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Eve of an Encyclical. And from Germany, Marx Reappears
A few weeks before the publication of "Caritas in Veritate," the German Catholic jurist Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, highly esteemed by the pope, calls for the Church to write the definitive "manifesto" against capitalism. Which must be overturned at its foundations, because it is inhuman
by Sandro Magister
ROME, June 5, 2009 – The socioeconomic encyclical that has been in development for some time is known to begin with the Latin words "Caritas in veritate." It is expected to be signed by the pope on June 29, and released at the beginning of summer. It underwent various revisions, all of which left Benedict XVI dissatisfied until the last one.
Unlike the encyclical on hope, written by the pope himself from the first line to the last, and unlike the encyclical on charity, the first half of which was also written entirely by the pope, many minds and many hands have worked on "Caritas in Veritate." But in any case, Benedict XVI will leave his mark on it, already visible in the words of the title, which indissolubly link charity and truth.
There is a great deal of curiosity about what kind of mark this will be. Because little is known about Joseph Ratzinger's thought in matters of economics. Out of his vast body of writings, there is only one dedicated expressly to this topic. It is a conference given in English in 1985, entitled "Market economy and ethics."
In that conference, Ratzinger maintained that an economy without any ethical or religious foundation is destined for collapse.
Now that there actually has been a collapse, more detailed analyses and proposals are expected from Benedict XVI.
A few months ago, responding to a question from a priest of Rome, the pope said:
"It is the Church's duty to denounce the fundamental errors that have now been revealed in the collapse of the major American banks. Human greed is a form of idolatry that is against the true God, and is a falsification of the image of God with another god, Mammon. We must denounce this courageously, but also concretely, because grand moralizations are not helpful if they are not supported by a familiarity with reality, which helps us to understand what can be done concretely. The Church has never simply denounced evils, it also shows the paths that lead to justice, to charity, to the conversion of hearts. In the economy as well, justice is established only if there are just persons. And these persons are assembled through the conversion of hearts."
It was February 26, 2009, and the encyclical was in its drafting phase. Those words from the pope had the effect of increasing the curiosity.
***
But the curiosity has become even more pressing since the publication in May
of a bombshell article by a German scholar whom Ratzinger has always read with interest and esteem.
The scholar is Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, of the same generation as the pope, a Catholic philosopher and a preeminent political scientist. In a pivotal 1967 essay, he presented what was later called the "Böckenförde paradox": the thesis according to which "the secularized liberal state lives by presuppositions that it cannot guarantee."
On January 19, 2004, then-cardinal Raztinger and philosopher Jürgen Habermas used this thesis as the starting point for a debate in Munich on the theme "Ethics, religion, and the liberal state."
So, in an article for "Süddeutsche Zeitung," also published in Italy in May by the journal of the Sacred Heart fathers in Bologna, "Il Regno" – and presented in its entirety further below – Böckenförde applied his "paradox" to capitalism as well, but in much more devastating terms.
In his judgment, the principles on which the capitalist economic system is founded can no longer stand. Its current collapse is definitive, and has revealed the inhuman foundations of this system. The economy must therefore be rebuilt from the ground up, not on principles of egoism, but of solidarity. It is up to the states, and European countries in the first place, to take control of the economy. And it is up to the Church, with its social doctrine, to accept the testimony of Marx, who saw correctly.
Böckenförde's anticapitalist "manifesto" brought reaction, in Italy, from the Catholic economists most trusted by the Church, interviewed by "il Foglio": Luigi Campiglio, vice president of the Catholic University of Milan; Dario Antiseri, a philosopher and follower of the liberal economic school of Vienna; Flavio Felice, a professor at the Pontifical Lateran University and president of the Tocqueville-Acton study center; Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, a banker and economic commentator for "L'Osservatore Romano."
In particular, Antiseri objects that "restoring Marx today is like continuing to be Ptolemaic after Copernicus and Newton"; that "individualism is the opposite of collectivism, not of solidarism, and this is possible only if there is the creation of wealth to be shared, as takes place in capitalist societies"; and finally that Benedict XVI cannot be expected to distance himself from "Centesimus Annus" by John Paul II and from "Rerum Novarum" by Leo XII, with its "lucid and impassioned defense of private property."
Flavio Felice contests Böckenförde's unrealistic vision of an "angelic economy" as an alternative to a capitalism that is identified with pure lust for gain. And regarding the salvific control of the state over the economy, he points out that the encyclical "Centesimus Annus" by John Paul II, in paragraph 25, warns against precisely this danger: "When people think they possess the secret of a perfect social organization which makes evil impossible, they also think that they can use any means, including violence and deceit, in order to bring that organization into being. Politics then becomes a 'secular religion' which operates under the illusion of creating paradise in this world."
