Millennial writer John McCarthy has a new article at NCR. He writes:
His past leadership should give us a clear picture of what we can expect from a Speaker Ryan: doubling down on the failed notion that supporting the rich will allow everyone else to prosper. This has not only been disproven countless times—but is at stark odds with who we are as a people of faith….
Our history is shared with that of the immigrant, the union worker, and the middle class family. The notion that our nation was built by “rugged individualists” is false—we are built on communities who looked out for each other.
I believe this is what Americans so deeply crave: a return to strong, caring communities. We share a vision for policies that bring people together, rather than pit them against each other. Unfortunately, no one could be further from that vision than Speaker Paul Ryan.
At the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies conference on libertarianism earlier this month, IPR Director Steve Schneck addressed the topic of libertarianism and politics, moving beyond the more narrow focus on economics and economic justice that was the focus of Cardinal Rodriguez’s keynote (watch here) and the first panel, which included Millennial’s Meghan Clark (watch here). Mark Shields then followed with a response to Schneck’s speech.
Schneck provided some historical context to the case against libertarianism, highlighting libertarianism’s roots, including its connection to the Enlightenment:
Libertarianism is best understood as epitomizing the Enlightenment. It shares in the Enlightenment’s anti-clericalism, suspicion of tradition and custom, and humanistic values. Most importantly it shares in the Enlightenment’s confidence that there is a kind of automatic Reason that can be relied upon for order in human life.
He argued that the central features of libertarianism have not changed significantly since their formation. He identified these features—which are each “at odds with traditional Catholic moral and social doctrine to varying degree”—as:
A negative conception of liberty and rights, egoism (often verging on solipsism), association of authority with regression and repression, antinomianism, suspicion of community and common good, absolute conception of private property, valorization of competition, suspicion of custom and tradition, automatic order or “invisible hands,” anti-institutionalism, suspicion of hierarchical morality, and obviously a negative conception of government and distrust of governmental action.
Schneck noted that these ideas and values directly conflict with recent papal encyclicals and Thomistic theology and philosophy. He described just how problematic they are, saying, “They are impossible to fully reconcile with the Catholic understanding of the person, with the Catholic understanding of natural law, with the Catholic conception of overcoming the self, with the idea of the Mystical Body of Christ, the communion of saints, and so much more.”
Schneck highlighted various criticisms of libertarianism from both the Left and the Right. With many critics of the Right, the Church asks, “Is the value of human life for the elderly or the unborn something for market forces to decide?” At the same time, “Catholics share with the Left a concern that this aspect of markets disenfranchises those in society who are marginal or who otherwise are unable to effectively compete.”
Schneck most powerfully highlighted the difference between Catholic and libertarian thinking in his clear description of the Catholic understanding of property, which is so radically divergent from libertarian thought. He explained:
For Catholic teachings, the starting point for understanding property is to realize that all legitimate property is ultimately something that we have been entrusted to hold for God. We can never really earn it; it has been given to us. Our labor, skill, talents, and social situations may have been part of the legitimate process by which we came to have property, but of course all those things are themselves gifts from God. Hence, property is something we hold in stewardship. We hold it for God’s plan, for the common good, and for the needs of others and for our own needs as part of our relationship with others. Its universal destination is to return to God and to the community of saints with the Second Coming.
Mark Shields followed Schneck by first noting that “there is a real libertarian political movement in this country.” This contrasts with some who have downplayed the real and detrimental impact of libertarianism on the common good. Shields argued that a libertarian compromise or “implicit libertarian bargain” seems to have emerged over the past generation. Liberals have deregulated and privatized American culture, while conservatives have done the same to the American economy.
He contrasted this with America’s past, citing Lincoln’s words: “Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” And he quoted a Democrat, FDR, to make the same point: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
Shields argued that nonjudgmental tolerance has become the highest virtue in a society where individual economic acquisitiveness and self-expression are so honored. He contrasted this “me culture” with Catholic teaching’s “we culture.” And he argued that the strength of a nation is based on the willingness of the people to make sacrifices for the common good. Shields spent a great deal of time talking about the importance of national service, seeing it as vital in fostering this type of shared sacrifice by getting Americans to look beyond themselves and their own interests. Ultimately, he argued, “We need the politics of the common good again.”
