An Introduction to Distributism

by John Médaille

Distributivism, also known as Distributism, is an economic theory formulated by Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton largely in response to the principles of Social Justice laid down by Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum Novarum. Its key tenet is that ownership of the means of production should be as widespread as possible rather than being concentrated in the hands of a few owners (Capitalism) or in the hands of state bureaucrats (Socialism). Belloc did not believe that he was developing a new economic theory, but rather expounding an old and widespread one against the novelties of both Capitalism and Socialism.

Belloc believed that Capitalism could never achieve economic equilibrium on its own. It is an unstable system for two reasons: divergence from its own moral theory and from insecurity of two kinds. The moral theory of Capitalism is based on freedom, but it tends to accumulate property in the hands of a few owners; as ownership becomes more and more limited, more and more power passes to a small capitalist class. The state increasingly becomes a tool to protect “wage contracts” which are increasingly leonine, that is, based on inequality. One side may refuse the contract (the employer), but the other side, the worker, generally has no choice but to accept it because the alternative is starvation. The state can no longer be a neutral arbiter between classes but becomes a defender of one class upon whom jobs and growth are increasingly dependent.

In addition to this moral problem,Capitalism also has two kinds of insecurity: insecurity for the workers and even insecurity for the capitalists. There is insecurity for the workers because the wage fetches less in old age, nothing in sickness, and jobs themselves are at the discretion of capitalists3 (e.g., “outsourcing”). But Capitalism also produces insecurity for the capitalist.

Competitive anarchy makes the system as unstable to owners as it is to workers and results in gluts and underselling. Capitalism responds by becoming less capitalistic; it uses the law to raise barriers to competition and to limit liability; the corporation itself is an adjustment to the inherent instability of Capitalism that allows investors to limit liability. The ardent socialist does not fear a pure Capitalism nearly as much as does the ardent capitalist.

Given its instabilities, Capitalism must, perforce, find some way of stabilizing itself. Belloc argues that there are only three stable solutions: slavery, socialism, or wide-spread ownership of property, (or some mixture of the three.) “To solve Capitalism you must either get rid of restricted ownership, or of freedom, or of both.” Of the three solutions, slave societies have shown themselves to be highly stable over long periods of time, but this solution is precluded by our Christian heritage. But the third solution, what Belloc calls the “proprietary state,” is regarded as untenable by the intellectual and political elites, which leaves only the second solution, some sort of socialism. Thus in practice Capitalism breeds a collectivist theory which leads to a servile state. The transition to socialism follows the line of least resistance because nothing really changes when the state buys up the waterworks or the rail lines. But socialist practice does not really mean socialism. In practice, socialism merely means increased regulation, a solution that appeals to both corporate interests and socialist “reformers.” Although the rhetoric is different, the results are the same. The “socialist” reformer continues to pile regulations on top of big business, a situation big business is more than content to see, because in return these regulations serve as entry barriers to potential competitors and thereby guarantee greater security from competition and hence greater security of profits. In turn, the capitalist becomes increasingly responsible for the welfare of the workers in return for a greater security of property and profits. In the end, you have neither socialism nor Capitalism, but servility, the servile state. The practical result of all of this is an increasing dependence of workers on the government and corporatist solutions. Health care, unemployment insurance, and retirement benefits pass from control by the individual to control by the corporation or the state.

The servile system has already begun. Indeed, it is already here. The differences between a “socialist” Europe and a “capitalist” America are merely differences of degree rather than of kind.
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Both depend on the same bureaucratic organization and social welfare systems. This state of affairs did not come about by way of conspiracy but by way of necessity; Belloc seems to have been absolutely correct in his predictions. Until the 1940’s, Capitalism was a highly unstable system suffering ever increasing cycles of economic euphoria and depression, culminating in the Great Depression of the 1930’s. The system needed help to stabilize itself exactly as Belloc said it would. The real change came with the introduction of Keynesian economics, which made the government responsible not just for this or that social welfare program, but for making up shortages in aggregate demand by redistributive taxes. In other words, Keynesianism is itself “distributist,” or rather “re-distributist”; but it redistributes income rather than property. Therefore the debate, in practical terms, is not between Distributivism and its opposite, but between kinds of Distributivism, between redistribution of income and distribution of property. But one way or another, economic liberalism cannot provide stability on its own; it needs the help of distributists of one sort or another. Income redistribution, being a constant and ongoing process, will always require a vast state apparatus to assess the funds on the one hand and determine eligibility on the other.