Ettore Gotti Tedeschi observes that Böckenförde lashes out against a capitalism of Protestant origin, dominated by man's egoism and inability to do good. But he does not realize that there is a capitalism in keeping with Catholic doctrine, which the popes from Leo XIII to John Paul II have denounced for its errors while appreciating its basic validity, linked to private property and freedom of investment and commerce.
In an article in "Il Sole 24 Ore" – Europe's most widely circulated financial newspaper – Gotti Tedeschi maintained that the current global turbulence does not arise from excessive greed or the lack of rules. These have aggravated the crisis, but did not cause it. The real cause was the reduction of the birth rate, and therefore of the human capital that alone was capable of ensuring the necessary growth in production.
The frontal attack that Böckenförde brings against capitalism must in any case come to terms with the answer that "Centesimus Annus," in paragraph 42, gives to the question of whether capitalism is a system that corresponds to "true economic and civil progress."
The answer of the encyclical is the following:
"If by 'capitalism' is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a business economy, market economy or simply free economy."
In his article, the German scholar asks the social doctrine of the Church to awaken from its "Sleeping Beauty slumber" and apply itself to a "radical refutation" of capitalism, made obligatory by its current "evident collapse."
After the publication of "Caritas in Veritate," it will therefore be interesting how Böckenförde comments on it.
But meanwhile, here is his bombshell article, published in Italy in "Il Regno" no. 10 of 2009:
The functional man. Capitalism, property, role of the states
by Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde
The financial and consequently economic crisis that has struck us and is still far from over raises many questions. Was it caused by the irresponsibility and greed of various banks, especially investment banks? Or by the lack of strict rules for the international financial markets, by the lack of effective oversight of banks and finance, by the separation and independence of a virtual (and acrobatic) economy from the real economy of production and assets? Probably a number of such factors contributed, combined with a naive trust in a "free" and unregulated market.
But looking for causes only in this direction does not take us very far. In fact, the system that has been set up in this area for decades with success and with significant material profits, but also with a growing distance between poor and rich, that "turbo-capitalism" (called this by Helmut Schmidt) which reached a new level with globalization before causing a collapse, cannot be defined and explained only by making reference to the wrongful actions of individual persons or even of groups.
This certainly could have played a part, but more generally it is a matter of the results of an established and very widespread system of interaction that follows its own functional logic, and subjects everything else to it. This system of interaction was transformed into a system of action: modern capitalism. This forges the economic (and in part the non-economic) activity of individuals, and integrates it into the system. These individuals are certainly the ones who act, but in their action they do not follow so much their own free impulses as the stimuli produced by the system and its functional logic.
THE INHUMAN CHARACTER OF CAPITALISM
But how does modern capitalism present itself more precisely as a system of action? We can get help in this from a great humanistic sociologist of the last century, Hans Freyer. In his book "Theorie des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters [Theory of the present era]," he discusses "secondary systems" as specific products of the modern industrialized world, and analyzes their structure in detail (1).
The secondary systems are characterized by the fact that they develop processes of action that are not connected to preexisting arrangements, but are based on a few functional principles that give them their form and makeup. These processes of action integrate man not as a person in his entirety, but only with the active forces and the functions that are required by the principles and their implementation. What persons are or should be is left aside.
These kinds of processes of action are developed and consolidated in a diffuse system characterized by its specific functional rationality, which overlaps existing social reality, influencing, changing, and shaping it.
This is the key to analyzing capitalism as a system of action. It is based on just a few premises: the general freedom of the individual and of associations of individuals in matters of purchasing and contracts; full freedom in matters of transferring goods, business, and capital across national borders; the guarantee and free control of personal property (including the right of succession), intending by property the possession of goods and money, but also of information, technology, and capacity.
The functional objective is the general liberation of a potentially unlimited profit interest, in addition to the possibilities for earnings and production, which operate on the free market and enter into competition with each other. The decisive impulse is given by an egotistical individualism that drives the persons involved to buy, innovate, and profit. This impulse constitutes the engine, the active principle; it does not pursue a preexisting content objective that establishes measures and limits, but an unlimited expansion, growth and enrichment. For this reason, it is necessary to eliminate or set aside all of the obstacles and regulations that are not required by the aforementioned premises. The only regulating principle must be the free market.
The point of departure and the foundation of the construction are not the satisfaction of the needs of men and their growing well-being; these follow the process and its progress, they are so to speak a consequence of the functioning system. Law, and the state as its custodian, have the sole task of ensuring the possibility of development and the functioning of this system of action. They are a variable function, not a preexisting force of organization and limitation.
