Both Oars In We are all what now?

Feb 13, 2009

I am sure it was mostly for shock value that this week’s Newsweek [2/16/09] sported the cover proclaiming "WE ARE ALL SOCIALISTS NOW." Since I bought my copy of the magazine just after leaving a Starbucks, it would seem a bit premature to make that call. Yet, turn-of-the-past-century vocabulary and Depression era vitriol are surely making a comeback. The article argues that we are "moving to a modern European state."

I will long remember Mr. Obama’s deflection of being painted a socialist by Mr. McCain’s camp during the campaign. Mr. Obama quipped satirically, "By the end of the week he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten." I must admit that, for a moment, Mr. Obama’s comment brought to mind comical images of the mean Burgermeister character from my childhood—the guy who outlawed toys in the classic 70’s children’s tale of Kris Kringle.

But the comic relief was short lived. I remember looking at my octogenarian father and realizing Mr. Obama’s comment was not all that amusing. For some reason, it unsettled me even then that the likely future president of the United States was glibly throwing around loaded terms such as "Communism" and "Socialism." Just over two months later, Newsweek says, "Whether we like it or not—or whether many people have thought much about it or not—the numbers clearly suggest that we are headed in a more European direction."

It is probably no coincidence, given that I am roughly the same age as President Obama, that my first reaction to claims of Socialism and Communism were lighthearted. Who can blame us for thinking these are just empty words? We have not experienced either one. Until the TARP, these monikers of totalitarianism being bantered about today were relegated to History or Political Science class. Afterall, Communism is dead, right—killed by the dynamic duo of Ronald Reagan and John Paul II?

The fact is that totalitarianism is neither funny nor dead. And I, for one do not relish becoming modern Europe. It is not that I am against social welfare; it is the loss of faith that comes with compromising ideals that concerns me most. In the European model, one that may have been hoped for by our own Thomas Jefferson, "social maturity" seems to bring with it a loss of belief in God. Even though Europe has all the great Cathedrals, the masses of practitioners are hands down in the New World. The state is a poor replacement for God; government policy is an even worse replacement for freedom and love.

What should a good Catholic think about all this? There are two seminal texts that discuss the limits of all forms of government and market systems. Rerum Novarum and Centesimus Annus are separated by one hundred years and a shift in concern. Writing in 1891 under the threat of the expansion of totalitarianism as Marx’s ideas gained popularity in Europe, Pope Leo XIII responded with a great defense of freedom and private property while reminding the world that liberal capitalism and "unrestrained competition" also threatened the dignity of the human. Pope John Paul II, writing two years after the Fall of Communism, inverts the emphasis reminding us of our social responsibility and the limits of "private property."

Yet, in both cases, the Popes, while endorsing no particular political or market system, disallowed the social pragmatism that over-zealous governments claim as rationale for removing freedoms and forcing the redistribution of wealth as fervently as they denounced the exploitation of workers by those who would take the just fruits of their labor. The Popes led us to higher ground by holding to the ideal that we can live properly in freedom if our orientation is toward the common good. A good society is not achieved through compromise, but transcendence. There is nothing transcendent about Socialism or Communism.

The Newsweek article makes much of the irony of President Bush being the first to lead us toward Socialism. I applaud the writer for also foreseeing the oncoming irony of President Obama likely having to cut social programs to payback the deficit created by his own massively expensive dive into government intervention. Politics always twists and distorts because it spirals down. The art itself seems more a part of our fallen nature than our almost angelic status.

Certainly, another overt difference in the papal approach to making a fair society from what we are hearing today is the insistence that the use of class or race to ignite those struggling to live together is unacceptable. The Popes are not ideologues. They are neither restrained by earthly pragmatism, nor tempted by ends-justify-the-means revolutionary politics. By elevating man above the machine, capital and the political process, they propose true human development, not simple power changes, to improve our world.

This dedication to true development shows in these quotes—which are not short, because Truth rarely is.

The great mistake made in regard to the matter now under consideration is to take up with the notion that class is naturally hostile to class, and that the wealthy and the working men are intended by nature to live in mutual conflict. So irrational and so false is this view that the direct contrary is the truth. Just as the symmetry of the human frame is the result of the suitable arrangement of the different parts of the body, so in a State is it ordained by nature that these two classes should dwell in harmony and agreement, so as to maintain the balance of the body politic. Each needs the other: capital cannot do without labor, nor labor without capital. Mutual agreement results in the beauty of good order, while perpetual conflict necessarily produces confusion and savage barbarity. Now, in preventing such strife as this, and in uprooting it, the efficacy of Christian institutions is marvellous and manifold. First of all, there is no intermediary more powerful than religion (whereof the Church is the interpreter and guardian) in drawing the rich and the working class together, by reminding each of its duties to the other, and especially of the obligations of justice. [Leo XIII, RN 19]

It rests on the principle that it is one thing to have a right to the possession of money and another to have a right to use money as one wills. Private ownership, as we have seen, is the natural right of man, and to exercise that right, especially as members of society, is not only lawful, but absolutely necessary. "It is lawful," says St. Thomas Aquinas, "for a man to hold private property; and it is also necessary for the carrying on of human existence."" But if the question be asked: How must one's possessions be used? - the Church replies without hesitation in the words of the same holy Doctor: "Man should not consider his material possessions as his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need. [Leo XII, RN 22]

It would appear that, on the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs. But this is true only for those needs which are "solvent", insofar as they are endowed with purchasing power, and for those resources which are "marketable", insofar as they are capable of obtaining a satisfactory price. But there are many human needs which find no place on the market. It is a strict duty of justice and truth not to allow fundamental human needs to remain unsatisfied, and not to allow those burdened by such needs to perish. It is also necessary to help these needy people to acquire expertise, to enter the circle of exchange, and to develop their skills in order to make the best use of their capacities and resources. Even prior to the logic of a fair exchange of goods and the forms of justice appropriate to it, there exists something which is due to man because he is man, by reason of his lofty dignity. Inseparable from that required "something" is the possibility to survive and, at the same time, to make an active contribution to the common good of humanity. [JP II, CA 34]

It is therefore necessary to create life-styles in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments. In this regard, it is not a matter of the duty of charity alone, that is, the duty to give from one's "abundance", and sometimes even out of one's needs, in order to provide what is essential for the life of a poor person. I am referring to the fact that even the decision to invest in one place rather than another, in one productive sector rather than another, is always a moral and cultural choice. Given the utter necessity of certain economic conditions and of political stability, the decision to invest, that is, to offer people an opportunity to make good use of their own labour, is also determined by an attitude of human sympathy and trust in Providence, which reveal the human quality of the person making such decisions. [JP II, CA 36]

Oh, if only House members Mr. Barney Frank and Ms. Maxine Waters would turn away from their inflammatory words to this more authentic vocabulary for peace and justice.

To find the verdant fields of scripture, Mr. Obama will have to raise his target from simple change, to transformation. Any politician can promise change, but a leader with faith can actually improve the human condition. If Mr. Obama would like to be about authentic Hope, he may want to take a careful read Popes Leo XIII and John Paul II’s works. These are men who saw the heavens more clearly than most and understood the human condition better than many. Most importantly, they were not men of compromise. They most certainly knew that Socialism and Communism, or any of the other myriad names behind which totalitarianism hides its life-sucking force, are nothing to joke about.