a robust defense of the free market
Economics As Science: A Catholic Defense of the Free Market
by Thomas E. Woods Jr.
at Inside Catholic >>>>> http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3525&Itemid=48
Put forth a robust defense of the free market as the most morally and materially satisfying economic system and you invite all manner of invective and accusation. What are you, some kind of dissenter?
Not so fast. Although the documents of modern Catholic social teaching normally begin with Rerum Novarum (1891), students should instead start with Pope Leo XIII’s Quod Apostolici Muneris(1878), an encyclical entirely devoted to socialism, in order to understand that socialism and the free market are not being described as equally objectionable. For while socialism is per se condemned, the market is criticized only for alleged abuses.
Nor could the Church condemn the market in and of itself, since it rests on the inoffensive principle of peaceful, non-coerced exchanges between rightful property owners. Breathless claims to the contrary notwithstanding, that is all the free market amounts to. With Leo XIII having described the rights of property as “inviolate” in one encyclical and “sacred and inviolable” in another — phrases the Left has spent the past century trying to explain away, I might add — the Church would have to acknowledge the essential justice of a market economy at some level, even if she might for whatever reason still have complaints to register here and there.
The authority of the bishops in the Church, including the supreme pontiff himself, involves matters pertaining to faith and morals. Important as that authority is, it is mere superstition to think it confers upon them an expertise in secular disciplines. It is one thing to enumerate general principles or worthy goals, but it is quite another to propose the specific policies that are most likely to achieve those goals, or even to avoid policies that may wind up frustrating them. These latter skills necessarily involve a working knowledge of the mechanics of the discipline in question.
Several years ago, Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, New Jersey, made something like this point himself with reference to economics:
For example, our preferential option for the poor is a fundamental aspect of this teaching. But, there are legitimate disagreements about the best way or ways truly to help the poor in our society. No Catholic can legitimately say, “I do not care about the poor.” If he or she did so this person would not be objectively in communion with Christ and His Church. But, both those who propose welfare increases and those who propose tax cuts to stimulate the economy may in all sincerity believe that their way is the best method really to help the poor. This is a matter of prudential judgment made by those entrusted with the care of the common good. It is a matter of conscience in the proper sense.
In other words, there is far more room for legitimate debate on these questions than some people seem prepared to concede.
Another claim is that Catholic free-marketeers have defined the sphere of faith and morals too narrowly, and that the popes’ statements about the economy are a legitimate subset of those areas of life over which they have been given divine authority to instruct the faithful. The popes, this argument goes, have every right to speak out on economic matters since such things are not utterly distinct or removed from moral concerns.
This argument, too, misfires. No one denies that economic activity carries a moral dimension. The pope is obviously well within his rights to condemn theft or fraud, or to instruct the faithful on the need to be generous with their wealth. He may likewise condemn government policies that involve oppression and injustice, such as burdensome taxation or inflation of the money supply. Thus, no one is saying that action in the economic sphere (or, for that matter, the medical or any other sphere) is exempt from moral evaluation.
The point is that the cause-and-effect relationships that constitute the theoretical edifice of economics are not a matter of faith and morals. They do not fall within the range of subjects on which a Catholic prelate is endowed with special insight or authority. Catholic laity cannot head up petition drives against them. They are simply facts of life. Facts cannot be protested, defied, or lectured to; they can only be learned and acted upon. There is no use in shaking our fists at the fact that price controls lead to shortages. All we can do is understand the phenomenon, and be sure to bear it and other economic truths in mind if we want to make statements about the economy that are rational and useful.
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