“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." Matthew 6:24 - New International Version (NIV)
Any biblical literalists care to weigh in?
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The Economic Message of Pope
Francis’ ‘Evangelii Gaudium’
COMMENTARY
by ANDREW ABELA 12/09/2013 Comments (7)
Too narrow a focus by some commentators on the economic aspects of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortationEvangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) risks hiding the unity of the Holy Father’s challenge to Catholics.
Francis wants the joy that “fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus” (1) to spread through evangelization, with a renewed effort to serve the poor (48). He gives us both principled and pragmatic reasons for prioritizing this concern for the poor. First, because God wills it (187). Second, because this would be the “‘the greatest and most effective presentation of the good news of the Kingdom’” (199; quoting Blessed John Paul II). Imagine the powerful impact and witness of 1.2 billion Catholics around the world working diligently and daily to improve the lives of the poor. Third, the inequality and lost productivity of the poor is a drag on the growth of the global economy and will lead to further economic crises (202).
He asks us not only to perform “small daily acts of solidarity in meeting the real needs which we encounter,” but also to “work to eliminate the structural causes of poverty and to promote the integral development of the poor” (188).
What are these structural causes, and how do we eliminate them? The most provocative is what the Pope called the “absolute autonomy of markets” (202). Francis denounced the idea that “economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world” (54) and said that we “can no longer trust in the unseen forces and the invisible hand of the market” (204).
What does the Pope mean by this? It is not likely that he could be condemning the market economy system in its entirety and proposing socialism in its place, because in doing so he would be contradicting the unbroken teaching of popes since Leo XIII in 1891. On the contrary, the document affirms that “it is through free, creative, participatory and mutually supportive labor that human beings express and enhance the dignity of their lives” (192) and that welfare projects “should be considered merely temporary responses” (202).
It also doesn’t seem to make sense to say that Pope Francis is criticizing the entirely unregulated, and mythical, “laissez faire” economy, because, surely, he knows as well as anybody that this does not exist anywhere in reality. Nor is he likely to be condemning markets as such, since the justice and usefulness of markets have been acknowledged by popes and theologians for centuries.
What, then, is he criticizing? It appears that the Holy Father is denouncing the ideology (56) that when human beings are left alone to contract freely with one another, then the best of all possible worlds will arise. Like most ideologies, this one takes a good idea — of markets, which in themselves are the fairest and most efficient way to manage economic transactions — and extends it far beyond its proper scope.
Alan: Gilbert Keith Chesterton saw "the wealthy" as essentially licentious people who advocated unbridled Capitalism as the summum bonum.
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly;
the rich have always objected to being governed at all."
Although Chesterton is revered as a conservative in the minds of most Catholics, he was unrelenting in his excoriation of the wealth:
"The rich are the scum of the earth in every country."
G.K. Chesterton
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And again...
"You’ve got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn’t; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists." "The Man Who Was Thursday" (1908)
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In an essay about public health and proposed elimination lice among poor people, Chesterton said: "The poor are pressed down from above into stinking and suffocating underworlds of squalor."
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Speaking of the instinct that makes people rich, Chesterton remarked:
In the olden days it... was fully understood. The Greeks enshrined it in the story of Midas, of the 'Golden Touch.' Here was a man who turned everything he laid his hands upon into gold. His life was a progress amidst riches. Out of everything that came in his way he created the precious metal. 'A foolish legend,' said the wiseacres if the Victorian age. 'A truth,' say we of to-day. We all know of such men. We are ever meeting or reading about such persons who turn everything they touch into gold. Success dogs their very footsteps. Their life's pathway leads unerringly upwards. They cannot fail.
Unfortunately, however, Midas could fail; he did. His path did not lead unerringly upward. He starved because whenever he touched a biscuit or a ham sandwich it turned to gold. That was the whole point of the story, though the writer has to suppress it delicately, writing so near to a portrait of Lord Rothschild. The old fables of mankind are, indeed, unfathomably wise; but we must not have them expurgated in the interests of Mr. Vanderbilt. We must not have King Midas represented as an example of success; he was a failure of an unusually painful kind. Also, he had the ears of an ass. Also (like most other prominent and wealthy persons) he endeavoured to conceal the fact. It was his barber (if I remember right) who had to be treated on a confidential footing with regard to this peculiarity; and his barber, instead of behaving like a go-ahead person of the Succeed-at-all-costs school and trying to blackmail King Midas, went away and whispered this splendid piece of society scandal to the reeds, who enjoyed it enormously. It is said that they also whispered it as the winds swayed them to and fro. I look reverently at the portrait of Lord Rothschild; I read reverently about the exploits of Mr. Vanderbilt. I know that I cannot turn everything I touch to gold; but then I also know that I have never tried, having a preference for other substances, such as grass, and good wine. I know that these people have certainly succeeded in something; that they have certainly overcome somebody; I know that they are kings in a sense that no men were ever kings before; that they create markets and bestride continents. Yet it always seems to me that there is some small domestic fact that they are hiding, and I have sometimes thought I heard upon the wind the laughter and whisper of the reeds.
