Walter Williams published a piece last
week called ”Dependency, Not Poverty” [link]
that immediately brought to mind the brouhaha over Pope Francis’ supposed
condemnation of capitalism in Evangelii Gaudium. You might recall
that in said brouhaha the “smoking gun” brandished by gleeful leftists is the
following quote:
In this context, some people continue to
defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a
free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice
and inclusiveness in the world. (Evangelii Gaudium 54)
As I pointed out in an
earlier post [link], this statement fits in perfectly with over a century of
Magisterial teaching by popes (Leo XIII, Pius XI, John Paul II) who were in no
way friendly to socialism. One could
argue that it is simply common sense.
William’s article provides a perfect, real-world example: Ladies and
gentlemen, I give you The United States of America.
Williams offers some intriguing facts
taken from a report by Dr. Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield, “Understanding
poverty in the United States” [http://tinyurl.com/448flj8]:
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80% of poor households have air conditioning
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Nearly three quarters have a car or truck (31% have two or more)
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Two-thirds have cable or satellite TV
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Half have one or more computers
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42% own their own home
-
“Poor Americans have more living space than the typical non-poor
in Sweden, France or the UK.”
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| Walter Williams |
Williams also points out
that, while the poverty rate among American blacks in general is 35%, “the
poverty rate among black married families has been in single digits for more
than two decades, currently at 8%.”
Williams concludes that, rather than real material deprivation caused by
factors beyond the reach of the sufferers, “What we have in our nation are
dependency and poverty of the spirit, with people making unwise choices and
leading pathological lives aided and abetted by the welfare state.”
In short, while “economic growth,
encouraged by a free market” has indeed created enough wealth and more for
every person in the United States, it certainly has not succeeded “in bringing
about greater justice and inclusiveness.”
The question is what, as Christians, ought we to do?
This is a very complicated question, to
which I, at least, cannot do justice in one blog post. I expect to return to it a number of times in
the near future. For today, I’d like to
sketch out a brief outline. First,
those on the economic left (including those who style themselves “Social
Justice Catholics”) advocate more government redistribution, accomplished by
taking wealth from those who produce it and giving it to others who consume
it. Walter Williams (and many others)
argue that it is just such redistributionist policies, which separate wealth
from work and incentivize dependency and indolence, that are largely responsible for the
“spiritual poverty” that is, is many ways, more damaging and demoralizing than
ordinary material poverty (and which ultimately creates material poverty as
well).
Common sense and human experience bear him
out. Benjamin Franklin famously said:
I am
for doing good to the poor, but . . . I think the best way of doing good to the
poor, is not making them easy in poverty, it is leading or driving them out of
it. I observed . . . that the more
public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for
themselves, and of course became poorer.
And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for
themselves, and became richer.
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| Benjamin Franklin |
Most of us Christians would
not want to put the matter quite so harshly, and Christian Charity demands much
more than simply letting the poor enjoy the benefits of the Law of
Consequences. Still, Mr. Franklin has a
valid point: if doing nothing pays as well as or better than working hard, how
many people are going to choose the easy road?
And St. Paul himself said: “If anyone will not work, let him not eat. For we hear that some of you are
living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.” (2 Thess 10b-11)
As Catholics we also
recognize how important work is to our dignity as human beings. John Paul the Great says:
Work is a good thing for a man – a good thing for his humanity –
because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own
needs, but also achieves fulfilment as a human being and indeed, in a sense,
becomes “more a human being.” (Laborem
Exercens 9)
We could truly say that it is uncharitable to enable
otherwise capable people not to work, because we are robbing them of a part of
their human dignity. Pius XI said that
“it is an injustice and at the same
time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a
greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can
do.” (Quadrigesimo Anno 79 – italics mine) This
same Principle of Subsidiarity applies to individuals as it does to
organizations.
So what are we to conclude? Again, just a couple preliminary conclusions. First, while it’s true that the market
economy’s ability to generate wealth is not sufficient to create a just
society, and does not of itself eliminate poverty, it is certainly a necessary condition; welfare state policies , on the other hand, create no wealth at all and, at least in some cases, discourage people from
making choices that could lift them out of poverty. This doesn’t mean that we ought not to help
the needy, but it does mean that such assistance, whether private or public,
ought not to make dependency more attractive than work.
Also, no system, no program and no amount
of wealth can save us from the effects of original sin; if we’re looking to
politics or the market economy for salvation we’re going down the wrong
road. I can’t help but think (not for
the first time) of what Pope John Paul II said: “It is not therefore a matter of inventing a ‘new program’. The
program already exists: it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living
Tradition, it is the same as ever.” (Novo
Millenio Ineunto 29)
Clearly
this is true on the eternal level: the permanent disposition of our souls far
overshadows our material circumstances in this world. But it is also true on a
more mundane level. To the degree that poverty in the United States and other
Western nations is the fruit of what Walter Williams calls “unwise choices
and . . . pathological lives aided and
abetted by the welfare state,” (what we used to call “immorality” and “living
in sin”), it can be corrected by wise choices and healthy lives. Men and women who put Christ at the center of
their lives, and therefore live according to tradional Christian moral standards, are likely to live in a way that leads to a better economic outcome.
My final thought is this: Christian morality is not simply one
“lifestyle choice” among many; it is the truth, based on the reality of human
nature as God created it. The so-called
“culture wars” are not a diversion from more important economic and political
matters, but are in fact the key to solving problems in the political and
economic realms. After all, “We know
that in everything God works for good with those who love him.” (Rom
8:28)
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