Millennial writer Dan DiLeo has a new article at Political Theology Today, in which he explains that “the ideology of the Tea Party movement is generally inconsistent with—and very often directly opposes—the seminal conciliar document on Catholic theological ethics.” He writes:
The Tea Party movement’s understandings of and firm commitments to radical individualism, negative rights, limited government, and laissez-faire capitalism have been shown to be at odds with GS (Gaudium et spes). Additionally, although GS might be said to theoretically support the movement’s general understanding of fiscal responsibility it seems unlikely that Tea Party members and Catholic theological ethicists guided by GS will often agree about what particularly constitutes fiscal responsibility.
Millennial editor Robert Christian has a new article in OnFaith that highlights the incompatibility of libertarianism and Catholicism. He writes:
The closer you compare libertarianism and Catholicism, the more their differences stand out. The Church stands for a living wage, but libertarians oppose raising the minimum wage (which is nowhere near a living wage). The Church believes that access to healthcare is a fundamental human right, but libertarians oppose all realistic means of achieving universal healthcare. The Church demands that we protect God’s creation, while libertarians strongly oppose strengthening environmental laws and regulations. The Church seeks to protect the lives of unborn children, but a majority of libertarians oppose efforts that would offer greater protection to unborn life. The Church wants to defend those at the twilight of their lives, but libertarians favor the legalization of euthanasia. The Church recognizes the evil of illicit drug use; libertarians push for drug legalization. The Church embraces subsidiarity and the role of intermediary institutions such as unions; libertarians push laws to undermine and dismantle unions. The Church favors the Responsibility to Protect doctrine and efforts to promote development to alleviate poverty around the world, but libertarians favor an isolationist foreign policy centered around American interests.
On issue after issue, the contrast between the two worldviews is stark.
As I began preparing for today, I went back and reread some of the theoretical texts of libertarianism – Friedman, Nozick, Rand, and Hayek. These provide the intellectual claims upon which today’s political libertarian agenda are based. Freedom to Choose by Rose and Milton Friedman is particularly striking:
“Neither equality before God nor equality of opportunity presented any conflict with liberty to shape one’s own life. Quite the opposite. Equality and liberty were two faces of the same value – that every individual should be viewed as an end in himself.”
This interpretation of the American Founding sounds appealing – the language mimics that of Kant’s categorical imperative – that each human person is to be treated as an end in herself and never as merely a means to an end. And yet, I feel like Inigo Montoya in the Princess Bride – “I don’t think those words mean what you think they mean.” When you look closely, something else is going on here. The definition of equality before God is rooted in individual choice, and the definition of equality of opportunity is merely a lack of arbitrary obstacles. This is certainly not Kant. But even more important for our discussion today, this is not Catholic theology’s understanding of equality before God or equality of opportunity. This is not a Catholic understanding of the human person.
In my brief time with you today I would like to focus on two distinct yet related points: first, the Catholic understanding of the human person as created in the image of God. Second, what this means in terms of the Church’s social teaching with a particular focus on Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes and the recent teachings of Pope Francis, both of which are integral to Catholicism’s understanding of solidarity and help to illuminate why I have argued in my book The Vision of Catholic Social Thought: The Virtue of Solidarity and the Praxis of Human Rights that libertarianism is a social vice against this virtue.
Imago Dei/Imago Trinitatis
“Then God said, “let us make human kind in our image, according to our likeness; . . . So God created humankind, in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-7).
All discussions of human dignity and the human person for Catholic theology begin with one very clear unequivocal statement: all human persons are created in the image and likeness of God. Imago Dei. Catholic moral theology (and Catholic social teaching, in particular) is largely a series of reflections on what this means. There is radical equality before God; we are equally loved by God and equally created in the image of God. However, equality before God is not primarily about freedom of choice but relationship. And it is this equality before God that grounds the preferential option for the poor. I’d like to focus on two elements of the Catholic understanding of human persons as relational and social: the question of creation and what imago dei means for human community.
Perhaps the most important divergence between Catholicism and libertarianism are in these very basic theological claims: I do not create myself; I do no call myself into existence; and I always exist in relationship to others (other persons and to God). As I explain in my book, The Vision of Catholic Social Thought, “We are not simply individuals who should choose to enter into community and relationship. While the freedom of the individual person allows for a number of choices . . . to be a human person created in the image of God is to be in community, this is not something from which we are able to opt out” (Clark 58). Human freedom is crucial in this. But it is not reducible to negative liberty. In Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI urges us to resist the “intoxication with total autonomy,” which is not true freedom.