At least, let us hope that we shall all live to see these absurd books about Success covered with a proper derision and neglect. They do not teach people to be successful, but they do teach people to be snobbish; they do spread a sort of evil poetry of worldliness. The Puritans are always denouncing books that inflame lust; what shall we say of books that inflame the viler passions of avarice and pride? ... from Democracy and Industrialism
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"The oligarchic character of the modern English commonwealth does not rest, like many oligarchies, on the cruelty of the rich to the poor. It does not even rest on the kindness of the rich to the poor. It rests on the perennial and unfailing kindness of the poor to the rich."
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"The merely rich are not rich enough to rule the modern market. The things that change modern history, the big national and international loans, the big educational and philanthropic foundations, the purchase of numberless newspapers, the big prices paid for peerages, the big expenses often incurred in elections - these are getting too big for everybody except the misers; the men with the largest of earthly fortunes and the smallest of earthly aims. There are two other odd and rather important things to be said about them. The first is this: that with this aristocracy we do not have the chance of a lucky variety in types which belongs to larger and looser aristocracies. The moderately rich include all kinds of people even good people. Even priests are sometimes saints; and even soldiers are sometimes heroes. Some doctors have really grown wealthy by curing their patients and not by flattering them; some brewers have been known to sell beer. But among the Very Rich you will never find a really generous man, even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egoistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it." G. K. Chesterton
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"G.K. Chesterton and Warren Buffett's Class War"
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Chesterton Quote Compendium
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Chesterton - The Best Single Web Source
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I would be remiss if I failed to note Chesterton's advocacy of an economic system called Distributism.
Distributism - Wikipedia's entry
"Is Distributism Catholic?"
The Distributist Review
http://distributistreview.com/mag/2011/05/is-distributism-catholic/
Yes, that's "distribution," as in "re-distribution."
Yes, that's "distribution," as in "re-distribution."
It is understatement to say contemporary Christians would savage Chesterton for his distributist views just as God savaged Ananias and Sapphira for not surrendering all their wealth to the communist leaders of the early Church.
The remarkable tale of this married couple is told in "The Acts of the Apostles," chapter 5 - http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%205:%201%20-%2011&version=NIV
Most "conservative" Christians -- who are less fond of The Gospels than The Vengeful Sky-God of the Old Testament -- are stunned to discover the self-evident communism of the early Church. So stunned in fact that they immediately block the historical datum from consciousness. They simply cannot rationalize the unpalatable fact of early Christian communism, and - except for a infrequent arabesques of pseudo-cerebral absurdity - don't even try.
Similarly, "Christian" "conservatives" cannot explain Yeshua's counsel in Matthew 6: “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." Matthew 6:24 - New International Version (NIV)
I encourage Christian conservatives everywhere to provide their "biblically literal" interpretation of Yeshua's mutually exclusive choice between God and Money.
The effort, though futile, will be instructive.
The effort, though futile, will be instructive.
Truth be told, we are all "menu-style" Christians.
And thanks be to God!
And thanks be to God!
Our obligatory failure in living up to Christian ideals is necessary reminder that every one of us is a sinner and that the supercilious of self-righteousness Pharisees, is now and forever has been, the chief stumbling block imperiling salvation.
"Judge not lest you be judged." We all do, of course, but conservatives are so committed to judgment that neither time nor energy remains to perform the works of mercy on which salvation hangs.
"Judge not lest you be judged." We all do, of course, but conservatives are so committed to judgment that neither time nor energy remains to perform the works of mercy on which salvation hangs.
Several fundaments typify "conservative" "Christians."
One is that conservatives insist on truths that are simple, rigid and absolute.
One is that conservatives insist on truths that are simple, rigid and absolute.