Keynesianism has been adopted by nearly every modern regime, whether of the right or left, because it seemed to work. As a result, the inherent instabilities of Capitalism have been rendered less extreme, with depressions rendered much milder than the convulsion which shook this country and Europe at the end of the 1920’s. But Keynesianism enlarged state power, taxes, and the size of government to previously unimagined levels. We have become accustomed to having the government solve all problems and do so at the highest possible level. Even right wing administrations have dropped all pretense of “federalism” and seek to intrude more and more on daily life; the teacher in his classroom, the cop on the beat, the shopkeeper in her store become increasingly the objects of federal concern and less of local regulation.

But today the future of the Keynesian arrangement seems in doubt. In both Europe and America, the costs of government seem ready to outstrip the ability of society to support them. Further, the willingness of corporate interests to continue the arrangement is ending; they have invested great sums and great energies in seeking an end to the system and their efforts are paying off. Corporations are seeking to externalize social costs that have theretofore been part of the wage system, such as medical insurance, pensions, and unemployment costs. However, it is doubtful that shifting these responsibilities can be accomplished without introducing the very insecurities that occasioned the arrangements in the first place. Thus the Keynesian system seems to be caught in a conundrum, the very conundrum pointed out by Belloc. It cannot continue its Keynesian bargain (and this is especially so in the face of global competition), and it cannot drop it without risking chaos.

The economic theory of Distributivism is based on the distinction between distributive justice and corrective justice found in Aristotle. Distributive justice deals with how society distributes its “common goods.” Aristotle defines these as “things that fall to be divided among those who have a share in the constitution” (Nicomachean Ethics, 1130b, 31-33). This refers to the common goods of a state, a partnership, corporation, or some cooperative enterprise. For Aristotle, these things should be divided by “merit” based on contributions, but what constitutes this merit will be a matter that is determined culturally, “for democrats identify it with the status of freeman, supporters of oligarchy with wealth (or with noble birth), and supporters of aristocracy with excellence” (Ethics, 1131a, 25-29). Corrective justice, on the other hand, deals with “justice in exchange”; that is with transactions between individual men. In this case, justice consists in exchanging equal values, in “having an equal amount before and after the transaction" (Ethics, 1132b, 19-21). Corrective justice is properly the subject of economic science per se, while distributive justice is irreducibly cultural and involves decisions about what constitutes a just distribution.

Modern economics tends to treat distributive justice in one of two ways. For the socialist or the Keynesian, it is primarily a political question and necessitates control of the economy by the state. For the orthodox neoclassical economist, distributive justice will be the unintentional result of the achievement of equilibrium under conditions of perfect competition (cf. John Bates Clark, The Distribution of Wealth); in other words, equity would be an automatic by-product of equilibrium. Hence distributive justice is swallowed up, as it were, by corrective justice and accomplished without anyone intending it, the very essence of the “invisible hand” theory. However, this has never happened and is never likely to happen. It is not only that the necessary conditions (e.g., “perfect” competition) can never be satisfied, nor even that justice, a virtue, cannot be divorced from human intentionality. Rather, the problem is with the very nature of corrective justice, which is “equality in exchange.” Thus corrective justice tends to perpetuate whatever division of property existed before the exchange; distributive equity cannot therefore result from exchanges (Cf. Pareto optimality). But for the Distributivist, distributive justice is prior to corrective justice (as it was for Aristotle and Aquinas), just as production is prior to exchange. Thus equity is prior to equilibrium, and equity will depend on the distribution of the means of production. Equity is not the by-product of equilibrium but its cause; indeed, equity and equilibrium are practically the same word and very nearly the same thing.