The dynamism of such a system and its influence on behavior are enormous. The system itself becomes, and is, a subject of commerce. Profit making, growth of capital, increase in production and productivity, self-affirmation and growth of the market constitute the motive and dominant principle, the functional rationality of which integrates and subordinates everything else. Workers are taken into consideration only on the basis of the functions that they perform and the costs that they involve, for which reason they are reduced to the smallest number possible. Replacing them, where possible, with machines or automated technologies in order to reduce costs seems not only ration, but economically necessary.
Compensation for the social problems and terminations that result from this has no place in this functional logic, but is demanded of the state and its function as a safeguard, which in order to do this can impose taxes and ask for contributions, which in any case involve more costs for businesses. The structuring principle is not solidarity with persons and of persons among themselves; it is taken into consideration only as a measure to prevent, and in part compensate for, the harmful and inhuman consequences of the system, which develops on the basis of its own internal logic.
There can be no doubt about the extraordinary economic and social achievements that capitalism structured in this way produces not only in individual countries, but also on the worldwide level, in spite of all its shortcomings and deficiencies; we ourselves, inhabitants of the West, obtain extensive advantages from this. Nonetheless, one cannot help but notice that this is a process in constant progression. On the basis of its own dynamic, it constantly seeks to extend itself and to integrate within its functional logic all areas of life to the extent to which they have an economic side, with extensive repercussions also in the area of culture and personal lifestyle. This leads to the extension of economic considerations into all aspects of life. Today we are witnessing this above all in the health care system.
MARX SAW IT RIGHT
More than 150 years ago, Karl Marx clearly analyzed and expressed this, and the relevance of his prognosis is still striking: "The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All the old established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. [. . .] In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. [. . .] The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement in all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, [. . .] compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production" (2).
For our time, it must be added that, thanks to perfect global organization of ocean cargo shipping, the costs of transporting goods and products are minimal, for which reason long distances are no longer a discouragement, but rather stimulate trade on a worldwide level.
And it is not extraneous to development, but rather corresponds to its logic, that in the constant search for new sources of profit there should be a constant increase in the financial markets of business based solely on fictitious capital and its multiplication, with the tendency of not taking into account the features of the real economy, and of harming them. Karl Marx saw this as well (3).
The state and law can certainly set limits on the system of capitalism and impose rules on it from the outside, limiting its excesses and unacceptable consequences, to the extent to which the state apparatus, which for its part is bound to the promotion of a pro-growth economy, has the power to do so. And to a certain extent, it does this. Nonetheless, even when it succeeds this is a marginal correction, which must be extorted from the logical functioning of the system, insofar as the latter always aims for the greatest possible deregulation.
OVERTURNING CAPITALISM FROM ITS FOUNDATIONS
So what is capitalism suffering from? It is not suffering only from its excesses and from the greed and egoism of the men operating in it. It suffers from its point of departure, from its functional principle and the power that creates the system. For this reason, it is impossible to heal this illness with marginal remedies; it can be healed only by changing the point of departure.
The extensive individualism in matters of property, which takes as its point of departure and structuring principle the potentially unlimited profit of the individual, considered a natural right not subject to any content guidelines, must be replaced with a normative framework and a strategy of action based on the principle according to which the goods of the earth, meaning nature and the environment, the products of the soil, water and raw materials do not belong to those who are the first to take possession of them and exploit them, but are destined for all men, for the satisfaction of their vital necessities and for the attainment of well-being.
This is a radically different principle; its point of departure and of reference is the solidarity of men in living and competing together. It is from here that the fundamental norms must be deduced on the basis of which both economic and non-economic processes of action are to be shaped (4).
The choice of such a point of departure is not entirely new. It reconnects with an ancient tradition that was lost only at the moment of the passage to the individualism of property and to capitalism. Thomas Aquinas, the great theologian and philosopher of the Middle Ages, explicitly affirms that on the basis of the natural law, meaning the order of nature willed by God, earthly goods are ordered to the satisfaction of the needs of all men. The private property of the individual exists only in the context of this universal destination, and is subordinate to it. It does not belong to the natural law in itself, but is a legislative addition that is justified for practical reasons, because everyone cares more about what belongs to him than about what belongs to everyone, because it is more convenient that everyone should possess and administer things himself, and finally because private property fosters peace among men (5). Then Thomas distinguishes among the ownership, administration, and use of that which is possessed. While the first of these belongs only to the individual, use must take into account the fact that external goods, on the basis of their original destination, are shared, for which reason the person who possesses them must share them voluntarily with the poor (6). For this reason, Thomas believes that stealing is not a sin in the case of extreme necessity (7).
