Pope
Francis I has denied being a communist, noting that he simply urges activism
against the “structural causes” of poverty. This activism follows from
Christian doctrine. Francis has said that any pronouncements regarding economic
policy and welfare stem from Church doctrine rather than “leftist ideology.” Nevertheless,
it appears that Marxist principles have emerged within Catholic social teaching,
specifically with respect to notions of praxis (which are endogenous to both
Marxist and Catholic social thought) and social analysis. This comes as no
surprise as philosophers such as Peter Singer note, “Marx's impact can only be
compared with that of religious figures like Jesus or Muhammed.” Together, Marxist
praxis and Catholic social justice both provide a united front in supporting human
rights by combating poverty as well as other social ills. Where Marxist praxis
and Catholic social teaching overlap, there is a good deal of opportunity to
cultivate and explore insights, and to address the economic and social ills
that plague the human family in the 21st century. Ultimately, one
very fundamental common denominator is found at the heart of this particular syncretism:
human dignity.
At one point, Catholic social teaching
categorically rejected Marxist ideas. In Rerum Novarum (1891), Leo XIII denounces
socialism, arguing that “socialism would make all possessions public property,”
and thus it also injures those whom “it seeks to help, contravenes the natural
rights of individual persons, and throws the functions of the state and public
peace into confusion.” Leo censures any assault on private property: “Let it be
regarded, therefore, as established that in seeking help for the masses this
principle before all is to be considered as basic, namely, that private
ownership must be preserved inviolate.” Even so, this notion of private
property is not to be equated in Catholic social thought with corporate
international capital and financial globalization. And, in Mater et
Magistra (1961), Pope John XXIII reminds the world that “the Supreme
Bishop (Leo XIII) emphasized that the views of communists, as they are called,
and of Christians are radically opposed.” What is more, John forbids Catholics
to “give approbation to the teachings of socialists who seemingly profess more
moderate views.” Yet, in Catholic social teaching, this does not rule out or
preclude the notion of a “social mortgage” on the resources of the earth and
equitable distribution of wealth, in which radical praxis is common to both
Catholic social thought and Marxist praxis.
With Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, Catholic
social thought is forced to address Marxist analysis more than ever.
With Paul’s Octogesima
Adveniens (1971), past rejections of Marxist praxis was softened. No longer
understood as a sweeping metaphysical system, this application used for
purposes of social analysis, was cautiously accepted into Catholic social
teaching. Paul welcomed the selective use of secular social analysis inclusive
of radical theory. He states that, even though “this type of analysis gives a
privileged position to certain aspects of reality, to the detriment of the
rest, and interprets them in the light of its ideology, [radical analysis]
nevertheless furnishes some people not only a working tool but also a certitude
preliminary to action.” Then, in November 1980, the US Catholic bishops echoed
Paul’s interpretation of Marxist analysis in their “Pastoral Letter on Marxist
Communism.” The Bishops uphold the view that Marxism need not be interpreted as
an integral philosophy in which one “error” or missing component would
necessarily invalidate the entire system. Thus, Marxism, as a form of social
analysis, can be used according to US Catholic bishops, in a selective and
discriminate manner for the promotion of justice.
In Sollicitudo
Rei Socialis (1987), John Paul makes the same observation but in less
specific terms. He writes, “[The Church] seeks to lead people to respond, with
the support also of rational reflection and of the human sciences, to their
vocation as responsible builders of earthly society.” He later calls for an
“objective analysis of reality” necessary to rectify the “serious problem of
unequal distribution of the means of subsistence originally meant for
everybody, and thus also an equal distribution of the benefits deriving from
them…[which] translates more succinctly into a moral obligation as the ‘duty of
solidarity’,” an analysis that would invariably prioritize the “due
consideration for the social, cultural and spiritual dimensions of the human
being.” Thus John Paul addresses the problems of Western capitalism and states,
“In the struggle against such a system, what is being proposed as an
alternative is not the socialist system, which in fact turns out to be state
capitalism, but rather a society of free work, of enterprise and of
participation.” According to John Paul, this demands a collective responsibility
that “the market be appropriately controlled by the forces of society and the
State, so as to guarantee that the basic needs of the whole of society are
satisfied.”
John Paul also speaks to the problems of
international capitalism in Centesiums
Annus (1991). He reasserts the collective responsibility to promote
development, “Just as within individual societies it is possible and right to
organize a solid economy which will direct the functioning of the market to the
common good, so too there is a similar need for adequate intervention on the
international level.” Though John Paul does not proffer a socialist remedy,
that is, a remedy through command economies, he nevertheless presents a
collectivist model similar to democratic solidarity themes in Marxist thought. This new socio-economic orientation, urged by the pope, hinges
on a systematic restructuring of wealth to benefit those most in need. This is
significant since both Catholic social teaching and Marxist analysis argues
that exploited workers are entitled to the surplus value they create. Moreover,
in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, John
Paul elaborates the hard-hitting “option or love of preference for the poor.” This
preferential option for the poor is “a special form of primacy in the exercise
of Christian charity, to which the whole tradition of the Church bears witness.”
John Paul deepens the connection between Catholic social thought and Marxist
analysis, teaching that this love of preference for the poor “affects the life
of each Christian inasmuch as he or she seeks to imitate the life of Christ.”
Whatever the individual concern for this solidarity with the poor might be, it
nonetheless “applies equally to our social responsibilities and hence to our
manner of living, and to the logical decisions to be made concerning the
ownership and use of goods.”
Another theme that John Paul emphasizes
in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, is the
characteristic principle of Christian social doctrine, in that “the goods of
this world are originally meant for all.” Indeed, even if “the right to private
property is valid and necessary,” John Paul yet categorizes private property as
“a ‘social mortgage,’ which means that it has an intrinsically social function,
based upon and justified precisely by the principle of the universal
destination of goods.” Catholic social thought effectively argues that capital
(property, resources, materials, etc.) has an intrinsically social function,
leaving little room for doubt that Catholic praxis and solidarity share a
common mission with Marxist praxis with respect to economic justice and their
concern for the “poorest of the poor.” And, in their pastoral letter, Economic Justice for All, the US
Catholic bishops state, “The principle of social solidarity suggests that
alleviating poverty will require fundamental changes in social and economic
structures that perpetuate glaring inequalities and cut off millions of
citizens from full participation in the economic and social life of the
nation.” They reason that this process of change “should be one that draws
together all citizens, whatever their economic status, into one community.” The
bishops go on to say, that, “The Church’s teaching opposes collectivist and
statist economic approaches,” but that it also rejects the notion that “a free
market automatically produces justice,” and according to John Paul’s Opening Address at the Puebla Conference
in 1979, “One cannot exclude the socialization, in suitable conditions, of
certain means of production.” Furthermore, as noted in John Coleman’s One Hundred Years of Catholic Social
Thought: Originality of Catholic Social Teaching, the US Bishops limit
themselves to the role of social critic, and in doing so they send what might
be interpreted as a conflicting message precisely because they refuse an
ideological agenda and strategy. The principle of solidarity in Catholic social
thought seems to overrule whatever socio-economic position the Bishops attempt
to avoid, and thus sets a political agenda precisely because it calls for the
socialization of the “means of production.”
In Laborem Exercens, John Paul draws attention to similar notions of
solidarity, which in his eyes and under Vatican II, take explicit aim at human
dignity and “making life more human.” The conflict for both John Paul and Marxist
thought is one that exists between labor and capital in both capitalist and
command economic structures. For John Paul, as would be for Marx, the solution
is to reorder priorities by placing labor above capital, people above profits,
and workers as the owners of the means of production. John Paul states, “We
must emphasize and give prominence to the primacy of man over thing,” and also
treat human beings, “as the subject of work and independent of the work” that
they do. John Paul asserts that “man alone is a person.” This is inspired
mainly because the right to use takes priority over ownership within any
economic structure, whether liberal capitalist or Marxist command economies.
John Paul continues, “We can speak of socializing only when the subject
character of society is insured,” which is to say, “when on the basis of his
work each person is fully entitled to consider himself a part-owner of the great
workbench at which he is working with everyone else.” By associating labor with
the ownership of capital, there emerges an avenue toward this goal, and thus John
Paul recognizes that “the principle of priority of labor over capital is a
postulate of the order of social morality.” He also recognizes that each person
“collaborates in the work of others and for their good…[that] he collaborates
in the work of his fellow employees as well as in the work of suppliers and in
the customers’ use of goods, in a progressively expanding chain of solidarity.”
The ownership of the means of production, whether industrial or agricultural,
it is, as John Paul says in Centesimus
Annus, “just and legitimate if it serves useful work.”
According to the solidarity
principle and Marxist analysis, workers have the inherent right to participate
and construct their own destinies and thus become what for John Paul is, “more
a human being.” This specifically means that in Catholic social thought and
Marxist praxis the economy must be rebuilt around the needs of labor, not
around the rational designs of capital which prioritizes unilateral economic self-interest
and profit maximization. Solidarity, in this sense, prioritizes a
democratically controlled economic policy that allocates resources and other necessities,
such as food, housing, healthcare, education, work, etc. At the same time, this
democratically collectivizing trend must prioritize the decentralization of
capital (the disassociation of monopoly capital), the break-up of giant
corporations, and also the promotion of alternative models of economic
development, which make economic rights the most significant priority. Such a
society, which is based on solidarity and human dignity, transcends what for
Marx is the “narrow horizon or bourgeois right,” or in Catholic terms, a
society that supports the Church’s “preferential option for the poor.”
Moreover, solidarity and human rights in this scheme implies that justice is
distributive since economic rights are prioritized over mere maximization of profits.
Policy analysts, nevertheless, are still confronted with the issue of moderate
scarcity and market failure, and hence, the continued existence of the state (public
goods) – albeit democratic in structure – whose function is to administer,
manage, and litigate between conflicting claims established by persons or
groups in order to maximize the “general welfare” of all.
In June 2005 (in Audience to seven new ambassadors to the Holy See), Pope Benedict
XVI (Cardinal Ratzinger) again raises the pressing need to “come to grips with
… solidarity among generations, solidarity between countries and entire
continents, so that all human beings may share more equitably in the riches of
our planet.” Benedict labeled this “concrete response” as “one of the essential
services that people of good will must render to humanity.” Then, in an
indictment of economic avarice, he states, “The earth, in fact, can produce
enough to nourish all its inhabitants, on the condition that the rich countries
do not keep for themselves what belongs to all.” Then, in his 2005 Message to the director general of the U.N.
Food and Agricultural Organization, Benedict also addresses development. He
defines true global development as “organized and integral,” and “desired by
all.” Specifically, Benedict states that true development “calls on the
contrary to know in an objective manner the human situations, to define the
true causes of poverty and to provide concrete answers, with an appropriate
formation of persons and communities as a priority.” The outcome, according to
Benedict, is thus “the authentic freedom and responsibility will be activated,
which are proper to human action.” He mentions that technological progress must
have humanity occupy its center in order to be truly effective in a wider
perspective. Benedict states, “This will also allow all peoples to draw from
their patrimony of values, to share their own riches, both spiritual and
material, for the benefit of all.”
What might this concrete and solidaristic response
look like? In his 2005 Message to Mexican
Bishops, Benedict states, “It is necessary not only to relieve the gravest
needs but to go to their roots, proposing measures that will give social,
political and economic structures a more equitable and solidaristic
configuration.” In his 2006 Address to ambassadors from Australia, India,
Chad, Cape Verde and Moldova,
Benedict restates how important it is that political policies in the era of
globalization “should not be guided mainly or solely by economic considerations
or by the search for higher profits or a heedless use of the planet’s resources
to the detriment of the people, especially those who are the least privileged,
at the risk of jeopardizing the world’s future in the long term.” He then encourages
national leaders and “all people of good will to commit themselves with ever
greater determination to building a free, brotherly and supportive world, where
attention to people takes precedence over mere economic aspects.” Then Benedict
reminds his audience that it is “our duty to accept responsibility for one
another and for the functioning of the world as a whole, so that it cannot be
said, as Cain did in answer to God’s question in the Book of the Genesis: ‘Am I
my brother’s keeper?’” Benedict states in the same 2006 address, “Indeed, it is
not enough to opt for peace or collaboration between nations in order to
achieve them.” The charge is also individual, he states, “Again, each person
must be actively committed and concerned not only with the interests of those
close to him or her or with one specific class of society to the detriment of
the general interest, but must seek first of all the common good of the
country’s people and, on a wider scale, of the whole of humanity.”
Francis also discusses globalization and the
need for solidarity and economic justice. Francis recognizes that
“globalization has helped many people rise out of poverty, but it has also
damned many others to starve to death. It is true that global wealth is growing
in absolute terms, but inequalities have also grown and new poverty arisen.” Like
Benedict, Francis also questions the fundamental rational structure of
capitalism: “When money, instead of man, is at the center of the system, when
money becomes an idol, men and women are reduced to simple instruments of a
social and economic system, which is characterized, better yet dominated, by
profound inequalities.” One of the major effects of the existing system is that
“we discard whatever is not useful to this logic,” as Francis states. He warns,
“We cannot wait any longer to deal with the structural causes of poverty, in
order to heal our society from an illness that can only lead to new crises.” He
asserts that “without a solution to the problems of the poor, we will not solve
the problems of the world,” and that we need “projects, mechanisms and
processes to implement better distribution of resources, from the creation of new
jobs to the integral promotion of those who are excluded.” Francis describes
solidarity in the same terms that Jesus did in chapter 25:35-36 of Matthew’s
Gospel, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me
drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you
cared for me, in prison and you visited me.” Similarly, Francis states, “Caring
for our neighbor; for those who are poor, who suffer in body and in soul, for
those who are in need. This is the touchstone.” Yet, Francis does not stop
there. He highlights the close connection that Catholic solidarity has with
Marxist praxis: “If I repeated some passages from the homilies of the Church
Fathers, in the second or third century, about how we must treat the poor, some
would accuse me of giving a Marxist homily.” Francis states, “This concern for
the poor is in the Gospel, it is within the tradition of the Church, it is not
an invention of communism and it must not be turned into an ideology, as has
sometimes happened before in the course of history.”
What is more, the Catholic Church
advocates worker participation and contribution in economic matters as a
solution to poverty, worker alienation, and exploitation. Such is the case in
Marxist and socialist praxis. In this development, Marxist theory and analysis
has become a significant part of the Church’s critiques of social and economic
relationships and its support of human rights, in identifying the causes of
poverty and injustice. Furthermore, if the Church and its tradition of social
advocacy has developed a radical analysis and strategy through its principle of
solidarity, then it stands to reason that monetarism (laissez-faire capitalism), neoliberal trade agreements, and international
economic dependency experienced by Third World peoples must be rejected
precisely because they are integral parts of modern day capitalism.
Consequently, capitalism – understood as monopoly capital, or the
globalization of capital – should be rejected. A collectivist system should be
implemented, one that prioritizes labor over capital and people over profits in
support of fundamental human dignity.
Edward Martin is Professor of Public Policy and Administration, Graduate
Center for Public Policy and Administration at California State University,
Long Beach, and co-author of Savage State: Welfare
Capitalism and Inequality
Mateo Pimentel is an Axis of Logic columnist, living on the US-Mexico border. Read the Biography and additional articles by Axis Columnist Mateo Pimentel.
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