Distributivism is often viewed as a romantic “back to the land” movement, or even a desire to return to the Middle Ages. But this criticism is unjustified. Indeed, well-divided property has both a long history and a current presence. Two examples should suffice: the “land to the tiller” programs of Korea and Taiwan, and the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation. In Korea and Taiwan after the Second World War, the estates were broken up and sold to the peasants at a rate well below market values. The resulting increase in purchasing power of the previously penniless peasants spurred the growth of business and industry and catapulted these nations from backward and oppressive societies to modern industrial states in only one generation. In the Mondragón Cooperative, 77,000 worker-owners do $16 Billion/year in sales making everything from muzzle loading hunting guns to modern built-to-order factories. They also operate an extensive network of social programs, schools, colleges, training institutes and research facilities. In addition, we can cite an impressive number of successful ESOP’s and other employee owned businesses. Thus Distributivism would seem to be perfectly adaptable to the modern world and even confers competitive advantages.

Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum viewed the just wage as the means of spreading ownership; Belloc reversed that by finding that wider ownership was the means of achieving the just wage. In this, Belloc appears to be correct, as John Paul II acknowledged when he called for associating the worker with the ownership of the workbench at which he labored. It should be clear that the only way to reduce the size of government and increase the range of freedom and justice is to eliminate the need for big government. But as long as there are great imbalances in wealth and poverty, there will be great bureaucracies in government and industry.

©John C. Médaille
http://www.medaille.com/distributivism.html
john@medaille.com

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Distributivism and Catholic Social Teaching

by John C. Médaille

We have seen that it is unacceptable to say that the defeat of 'Real Socialism' leaves capitalism as the only model of economic organization
-Pope John Paul II Centesimus Annus, 35.4

Power naturally and necessarily follows property
-Daniel Webster, address to the Massachusetts Convention, 1820

INTRODUCTION

If one were to meditate sufficiently on the above "quotation"s, it should be possible to deduce a "Distributivist" position without further aid. In the first "quotation", the Holy Father invites us to free our minds from the "capitalist- socialist" dualism that says you must have one or the other. The second "quotation" encapsulates practical wisdom and, unless one is found of the centralization of power, points the way to the distribution of property. This article examines the bases for the Pope's misgivings about capitalism and examines the Distributivist response, a response based on the realistic assumption that power follows property.

The Papal Critique of Capitalism

Liberal and Conservative

One thing that greatly confuses political and economic discourse is confusion in the terms "liberal" and "conservative," terms that often have emotional power for their partisans, but whose meaning shifts around so that today's conservative is no more than yesterday's liberal, and vice-versa. Most Catholics are aware of the criticisms of Socialism and Liberalism, but they are surprised to learn of their equally incisive treatment of Capitalism. The problem arises because the Liberalism refers not to the vague tenets held by, say, Ted Kennedy or Tony Blair, but to the ideas of laissez faire capitalism. For as Pope John Paul II puts it:

For as we know the tension between East and West is not in itself an opposition between two different levels of development but rather between two concepts of the development of individuals and peoples, both concepts being imperfect and in need of radical correction. (SRS 21.1)

This is one of the reasons why the Church's social doctrine adopts a critical attitude towards both liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism." (SRS 21.2)

CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM

Indeed whatever the practical differences between capitalism and socialism, the philosophical assumptions are almost identical, and are condemned in an identical fashion. Centesimus Annus noting Rerum Novarum's criticism of both socialism and liberalism (CA 10.1) states that "These passages are relevant today, especially in the face of the new forms of poverty in the world". (CA 10.2) This policy of criticizing both "sides," as it were, is carried through Quadragesimo Anno and reaches some original insights in the work of the current Pontiff. This even-handed criticism may strike some as puzzling, given the enmity between them, but in fact the differences are more apparent than real. Both in fact are reductionist systems, reducing man to his economic utility, both have the tendency to absolutize economic life, and both marginalize the spiritual and religious dimension of man, either openly persecuting it or (which may be worse) treating it as mere private fantasy deserving of no place in the public or economic spheres.

