me flippant for proclaiming this exchange to be a primary example of the so-called “law of supply and demand.” Nevertheless, I presume to do so. And for the purposes of us non-initiate persons, pursuant of the point I hope to make upon this matter, I hope my presumption will be justified.

Every day, in the market, certain goods and services are made available and offered to consumers who engage in exchanges for these goods and services at certain contracted “trade values.” The availability of the goods (their numeric amount, immediacy to acquisition, etc.), in tension with their desirability in the sphere of the consumer (occasioned by need, perceived worth, etc.), are the realities which influence the value in exchange. Exigencies such as occur in the production of the goods and in the creation of a desire for such goods ultimately terminate in the relations involved in a concrete instance of this particular good being demanded and in turn supplied; the complex ways in which those former exigencies factor into such concrete instances in the market, taken as a whole or system as they influence the values which people are willing to exchange, are supposed to constitute the law of supply and demand.

Take now the example of the piece of cheese. Through my purchase of a certain quantity of Mahon Reserve, I possessed a good. My friend had none of this same good. Perhaps, as yet, no market reality existed. However, after my exaltation of the cheese created in my friend a sense of its desirability, it would seem that all of the necessary rudimentary elements for market exchange existed. Whether my cheese was a commodity for trade was still a matter in doubt. But there was nothing stopping my friend from asking for some of it, for initiating a situation of exchange. As it happened, I took this initiative and offered the cheese, and my goods became his; value which was mine passed from my possession and was acquired by another.

Now, because I received nothing in remittance, this might not seem like an economic situation, but I think that a question-begging distinction, for I easily might have asked for, say, some of his Gruyere. I could even have had the cheese-monger lend us his scale to ensure equitable weights for the traded bits. The “law” seems to have been applicable if only in potentiality; it merely happens that the full rights and duties attendant to this law (as with any law), were not in this case fully exploited or exercised.

Yet there is something unsatisfactory, unsavory (pardon the cheesy pun) about looking at this situation in such a way. For one thing, there were other dynamics influencing the situation at least as much as (I would argue more than) the existence of goods-possessed and goods-lacked and a corresponding willingness and desire for exchange. And it seems to me that these other dynamics were more rooted in reality, more fundamentally human, even more fundamentally economic. As a point of fact, in this particular situation (albeit unscientific and biased by certain predispositions of altruism, friendship, and cheese-lust), those other dynamics indeed did influence the outcome more so than the “law” which, I think, has been shown to have been at least theoretically applicable.

It is neither my purpose to debunk the law of supply and demand, nor to discount it, nor even to attenuate it. It is my purpose to talk about a piece of cheese and a value exchanged between two friends. Father Vincent McNabb famously asserted as a formula for Distributist economics that, “as far as possible, the area of production should be coterminous with the area of consumption.” This has been celebrated and written about often enough as an application of the subsidiarist principle (or, put another way, of the desirability of as much “smalleness” within business as possible), as a formulary for “human-scale” economics, and the workability of such has also been discussed at length (especially by writers of the “Back to the Land” movement in promoting self-sustaining agricultural endeavors). But the “why” of this principle is sometimes hard to bring to light. I submit my piece of cheese as an illustration of this rationale.

In the gustatory ambiance of a bohemian beer emporium, between two friends who share much more in common than a liking for cheese, an economic “law” somehow lost its power of governance, and I hold this to be a remarkable fact. Remarkable, because there still persists in the world today an idea that the market, left to itself, will somehow simply “work,” and this due to a certain character of necessity in the “laws” which govern it. Yes, economic laws and market principles are indispensable for predicting behavior with commodities and persons in exchange processes; but I balk at the sort of scientism in this field which all too often tends to lose sight of the essential realities at the root of all economic life: human beings, human volition (desires, values, beliefs), and real goods with metaphysical value. The substance of cheese, when consumed by human digestion, most certainly “works” and its effects are measurable and certain (sometimes terrible and seemingly magical, but measurable nonetheless). But there is also a mystical, a sacramental quality about cheese, a transcendent goodness which moves the soul with eros, which it is the object of all philosophy and art to capture and express (despite the fact which Chesterton observed, that “poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”) The substantial reality of cheese, and its interaction with other individual substances of a rational nature (viz., human persons), is a force to be reckoned with in any sufficient picture of human life; and, consequently, it is a force which must be acknowledged alongside and held in tension with other forces and “laws” in the so-called sphere of “economic life.” This, because, as we have seen, in some concrete instances where all of the exigencies of economic life pertain, the forces within persons and cheese might in fact have more influence than all of the laws and forces taxed by the cold, hard science of the market. Because the sphere of economic life is a smaller sphere with porous circumference within the larger reality of human life.

In light of all of this, the practicality – indeed, the necessity – of Father McNabb’s formulation demands consideration in our day. When commodities in exchange are held to have a value apart from their basis in human exigencies; when worth is “created” by programmatic desire-impulse creation exercised by media, government, and sundry other movers; when increasingly the human beings behind economic exchange are alienated by automation and internet purchase, and by the abstraction of economic worth from goods-given-for-goods-received (or even money-in-hand) to electronic ledger entries and portfolios; when the area of consumption and the area of production are not only increasingly bifurcated but disintegrated in their own integrity as consumers themselves become commodities and the very desire for goods becomes a value to be produced; in such an age, we need the wisdom of men like Father McNabb to call us back to basics.

