Abstract
The Crisis of Global Capitalism offers ten essays reflecting on Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate, drawing largely though not entirely on papers given at a conference at the University of Nottingham’s Centre of Theology and Philosophy shortly after the release of the encyclical. The tenor of the essays is generally critical of capitalism, and of the discipline of economics, with the authors looking to Caritas in Veritate for the seeds of an alternative model of economic life. That alternative is seen as transcending a variety of vexing dichotomies, with Benedict’s vision of a civil economy centred on fraternity and reciprocity refusing the choices between the state and the free market, between ethics and economics, and between religious and secular perspectives. The success of the volume lies in its presentation of Benedict’s vision of economic life as a desirable destination. Its weakness lies in its lack of clarity about how we would get there.
In his introduction, Adrian Pabst sets the stage for the essays that follow by arguing that the recent financial crisis cannot be addressed by the proposals from either the right or the left. He locates this impasse in the historical roots of modern economic thought, whether one traces its lineage back to Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes or Karl Marx. Benedict’s alternative, which builds on the Catholic social tradition begun in Rerum Novarum (1891), offers a path which is informed by the Church Fathers (especially Augustine) and the Romantic Orthodoxy of nineteenth- and twentieth-century theology (especially nouvelle théologie). For Pabst, the strength of Benedict’s approach lies in his repudiation of the strong separation of ‘pure nature’ from the supernatural, which underpins ‘the twin assumption, first of all, that markets are “value-free” and do not require the exercise of virtue and, second, that contracts are sundered from gift’ (p. 16). Smith, Keynes and Marx all share these assumptions, and Pabst is right to argue that the inadequacy of modern economic thought whether conservative, liberal or radical is related to its failure to integrate economic logic into a fuller account of human life. However, the modern tradition has held sway for the past few centuries, presumably by having some appeal, and one can ask whether a credible alternative can be constructed without attending to whatever insight it was that has sustained the modern tradition. Pabst is silent on this point and, as I will argue below, that silence is related to the failure of the volume to address how we could move towards the civil and deeply humane economic view promulgated by Benedict.
Pabst presents the book’s ten essays in five parts. Part one takes up the subject of Christianity and capitalism, featuring essays by John Milbank and Tracey Rowland. In his thought-provoking contribution, Milbank begins by getting to the heart of the difference between what he calls the ‘real third way’ and modern liberalism. Whereas modern liberalism attempts to construct a socio-political order without reference to any cosmic order, the Christian vision reflected in Caritas in Veritate understands that human life must be ordered in a way consonant with the cosmic order. Either economic life is ordered to a human good that in turn reflects the human function in creation, or it is ordered to the unfettered human will. Milbank draws on Michel Foucault to trace out a history of the rise of the liberal world view, and Karl Polanyi to argue that the liberal project must result in an irreconcilable tension between the demands of individual freedom and the need to sustain the liberal order with a welfare state. By contrast, the Christian vision begins with an understanding of human beings as rational animals who receive themselves and the world as gifts from God. On this view, the language of gift and reciprocity is primary (hence the need for a history of how we came to forget this). Milbank’s discussion of the essentially religious character of this view, and of the humane understanding of economic life that issues from it, is a compelling highlight of the volume, and should be of value even to those who might hesitate at Milbank’s deconstruction of modern economic thought. Somewhat less convincing is his concluding section on particular policy prescriptions that flow from this vision, about which more below. Rowland’s contribution is complementary to Milbank’s. She argues that Caritas in Veritate will necessarily seem confusing to those who insist on reading Pope Benedict as either for markets or for liberation theology. She offers a careful account of his various writings on the subject, arguing that his stance against extrinsicism, i.e. against the view that the natural order can be understood apart from the supernatural order, rules out any reading that would hold that Benedict’s position is compatible with a liberalism that construes the economic realm as value-neutral. Again, the Christian ‘third way’ resists the dichotomies of modern liberal thought.
The next two essays in the book, by Eugene McCarraher, and Mark and Louise Zwick, take up the theme of the relationship between Christianity and socialism. McCarraher writes from the perspective of ‘we communists of the old school’, bringing Benedict into conversation with John Ruskin and Herbert McCabe OP. From a socialist perspective, McCarraher finds much in Caritas in Veritate to admire, particularly its rejection of scarcity as a fundamental aspect of economic life. Nonetheless, he worries that ‘Benedict is so committed to an ontology of harmony’ that he remains blind to the ‘fact that class conflict is endemic to capitalism, or to any other class society’ (p. 101, italics original). Mark and Louise Zwick draw on their experiences as editors of the Houston Catholic Worker and founders of the Casa Juan Diego Houses of Hospitality for Immigrants and Refugees in Houston, Texas to describe vividly the toll economic forces can take on the lives of the marginal. Against that backdrop, Benedict’s call for an economy ordered to charity and justice is salutary. Omitted from their account of global capitalism, however, is that while many have been harmed by market forces, the last few decades have also seen an unprecedented number of people lifted out of poverty by those same forces. The unbalanced presentation undermines an otherwise compelling essay.