Seduced by absolutism, the theologically-deflowered absorb the non-interventionist propaganda of The Invisible Hand, welcoming the counsel that economics is ordained by an overarching Principle that prohibits any behavior-or-practice that does not occur "automatically."
In addition to counseling against political intervention in economics, "conservatives" are assured that every "free" market bridle confounds The Will of God and advances the cause of Satan.
In addition to counseling against political intervention in economics, "conservatives" are assured that every "free" market bridle confounds The Will of God and advances the cause of Satan.
According to the received "wisdom" of The Wealthy, there is no need to practice any of Virtue's traditional disciplines since "The Invisible Hand of The Marketplace" is the hand of God himself.
The idolatry of submitting to this economic licenciousness would bewilder many if every jot and tittle of the "conservative" agenda were not equally so.
The idolatry of submitting to this economic licenciousness would bewilder many if every jot and tittle of the "conservative" agenda were not equally so.
Since conservatives are determined to defend financial and economic privacy more adamantly than pro-choice women defend the privacy of their reproductive parts, it may seem to the naive and un-analytical as if there is nothing to do but mind my one's own business and let autonomous markets "take care of themselves."
Make no mistake: The Invisible Hand is jammed in every conservative's "pants" massaging their economic genitals.
Common sense alone should be sufficient to show the fallacy of this ideology: Without clear and fair ground rules for economic activity, and without principled behavior by participants, an economy cannot run efficiently, let alone justly. Indeed, the Church has taught consistently that the market economy needs to be founded on what Pope John Paul II called a “strong juridical framework” (Centesimus Annus, 42) that orients economic activity towards the common good (Evangelii Gaudium, 56 and 203). She teaches, further, that charity is the guiding principle even of our political and economic relationships (205, citing Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate).
Whether conservatives are "sacred" or "secular" in orientation, their radically individualistic goal is to secure salvation for themselves. They are blithely - even giddily - unaware of the clear-and-present danger that the surest way to lose one's soul is to put one's self-interest over The Common Good.
But does anyone try to live this ideology in reality? Here are two examples of this ideology in action, which are prevalent in our society and which certainly justify Pope Francis’ criticism. The first is “crony capitalism,” where firms depend more on political connections than on market success. Here, the belief in absolute autonomy leads them to make “investments” (typically through lobbying) to change the juridical framework underlying the market in order to receive special favors, such as “corporate welfare” or preferential regulation that inhibits new competition.
The second is a phenomenon that economist Andy Yuengert of Pepperdine University calls “the market made me do it.” Business leaders will sometimes take actions that are inconsistent with human decency, such as paying very low wages, and claim that they were forced into such actions because of the competitive realities of the market. While this can sometimes be the case, at other times, it is a cop-out, reflecting a lack of imagination on the part of management.
Some can be so completely captivated by the ideology of the absolute autonomy of markets that it never even occurs to them to look for alternative options; they only do what the market “makes” them do. A more principled approach in this case, one that a number of firms have taken, is to find ways to help employees develop their skills to increase their productivity and substantiate higher wages.
"Politics and Economics: The 101 Courses You Wish You Had"
Another structural cause of poverty is the “idolatry of money” (55). We let consumerism, the pursuit of money and stuff, rule our lives. The Church, at least since medieval times, has affirmed the legitimacy of private property. But she has also, as Pope Francis reminds us, taught that the “universal destination of goods” is more important than private property (189).
The universal destination of goods means that God created the world for the benefit of all, without any exclusion. Therefore, after satisfying our own needs and those of our family, the proper use of our property is to help others. The decision about what counts as our “needs” is a personal one. Nevertheless, Pope Francis reminds us, “The old question always returns: ‘How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?’ (1 John 3:17)” (187).
The Pope also speaks about the decline of marriage, which is worrisome because it is the “fundamental cell of society” (66). This decline deserves to be included in any list of structural causes of poverty, because the incidence of poverty, at least in the United States, is dramatically lower among intact families — where a husband and wife collaborate for the good of the family — than where single parents are forced to carry the burden of their families alone.
This, then, is how the economic aspects of Evangelii Gaudium are united with the rest of the document: If we work hard to find creative ways to include the poor in economic activity, and if we reject consumerism and the waste and weakness that it leads to, then we will serve God, grow in joy and foster greater economic prosperity for all.
Andrew Abela, Ph.D., is the dean of The Catholic University of America’s School of Business & Economics, which teaches a person-centered approach to economic life.
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