Freedom to love, freedom for human flourishing, freedom for community, freedom for God – these all shape the Catholic understanding of freedom. And these begin with the recognition that human persons are fundamentally and inescapably relational. I began with a verse from Genesis 1, and in that verse we see that, from creation, human persons are unavoidably relational, in relationship with other persons and with God. Far from reducing the importance of freedom, this deeper and broader approach to freedom elevates freedom and with it our responsibility before God.
The divergence between Catholicism and libertarianism I’ve argued hinges on creation and the implications of the imago dei for human community. While we may be able to achieve significant agreement that human persons are social or interdependent – that we need other people to survive – this is not the core of how Catholicism understands human community. Human society is not merely a requirement for survival; it is a good of humanity itself. Human persons are created in the image of God, and God is Trinity. What does it mean to say that to be imago dei must be imago trinitatis?Throughout Christian history, theological schools have answered this in different ways, but today I want to invite you to think more deeply about this idea: how might we be in the image of God?
Relation then isn’t atomized and added up, but points us towards Jesus’ prayer in the Gospel of John: “that they may be one as we are one” (17:21). And so we end up with the Trinity and equality, mutuality, and reciprocity, providing quite clear and challenging normative criteria by which to evaluate whether or not we as a community are imaging God more or less fully in the world. It also links us as one human family created in the image of God. Thus, we end up where libertarianism cannot: “Our humanity, as in the image of God, is not only a matter of creation but also places a claim on us” (Clark 59). In a speech to Georgetown, U2 frontman Bono challenged students that “when you truly accept that those in some far off place in the global village have the same value as you in God’s eyes or even just in your own eyes, then your life is forever changed, you see something that you cannot unsee.” The image of God places a claim upon us that goes well beyond simply not harming or impeding others. It leads us to Paul VI’s observation that “there can be no progress towards the complete development of the human person without the simultaneous development of all humanity in the spirit of solidarity” (PP43).
Catholic Social Teaching/Vatican II & Pope Francis
Reflecting on that same passage from Genesis 1, Vatican II’s Church in the Modern World emphasizes the presence of the human community at creation, as I have already highlighted. Building on this, the Council stated, “God did not create the person for life in isolation but for the formation of social unity. So also ‘it has pleased God to make men holy and save them not merely as individuals, without any mutual bonds, but by making them into a single people . . . So from the beginning of salvation history, he has chosen people not just as individuals but as members of a certain community” (32). In Christianity, God enters into relationships – covenants – with peoples. More than this, God enters into covenants with succeeding generations of peoples reaching across our traditional understandings of past, present, and future.
Already in 1965, globalization and interdependence were understood as radically pervasive and as universal in reach. As the Council explains, “In our times, a special obligation binds us to make ourselves the neighbor of absolutely every person and of actively helping him when he comes across our path, whether he be an old person abandoned by all, a foreign laborer unjustly looked down upon . . . or a hungry person” (27). Gaudium et Spes, like St. John XXIII’s Peace on Earth before it, offers a comprehensive account of what must be accounted for in upholding human dignity and the flourishing community, and it is a basic list of human rights. The concerns are always both personal and structural, recognizing that “human freedom is often crippled when a man falls into extreme poverty” (31). Again, it’s important to note that human freedom is crippled by extreme poverty whether arbitrary obstacles exist or not. Freedom is not reducible to negative liberty.
Integrating the Catholic view of the person and community, the US Bishops in their 1986 Economic Justice for All offered an integrated moral vision which places participation as central to the ethical evaluation of the economy (and social arrangements more broadly). Economic Justice for All defines basic justice as participation, as the minimum conditions for the person’s participation in the economic, social, and political life of the community (15). Catholic social thought develops this social vision into an integrated understanding of poverty as exclusion.
