On the question of capitalism, the encyclical’s position is explicit and unequivocal. Referring to the industrial revolution, the encyclical declares: “But it is unfortunate that on these new conditions of society a system has been constructed which considers profit as the key motive for economic progress, competition as the supreme law of economics, and private ownership of the means of production as an absolute right that has no limits and carries no corresponding social obligation. . . . But if it is true that a type of capitalism has been the source of excessive suffering, injustices and fratricidal conflicts whose effects still persist, it would also be wrong to attribute to industrialization itself evils that belong
The Obfecttvist, July, August, and September 1967.
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to the woeful system which accompanied it.” (Paragraph 26) The Vatican is not the city room of a third-rate Marxist tabloid. It is an institution geared to a perspective of centuries, to scholarship and timeless philosophical deliberation. Ignorance, therefore, cannot be the explanation of the above. Even the leftists know that the advent of capitalism and industrialization was not an “unfortunate” coincidence, and that the first made the second possible.
What are the “excessive suffering, injustices and fratricidal conflicts” caused by capitalism? The encyclical gives no answer. What social system, past or present, has a better record in respect to any social evil that anyone might choose to ascribe to capitalism? Has the feudalism of the Middle Ages? Has absolute monarchy? Has socialism or fascism? No answer. If one is to consider “excessive suffering, injustices and fratricidal conflicts,” what aspect of capitalism can be placed in the same category with the terror and wholesale slaughter of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia? No answer. If there is no causal connection between capitalism and the people’s progress, welfare, and standard of living, why are these highest in the countries whose systems have the largest element of capitalistic economic freedom? No answer.
Since the encyclical is concerned with history and with fundamental political principles, yet does not discuss or condemn any social system other than capitalism, one must conclude that all other systems are compatible with the encyclical’s political philosophy. This is supported by the fact that capitalism is condemned, not for some lesser characteristics, but for its essentials, which are not the base of any other system: the profit motive, competition, and private ownership of the means of production.
By what moral standard does the encyclical judge a social system? Its most specific accusation directed at capitalism reads as follows: “The desire for necessities is legitimate, and work undertaken to obtain them is a duty: ‘If any man will not work, neither let him eat’ But the acquiring of temporal goods can lead to greed, to the insatiable desire for more, and can make increased power a tempting objective. Individuals, families and nations can be overcome by avarice, be they poor or rich, and all can fall victim to a stifling materialism.” (18)
Since time immemorial and pre-industrial, “greed” has been the accusation hurled at the rich by the concrete-bound illiterates who were unable to conceive of the source of wealth or of the motivation of those who produce it. But the above was not written by an illiterate.
Terms such as “greed” and “avarice” connote the caricature image of two individuals, one fat, the other lean, one indulging in mindless gluttony, the other starving over chests of hoarded gold—both symbols of the acquisition of riches for the sake of riches. Is that the motive-power of capitalism?
If all the wealth spent on personal consumption by all the rich of the United States were expropriated and distributed among our population, it would amount to less than a dollar per person. (Try to figure out the amount, if distributed to the entire population of the globe.) The rest of American wealth is invested in production—and it is this constantly growing investment that raises America’s standard of living by raising the productivity of its labor. This is primer economics which Pope Paul VI cannot fail to know.
To observe the technique of epistemological manipulation, read that quoted paragraph again—and look past the images invoked by the window-dressing of “greed” and “avarice.” You will observe that the evil being denounced is: “the insatiable desire for more.” Of what? Of “increased power.” What sort of power? No direct answer is given in that paragraph, but the entire encyclical provides the answer by means of a significant omission: no distinction is drawn between economic power and political power (between production and force), they are used interchangeably in some passages and equated explicitly in others. If you look at the facts of reality, you will observe that the “increased power” which men of wealth seek under capitalism is the power of independent production, the power of an “insatiable” ambition to expand their productive capacity—and that this is what the encyclical damns. The evil is not work, but ambitious work.
These implications are supported and gently stressed in a subsequent paragraph, which lists the encyclical’s view of “less human” conditions of social existence: “The lack of material necessities for those who are without the minimum essential for life, the moral deficiencies of those who are mutilated by selfishness. . . . Oppressive social structures, whether due to the abuses of ownership or to the abuses of power . . .”And, as “more human” conditions: “the passage from misery toward the possession of necessities….” (21)
What “necessities” are the “minimum essential for life”? For what kind of life? Is it for mere physical survival? If so, for how long a survival? No answer is given. But the encyclical’s principle is clear: only those who rise no higher than the barest minimum of subsistence have the right to material possessions—and this right supersedes all the rights of all other men, including their right to life. This is stated explicitly:
“The Bible, from the first page on, teaches us that the whole of creation is for man, that it is his responsibility to develop it by intelligent effort and by means of his labor to perfect it, so to speak, for his use. If the world is made to furnish each individual with the means of livelihood and the instruments for his growth and progress, each man has therefore the right to find in the world what is necessary for himself. The recent Council reminded us of this: ‘God intended the earth and all that it contains for the use of every human being and people. Thus, as all men follow justice and charity, created goods should abound for them on a reasonable basis.’ All other rights whatsoever, including those of property and of free commerce, are to be subordinated to this principle.” (22)
Observe what element is missing from this view of the world, what human faculty is regarded as inessential or non-existent. I shall discuss this aspect later in more detail. For the moment, I shall merely call your attention to the use of the word “man” in the above paragraph (which man?)— and to the term “created goods.” Created—by whom? Blank out.
That missing element becomes blatant in the encyclical’s next paragraph: “It is well known how strong were the words used by the fathers of the church to describe the proper attitude of persons who possess anything toward persons in need. To quote St. Ambrose: ‘You are not making a gift of your possessions to the poor person. You are handing over to him what is his. For what has been given in common for the use of all, you have arrogated to yourself. The world is given to all, and not only to the rich.’ That is, private property does not constitute for anyone an absolute and unconditional right. No one is justified in keeping for his exclusive use what he does not need, when others lack necessities.” (23)
St. Ambrose lived in the fourth century, when such views of property could conceivably have been explicable, if not justifiable. From the nineteenth century on, they can be neither.
What solution does the encyclical offer to the problems of today’s world? “Individual initiative alone and the mere free play of competition could never assure successful development One must avoid the risk of increasing still more the wealth of the rich and the dominion of the strong, while leaving the poor in their misery and adding to the servitude of the oppressed. Hence programs are necessary in order ‘to encourage, stimulate, coordinate, supplement and integrate’ the activity of individuals and of intermediary bodies. It pertains to the public authorities to choQse, even to lay down, the objectives to be pursued, the ends to be achieved, and the means for attaining these, and it is for them to stimulate all the forces engaged in this common activity.” (33)
A society in which the government (“the public authorities”) chooses and lays down the objectives to be pursued, the ends to be achieved, and the means for achieving them, is a totalitarian state. It is, therefore, morally shocking to read the very next sentence: