Catholic Social Teaching and Economic Theory: Paradigms in Conflict

Rating:
Summary: subtitle says it all
Review: The most enlightening discussion of Catholic social teaching that I have come across to date, this book is fully characterized by its subtitle, "Paradigms in Conflict." The subtitle captures the author's essential insight, namely, that Catholic social teaching from Leo XIII to John Paul II is informed by incompatible paradigms of economic analysis, which, moreover, entail conflicting social imperatives.

According to the author, three paradigms of economic analysis inform Catholic social teaching--organic social theory, the orthodox or neoclassical model, and the radical social model. Simplifying, they may be represented in their ideological origins by St. Thomas Aquinas, Adam Smith, and Karl Marx, respectively.

Organic social theory is built on the feudal vision of society as a body wherein different parts work together in harmony, so that this theory assumes the divine institution of hierarchy and the practicability of noblesse oblige. This model is the most persistent in Catholic social teaching.

Although this social model has served the Church well for centuries, conflicts, very powerful, inherent in the capitalist political economy of the nineteenth century compelled the Church to come to grips with two principal ideologies--classical economics and Marxism--prescribing divergent imperatives for dealing with unprecedented social realities.

Classical economics and its progeny assume the necessity of giving free play to market forces in bringing about economic benefits in society. Marxism and its children, in contrast, concentrate on the structural analysis of social relations and seek dialectical change in social structures.

Briefly, Catholic social teaching is self-contradictory when it endorses capitalist dynamics while at the same time it conducts structural critique, advocating systemic reform, all for the purpose of achieving feudal ideals of social justice. Catholic social teaching is conflictive, for example, when, on the one hand, with Leo XIII it affirms the right to private property as intrinsic to the natural law, while on the other hand, with Paul VI it criticizes structural injustice in international economic relations, of which the right to private property, now transformed in its very nature by capitalism global in magnitude, is an intransigent accomplice.

In surfacing occult contradictions, the book is valuable. But I seriously wonder whether the various paradigms are indeed incompatible. At some higher or more comprehensive level of understanding they may be consistent with each other, in much the same way that quantum and gravity theory work for the description of matter at varying levels of granularity, so that a unified quantum gravity theory has even been constructed.

Another valuable contribution of this book is that it helpfully places Catholic social teaching at different points of the ideological spectrum, showing, for example, how with Leo XIII and Pius XI, the Church staked its position on the right, with John XXIII and Paul VI it moved considerably to the left, and with John Paul II it has unmistakably settled on the right again.

The author concludes by arguing for the Church to take a position on the left, adopting a consistent paradigm of structural analysis and structural change. Her argument appended at the end is not altogether convincing in its brevity.

One visible weakness of the book is that it adopts a deeply philosophical approach to economics to the neglect of scientific understanding. But this weakness is understandable. After all, the author builds on her background in Catholic social teaching, which flows from a philosophical rather than scientific tradition.

This book is not an easy read. It assumes understanding of the original magisterial documents and discusses them at a rather high level of abstraction. But for anyone who cares deeply about how the Church addresses worldwide problems of poverty and injustice, it's well worth the effort.