Here a model appears that is contrary to capitalism. A model that starts from other fundamental principles, and in this way also unmasks the inhuman character of capitalism. Solidarity no longer appears as a measure to prevent and compensate for the harmful consequences of an unbridled individualism in matters of property, but as a structuring principle of human coexistence, in the economic realm as well.
This point of departure operates in many ways: attribution of the products of the soil and of natural raw materials; relation with the goods of consumption and the environment, nature, water and air; directive role of labor with respect to capital; limits on the accumulation of property and capital; recognition of other human beings – including future generations – as subjects and partners in the area of use, commerce, and possession, instead of their being objects of possible exploitation.
This leads to a normative framework within which the meaning of personal ownership and use, the guarantee of property can and must have their pragmatic meaning and their function as driving forces of the economic process and its progress. But they remain connected to the primary concept of solidarity, which offers content guidelines and puts limits on an unlimited expansion.
AFTER MARX, IT IS THE CHURCH'S HOUR
This is not the place for a detailed presentation of such a theoretical and practical model inspired by the principle of solidarity. The foundations for this are found in the tradition of Christian social doctrine. One must simply awaken them from their Sleeping Beauty slumber in the forest, and make a concerted effort to translate them into practice.
This social doctrine of the Church, astonished by the unquestionable successes of capitalism, has long taken a rather defensive attitude toward it. It has criticized this on specific points instead of questioning it as such. The current evident collapse of capitalism because of its unlimited and almost unregulated expansion can, and should, allow the social doctrine of the Church a radical contestation of it.
For this reason, the social magisterium can simply refer back to Pope John Paul II, the most lucid and energetic critic of capitalism after Karl Marx. Already in his first encyclical, he undertook an evaluation of the system as such, of the structures and mechanisms that dominate the global economy in the area of finance and of the value of money, of production, and of commerce. In his view, these have shown themselves to be incapable of responding to the challenges and ethical demands of out time (8). Man "cannot become the slave of things, the slave of economic systems, the slave of production, the slave of his own products" (9).
But the new focus of solidarity and the transformation of an extensive system of economic action that, as we have shown, does not take into account the nature and vocation of man, and even contradicts them, does not happen on its own. It requires a state power capable of acting and deciding, that passes beyond the mere function of guaranteeing the development of the economic system and of verifying the balance of forces, but actually takes on responsibility for the common good through limiting, guiding, and even refusing the pursuit of economic power, at the same time seeking constantly to reduce social inequalities.
It is impossible to realize such a transformation with simple coordination activity. But where can such a state system be found? In the face of the global economic interconnections, the power of the national state is no longer sufficient; it will be defeated by the economic forces working on a worldwide level. Besides, it is impossible to organize a state system on a worldwide level, under the form of a global state. This can be done only for and in limited areas, which are in relation with each other and work together. So the appeal is addressed in the first place to Europe. But will it have the will and the power to do it?
NOTES
(1) H. Freyer, "Theorie des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters", Deutsche Verlag-Amstalt, Stuttgart, 1956, p. 79ss.
(2) K. Marx, F. Engels, "Manifesto of the Communist Party," Charles H. Kerr & Company, Chicago, 1908, pp. 17-19.
(3) K. Marx, "Das Kapital", vol. III, c. 25, Dietz-Verlag, Berlin, 1956, pp. 436-452.
(4) Cfr. E.-W. Böckenförde, "Ethische und politische Grundsatzfragen zur Zeit", in Id., "Kirche und christilicher Glaube in der Herausforderungen der Zeit", Münster, 2007, pp. 362-366.
(5) Thomas Aquinas, "Summa Theologiae", IIa-IIae, q. 66, art. 2 e art. 7.
(6) Ibid, q. 66, art. 2, resp.
(7) Ibid, art. 7, resp.
(8) Cf. John Paul II, "Redemptor Hominis", 1979, no. 16. Cf. also: Id., "Laborem exercens", 1981; "Centesimus annus", 1991.
(9) John Paul II, "Redemptor Hominis", 1979, n. 16.
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The journal of the Sacred Heart fathers of Bologna which published, in Italy, the article by Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, in issue no. 10 of 2009:
> Il Regno
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The three socioeconomic encyclicals of John Paul II:
> Centesimus Annus, 1991
> Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 1987
> Laborem Exercens, 1981
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Joseph Ratzinger's conference in 1985 on the Church and the economy:
> Market Economy and Ethics
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The article by Ettore Gotti Tedeschi in "Il Sole 24 Ore," May 19, 2009:
> La cicogna non fa aumentare più il PIL
And the article from www.chiesa dedicated to two of his recent articles in "L'Osservatore Romano":
> Financial Crisis. The Good News Is Coming from the Vatican
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English translation by Matthew Sherry, Saint Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.
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5.6.2009