The third part of the volume takes up the topic of the civil and political economy. In that section, Stefano Zamagni, who played a material role in drafting the sections of the encyclical on the civil economy, expands on the core concepts of fraternity, gift and reciprocity. His essay thus offers insights into some of the background ideas in play in the encyclical. Adrian Pabst’s essay makes a two-fold contribution. First, he argues that there is a general shift across disciplines towards an emphasis on the relational, which ‘opens the way for transforming modern economics by reconnecting the post-Smithian legacy of political economy with the pre-Smithian tradition of civil economy’ (p. 179). Pabst offers a rich description of an alternative tradition of civil economy centred in eighteenth-century Naples, which understands the economy as ordered to relational goods. Second, he develops a series of applications of Benedict’s thought that could be pursued as a way of dealing with the financial and fiscal crises confronting the global economy. Jointly, Zamagni and Pabst succeed in fleshing out the vision of reciprocity that lies at the heart of Caritas in Veritate.
The fourth section of the book relates Caritas in Veritate to traditions of Christian social teaching. In that section David L. Schindler examines the anthropology undergirding the encyclical, arguing that one cannot separate the Church’s teachings on the economy from her teachings on the family. Benedict invites us to a view of human nature centred on charity—first in relation to God and second in relation to each other. But if his call for us to see all of humanity as family is to be heeded, then we cannot disregard the Church’s teachings on the family. It is in the family that we can see most clearly our vocation to charity, and we cannot realise that unless families are truly open and welcoming to the weak and vulnerable. John Hughes writes from the perspective of an Anglicanism that is not so open to the Catholic Church’s teachings on family. Nonetheless, he identifies a strain of Anglican thought that has a trajectory similar to Benedict’s, and is hopeful that a fruitful engagement between the two traditions can continue.
The final section of the book takes up the themes of distributism and alternative economics. Jon Cruddas MP and Jonathan Rutherford lead with a discussion of the economic and social ills in the United Kingdom, including a discourse on the effects of widening income inequality. They urge this as a moment to re-centre economic and social life around the common good, and issue a series of proposals in that vein. John Médaille follows up with a distributist analysis of economic science. Both essays point us to extant alternative modes of economic analysis that resonate with the principles advocated in Caritas in Veritate.
Taken as a whole, the essays in The Crisis of Global Capitalism serve to flesh out the notions of reciprocity and civil economy that animate important sections of Caritas in Veritate. More importantly they illuminate the theological anthropology and metaphysics that animate Catholic social thought. Humans are created in the image and likeness of God. Charity and self-giving must, then, be the form of our best selves. We are not self-sufficient individuals who come into society through contract, as much modern liberalism would have it. Rather, we are essentially social, and therefore relational. Economic life should reflect these truths. As Milbank argues, the socio-economic order has to be justified with reference to the cosmic order. In addition to clarifying the Pope’s vision of economic life, these essays offer a valuable set of historical reflections on how an economic order so at variance with the truths about human nature and the cosmos evolved.
There are many questions which could be put to this project, but I have space to take up just one. Benedict has a compelling vision of what economic life should be. But how do we get there? Insofar as the call is for a civil society built up around the concepts of gift and reciprocity, it would seem we need people who understand themselves as essentially relational, and who seek their fulfilment in the practice of the virtues and ultimately in relationship with God. Yet economic discourse, which informs much public debate, appeals to many in part because it seems to offer a more realistic view of humans as individuals who rationally pursue their own visions of the good life in ways that are often self-seeking. On that view, some individuals can learn to be charitable, but such choices are not essential to human nature, and most individuals can be well described as primarily self-interested. The Christian tradition has an explanation for this fact. In the wake of the Fall, we have forgotten who we are, and mistakenly search for our fulfilment in private goods. It is surely right to take economics to task for assuming that the whole truth about human nature is that humans are essentially unrelated self-seeking individuals. We may be fallen, but the Fall hasn’t eradicated the essence of who we are. At the same time, though, it would seem that the way to move in the direction outlined by Benedict requires a more careful conversation with economists, who are alert to the mistakes that arise when institutions are designed for people as they should be rather than as they presently are. The task of balancing realism about our present situation with realism about our telos is surely complex. But if Christians want to make policy proposals, as many of the authors here do, they need to be more open to economic science. It would take wisdom to sift the genuine insights economists have from the larger economic vision that is mistaken about anthropology and metaphysics in the ways outlined in this volume. But surely the ‘third way’ invites just such an exercise of judgment, learning from the world what we can while ordering it to the deep truths of the faith.