State of the Union

Of course, the poor have long been with us, and Catholic priests and lay workers the world over have long made great exertions on their behalf. All too often, though, this charitable work has coexisted with a Church hierarchy that studiously avoided critiquing the political and economic system that generates poverty and inequality. And when such a critique did emerge from within the Church, during the nineteen-sixties and nineteen-seventies, in the form of “liberation theology”—a doctrine that placed helping the poor and oppressed front and center—the Vatican stamped down on it, with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who eventually became Pope Benedict XVI, playing a prominent role. Pope Francis seems intent on revisiting this debate. In the part of the exhortation devoted to economic matters, which runs to about twenty pages, he resurrects, and appears to endorse, many of the themes of liberation theology. He begins:

It is not the task of the Pope to offer a detailed and complete analysis of contemporary reality, but I do exhort all the communities to an “ever watchful scrutiny of the signs of the times.” This is in fact a grave responsibility, since certain present realities, unless effectively dealt with, are capable of setting off processes of dehumanization which would then be hard to reverse. We need to distinguish clearly what might be a fruit of the kingdom from what runs counter to God’s plan.

“Dehumanization” is a strong word. Francis doesn’t flinch from its meaning. He goes on:

[H]umanity is experiencing a turning point in its history, as we can see from the advances being made in so many fields. We can only praise the steps being taken to improve people’s welfare in areas such as health care, education and communications. At the same time, we have to remember that the majority of our contemporaries are barely living from day to day, with dire consequences. A number of diseases are spreading. The hearts of many people are gripped by fear and desperation, even in the so-called rich countries. The joy of living frequently fades, lack of respect for others and violence are on the rise, and inequality is increasingly evident. It is a struggle to live and, often, to live with precious little dignity.‚

Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “Thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality.

In stressing the themes of exclusion and inequality, and in pointing out the awkward fact that these phenomena can result in fatalities, the Pope surely knew he would raise some hackles, and he did. James Pethokoukis, a blogger at the American Enterprise Institute, while conceding that the Pope’s words “are excellent cause for reflection,” went on to say that they “should not obscure the reality that innovative free enterprise is the greatest wealth generator ever discovered and the economic system most supportive of human freedom and flourishing.” Pethokoukis cited a new research note by James E. Glassman, an economist at J. P. Morgan Chase, which featured graphs showing the sharp rise in G.D.P. around the world over the past century, and which concluded: “The global community has much to be thankful for and modern market-oriented economies deserve considerable credit for the battle against global poverty.”

The gains that Pethokoukis and Glassman point to are certainly real. In China alone over the past couple of decades, according to figures from the World Bank, hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of acute poverty. India, Indonesia, and other countries that have embraced the global economy have also made big strides. To some extent, though, Pope Francis appears to have foreseen this counter-argument. In his exhortation, he doesn’t contest the fact that global capitalism is uniquely productive. His argument is that the material progress that accompanies the expansion of the market is based on the exclusion and suffering of the powerless, and that this is immoral. He writes:

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. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.

In asserting the primacy of the underdog, and the need to interpret scripture from the underdog’s perspective, Pope Francis was echoing arguments made by left-leaning Latin American priests during the nineteen-seventies, such as the Peruvian Gustavo Gutierrez, and Leonardo Boff, of Brazil. But the pontiff also goes beyond old-school liberation theology. The poor aren’t the only victims, he argues. The system’s prosperous winners also get dehumanized and debased, albeit in a more subtle way.

To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.

This is incendiary stuff, especially in a country like the United States, where moral assaults on the market are rare in mainstream discourse. Even the tribunes of Occupy Wall Street rarely rose to the rhetorical heights of the new Pope, who goes on:

While the earnings of the minority are growing exponentially, so, too, is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. The imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation…. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules…. The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything that stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.

With the Pope bandying about phrases like “a new tyranny,” I am not surprised that Limbaugh and other defenders of the established order have labeled him a Marxist. In its recognition of the universality and power of the market, its self-sustaining ideology, its association with rising inequality, and its dehumanizing aspect, parts of the Pope’s analysis do resemble those of the man his friends called the Moor, and his cohort Friedrich Engels. But the Argentine Pope isn’t just a priest who swallowed bits of “The Communist Manifesto”—the more acute bits. Parts of his argument also hark back to the anti-growth and anti-consumerism movements of the sixties and seventies, which have recently seen a rebirth in many parts of the advanced world, particularly among the young.

The core of the Pope’s critique is moral and theological rather than economic, and that is what gives it its power. Referring once again to the idolatry of money, he writes:

Behind this attitude lurks a rejection of Ethics and a rejection of God. Ethics has come to be viewed with a certain scornful derision. It is seen as counterproductive, too human, because it makes money and power relative. It is felt to be a threat, since it threatens the manipulation and debasement of the person. In effect, Ethics leads to a God who calls for a committed response which is outside the categories of the marketplace.

What might that response be? Once again, the latest heir to St. Peter doesn’t hold back:

Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect, and promote the poor. I exhort you to a generous solidarity and to the return of economics and finance to an ethical approach which favors human beings.

I cannot say it better than that.

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