Pope Francis has unequivocally reminded us that Christianity is a radical call to community, building upon the vision of Gaudium et Spes. When asked to explain his decision to continue living at Santa Marta guest house and not the papal apartment, he explained, “I cannot live without people. I need to live my life with others.” In the now famous “Jesuit interview,” and earlier in Lumen Fidei, he explains that “self-knowledge is only possible when we share in greater memory.” You will notice that his words sound very similar to the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World: “There is no full identity without belonging to a people. No one is saved alone, as isolated individual, but God attracts us looking at the complex web of relationships that take place in the human community. God enters into this dynamic, this participation in the web of human relationships.” Francis echoes this in Evangelii Gaudium as well.
To understand what Pope Francis says on poverty, inequality, and exclusion, you have to first understand this deep unity of the one human family, of our belonging to each other and our standing together before God, which provides its necessary backdrop. The threat of libertarianism is that it creates a barrier to seeing the other as neighbor, as brother or sister.
My humanity is bound up in yours. This is concrete, not abstract. In a visit to the Jesuit Refugee Center in Rome, Pope Francis addressed the refugees, saying, “To serve means to work alongside the neediest, first of all to establish a close human relationship with them, based on solidarity. Solidarity, this word elicits fear in the developed world. They try not to say it. It’s almost a dirty word for them. But it’s our word!” Theologically, we are now back to the very heart of Christianity: Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh, God becoming Human. Solidarity is our word. This passage has followed me around for the last year. I cannot think of a clearer way to show the divergence between Catholicism and libertarianism than the radical identification of Jesus with the marginalized in Matthew 25 or in Catholic social thought’s understanding of solidarity, the social virtue by which we commit ourselves to participation in the universal common good of all by all.
Last week, the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies, where I am a graduate fellow, held one of the most important conferences of the year on Catholic Social Teaching. Panelists and speakers at the event, Erroneous Autonomy: The Catholic Case against Libertarianism, directly confronted an ideology that is deeply incompatible with the Catholic faith—libertarianism—and explained its myriad deficiencies.
Here are some excellent reviews of the conference from: Michael Sean Winters, David Gibson, and Joshua McElwee. Since libertarianism directly conflicts with the values that shape much of our writing at Millennial, we will highlight some of the key insights from the conference. In Part I, the focus is on the first panel, which included Millennial’s Meghan Clark and was expertly moderated by Our Sunday Visitor’s Greg Erlandson.
Meghan Clark (St. John’s, Millennial writer)
Solidarity exposes libertarianism as deficient.
The imago dei is the foundation of the equality of all.
To be a human person is to be in community.
As Pope Benedict XVI said, we must get over the intoxication of total autonomy.
No one is saved alone as an isolated individual.
“What do children need in order to thrive?” is not a question of charity. It’s a question of justice.
Subsidiarity means decisions are made at the proper level.
It’s difficult to dialogue when you are not speaking the same language.
Mary Hirschfeld (Villanova)
The fullness of human nature is found in social community.
Catholic social thought cannot be reconciled with Randianism or a “greed is good” mentality.
Subsidiarity matters. We must help the poor to be agents, not objects.
Markets often fail, but the state is not a panacea. We need to be open to both markets and state intervention to find solutions to complex problems.
The human person is what matters—not the goods that should serve the person.
Msgr. Stuart Swetland (Mt. St. Mary’s)
The Church teaches that both communism and libertarianism are built on faulty anthropology.
The family and the state are natural communities. Government is a necessary good.
A modern market economy needs regulation and public works.
Libertarianism privatizes faith, while Catholic teaching insists faith must impact culture.
There are no absolute property rights. The universal destination of goods means they must serve the common good.
Libertarians never consider the need for a family wage.
Why don’t libertarians talk about subsidiarity when it comes to big banks and corporations?
Powerful economic institutions are why the Church is calling for more government and world political authority.
Why not talk to libertarians? “We didn’t want to dialogue with communism as much as show that it had inadequate ideology.”
Kathy Saile (Center for Budget & Policy)
Quoting Michael Gerson, “There are few libertarians after hurricanes.”
The safety net cuts poverty in half.
The media’s political narrative of excessive spending is a caricature. The poor are left out in budget decisions.
Churches and charities alone can’t fill the gap in reducing poverty. Government plays vital role.
Catholic bishops have long supported tax policy that helps the poor and working poor.
Professor Charles Clark: “Free-market fundamentalism…is really an enabling myth for the 1 percent…. It is both tragic and farcical when this myth is confused with Catholic social teaching and presented as a defense of freedom.”