If the market is ever to “work,” human volition and action will be the factors that motivate it most. And the greatest assurance we have that this human action will be ethical and tend to the common good will come by re-grafting economic life onto the metaphysical roots of things and persons, goods and desires. That is to say, when fewer things come between a man and his cheese, the fundamentals for a sound and ethical economic life will be in place. Granted that a piece of cheese, placed within the mechanism of the market and its attendant laws, can achieve various other goods as well; nevertheless, the further the mechanism manages to abstract the cheese from its essential good as food-for-man, the more our peril. Values will become distorted; the forces and laws working upon real substances will spin out of control and warp or obscure their metaphysical images; and, suddenly, in the midst of his own economic life, man will finds himself alien and neglected, if not exploited and abused. A man, a friend, and a piece of cheese are wholesome realities, and as long as they are kept integral and whole they can even operate to great good within a market. But once let the laws and forces of that market eclipse for a moment the wholesome metaphysical realities operating therein – let the cheese be seen merely as commodity and the friend merely as consumer – and man’s alienation has begun. No value which the market may tell the man he has will ever be felt to measure up to the value he once had. He has lost his friend. And, perhaps more tragic, he has lost his cheese.

Distributist Buzzwords in the (Catholic) News

SOLIDARITY AND SUBSIDIARITY TO OVERCOME SOCIAL EXCLUSION

VATICAN CITY, 6 FEB 2009 (VIS) - Archbishop Celestino Migliore, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in New York, yesterday addressed the 47th session of the Economic and Social Council's Commission for Social Development.

Speaking English the archbishop turned his attention to the question of social integration, underlining how a recent report on that subject from the U.N. secretary general "states that the absence of social integration, resulting in social exclusion, is pervasive in developing and developed regions alike and has common causes, namely poverty, inequality and discrimination at all levels".

The framework for development, he went on, "is marked by the conviction that the logic of solidarity and subsidiarity is the most apt and instrumental to overcome poverty and ensure the participation of every person and social group at the social, economic, civil and cultural levels.

"A broad consensus around the commitment to promote development has been revealed in this last decade in the fight against poverty and in fostering the inclusion and the participation of all persons and social groups", he added.

(Emphasis added; SOURCE)

The increasing frustration which people are feeling with the financial crisis here in the U.S. and its global ramifications might be an important opening for the injection into the maintstream of some orthodox, Catholic economic thought. Crucial, though, is that we do not allow ourselves to be outdone in zeal (as we are traditionally wont to do) by apologists for other doctrines (such as the neo-Marxism which is becoming ever more fashionable in the press). This is nothing new, however; the voices calling for a "New Evangelization" have become almost shrill in their insistance over the past decade. The current crisis is just another spot of hurt needful of the healing that only Catholic truth can bring...

For What It's Worth...

That's the title of the Buffalo Springfield song that starts, "There's something happening here..."

Looking in the (Catholic) media the past few days, there are some exciting trends developing, especially for those of us who want to see a greater attention given to Catholic Social Teaching.

I already noted the recent remarks of the Vatican's permanent observer to the Holy See focusing on the World Food Crisis. The prelate welcomed the initiatives approved at the FAO High-Level Conference on World Food Security.

Well, a few days back, ZENIT published a correspondence between the British Prime Minister and the Vatican. The basic gist? The Prime Minister noted failure on the part of the international community to achieve many "Millennium Development Goals." He mentioned a range of such goals being underachieved. Cardinal Bertone's response was slightly more particular. The Secretary of State referred back to the same food summit in Rome, and particularly to the Pope's remarks to that body.

This latter address is just full of good stuff. The Pope had called on the member states "to globalize... the expectations of solidarity, with respect for and valuing the contribution of each component of society." Quoting his own address to the UN during his apostolic visit to the UN in April, His Holiness had also observed that "it is urgent to overcome the 'paradox of a multilateral consensus that continues to be in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few.'"

Solidarity and subsidiarity are big news lately. I'll be including these in my upcoming set of basic term definitions, but for the less patient among you, cf. The Catechism of the Catholic Church 1883, 1885, 1894; and, this section, particularly 2437-2442.

Now, of course, a call to "globalize... the expectations of solidarity" might be good advice for Cardinal Bertone to give the Prime Minister, but might the limey leader not retort that he had given many specific examples and received rather more vague answers in return?

Well, two comments on that. First, Cardinal Bertone did focus the discussion in an indirect way by alluding to the summit on world hunger. I see this as a way of identify sort of the top practical priority without stating it in so many words.

Second, perhaps His Eminence was reticent because that more precise sort of guidance is imminently forthcoming. Another ZENIT article just yesterday recalled Bertone's recent insights into the Pope's new encyclical, due this Fall. Then, the Cardinal had said the Pope hoped not merely "to repeat common concepts of the Church's social doctrine, but wants to offer something original, according to the challenges of today."

ZENIT then offers some worthy speculation on what original theological ideas the Pope may be cooking up, which I commend to your reading. I think that the patterns emerging in the Holy Father's statements and letters - such as Deus Caritas Est, his speech to the UN in April, and his address to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in May, to name a few - will perhaps receive a sort of focus and "gathering" in this new encyclical. Whether this will be a very "down to earth" and "name-naming" (of social ills, that is) encyclical as many have been in the tradition of such teachings... well, we shall see. It is a fact beyond mere speculation, however, that this Pontiff's powerful mind will bring valuable develop to a body of teaching which desperately needs opening up and exposure in our world.