ECONOMISM

For John Paul, the errors of both systems are subsumed under the error of "economism." (See LE Section 13) The economistic view, whether from socialists or capitalists, involves the divorce of the moral and ethical realms from the economic. For without moral guidance, economics oppresses man. (SRS 28) Indeed, that is precisely what has happened, as the "Liberal socio-political system which in accordance with its 'economistic' premises, strengthened and safeguarded economic initiative by the possessors of capital alone," while maintaining that "human work is solely an instrument of production, and that capital is the basis, efficient factor and purpose of production."(LE 34) It is if the hammer was all and the man who wields it nothing, a clear confusion in the right order of things, of which the Pope says, "Precisely this reversal of order, whatever the program or name under which it occurs, should rightly be called 'capitalism';" (LE 30) This reversal has at its root materialism.

"This fundamental error of thought can and must be called an error of materialism, in that economism directly or indirectly includes a conviction of the primacy and superiority of the material, and directly or indirectly places the spiritual and the personal (man's activity, moral values and such matters) in a position of subordination to material reality."(LE 60)

The result of this subordination is the divorce of capital and labor, which from the economistic perspective became mere "impersonal forces" and "production factors." (LE 60) Finally, with the worker reduced to a commodity and merely the product of blind economic laws, the spiritual realm is reduced to the irrelevant and materialism progresses to its "dialectical" phase.

"The error of thinking in the categories of economism went hand in hand with the formation of a materialist philosophy, as this philosophy developed from the most elementary and common phase (also called common materialism, because it professes to reduce spiritual reality to a superfluous phenomenon) to the phase of what is called dialectical materialism."(LE 61)

Thus the practical materialism leads to the theoretical materialism of the Liberals and the dialectical materialism of the socialists. This state of affairs inevitably leads to the depersonalization of society:

The individual today is often suffocated between two poles represented by the State and the marketplace. At times it seems as though he exists only as a producer and consumer of goods, or as an object of state administration (CA 49.3)

It is worth noting that John Paul includes both capitalism and communism in his condemnation of economism, for, as was asserted earlier, they both share this same error.

WORK AS A "COMMODITY"

With man stripped of his religious nature and any institutional protection, Capitalists "claimed all the products and profits, and left to the laborer the barest minimum necessary to repair his strength; For by an inexorable economic law, it was held, all accumulation of riches must fall to the share of the wealthy;" (QA 29) Rerum Novarum had noted that "it gradually came about that the present age handed over the workers, each alone and defenseless, to the inhumanity of employers and the unbridled greed of competitors. " (RN 6) Thus labor has become "a commodity to be freely bought and sold on the market, its price determined by the law of supply and demand". (CA 6).

CLASS STRUGGLE

This sundering of capital and labor resulted in the "class struggle." Rerum Novarum condemns those abuses of the working class resulting from the greed and avarice of the employers, but Leo is concerned that they not be seduced by the violence inherent in the socialist notion of class struggle. In Quadragesimo Anno, Pope Pius is hopeful that class warfare "when it abstains from enmities and mutual hatred" will be converted into an honest discussion of differences. (QA 54), However, in Centesimus Annus the class struggle is not only acknowledged as a right but is given a specific goal, namely, that it must be a struggle against "the absolute predominance of capital, the possession of the means of production and of the land, in contrast to the free and personal nature of human work." Further, the object of the struggle cannot be "the socialist system, which in fact turns out to be state capitalism, but rather a society of free work and participation." (CA 35.2, see also CA 14.1)

FREE COMPETITION AND INDIVIDUALISM

Condemned as well is that capitalism that "which refuses even to consider these problems, in the a priori belief that any attempt to solve them is doomed to failure, and which blindly entrusts their solution to the free development of market forces." (CA 42.2) Rerum Novarum did not directly treat the question of the "free market," but clearly exempted wages from its domination. Quadragesimo Anno noted that "the proper ordering of economic affairs cannot be left to free competition alone. From this source have proceeded in the past all the errors of the 'Individualistic' school." (QA 44) Pope Pius also notes the tendency for the free market to be succeeded by "economic domination," because those who survive tend to be the most ruthless, "who pay least heed to conscience." (QA 50) John Paul's analysis acknowledges that the market "is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources," but he goes on to note:

But this is true only for those needs which are 'solvent', insofar as they are endowed with purchasing power, and for those resources that are 'marketable,' insofar as they are capable of obtaining a satisfactory price. But there are many human needs which find no place on the market. Even prior to the logic of a fair exchange of goods and the forms of justice appropriate to it, there exists something which is due to the person because he is a person, by reason of his lofty dignity." (CA 34.1)

THE RIGHTS (AND WRONGS) OF PROPERTY

Key to the critique of economic systems is the Church's position on property, a position rejected by both Socialism and Liberal Capitalism. Despite the depth of the dispute between these two views, they are actually a lot closer to each other than either is to the Church, for both view property as an absolute, Liberalism as an absolute and dogmatic good, and Socialism, with equal fervor, as an absolute evil. But the Church's position is that private ownership, while necessary and even a "sacred" right, (RN 65) is subordinate to the universal destination of goods. Pope Leo affirmed, "The foundation of this teaching rests on this, that the just ownership of money is distinct from the just use of money. (RN 35) In Quadragesimo Anno, Pope Pius noted to the twin evils to be avoided.

There is therefore a double danger to be avoided. On the one hand, if the social and public aspect of ownership be denied or minimized, the logical consequence is "individualism", as it is called; on the other hand, the refection or diminution of its private and individual character necessarily leads to some form of "collectivism..." To disregard this dangers would be to rush headlong into the quicksands of modernism." (QA 23)

It is worthwhile noting that Pius condemns both the Liberal and socialist positions as "modernist," a term Catholic theologians will recognize as a grave epithet. In Laborem Exercens Pope John Paul continues this condemnation in specific terms:

From this point of view the position of "rigid" capitalism continues to remain unacceptable, namely the position that defends the exclusive right to private ownership of the means of production as an untouchable "dogma" of economic life." (LE 66)

However, neither Leo nor Pius are willing to place the ownership of property into hazard on the basis of its improper use. Pope Pius does assign the state the duty of defining in detail the licit use of property for the common good, it is still forbidden to seize property and account of its misuse. (QA 24, 25) However, in Centesimus Annus the Pope seems to make ownership itself dependent upon right use.

[Ownership] becomes illegitimate, however, when it is not utilized or when it serves to impede the work of others, in an effort to gain a profit which is not the result of the overall expansion of work and the wealth of society, but rather is the result of curbing them or of illicit exploitation, speculation or the breaking of solidarity among working people. Ownership of this kind has no justification, and represents an abuse in the sight of God and humanity." (CA 43.3)

One must assume that an "abuse" in the sight of humanity could be addressed in human courts. This would represent a radical departure from previous encyclicals.

THE JUST DISTRIBUTION OF PROPERTY

The Church's position "radically diverges from the program of collectivism as proclaimed by Marxism," and just as radically "differs from the program of capitalism practiced by liberalism and the political systems inspired by it." (LE 64) The Church's view avoids the twin evils of collectivism which denies the private character of property, and of individualism, which denies the common good. (QA 23) The Church's critique of property, however, goes much deeper than the issues of ownership and use. The Common Destination of Goods impels the Church to comment on the unjust distribution of property. The poor distribution is condemned as a "grave evil," (QA 31) nor are we permitted to blame this poor distribution on either "the fault of the needy people, and even less through a sort of inevitability dependent on natural conditions or circumstances as a whole." (SRS 9.6) Further, this poor distribution inevitably leads to violence since "Peoples excluded from the fair distribution of the goods could ask themselves: why not respond with violence to those who first treat us with violence? (SRS 10.2).

SUMMARY

The above summary is brief indeed; many other abuses are mentioned: the control of credit, the oppression of the third world, monopoly power, consumerism, the treatment of women and mothers, etc. But even in its brevity, this summary should invite us as faithful children of Holy Mother Church to cast the same jaundiced eye on the current economic system and to examine the outlines of the Church's moral dissent from the current systems. These systems (capitalism or socialism) begin with a practical materialism which reverses the order of things by elevating things over man. Man's labor is thereby reduced to mere commodity, to be bought at the lowest rates. Property is absolutized and with it, economic life as well becomes the sole focus of man's being. Mere possession replaces firm purpose; "having" replaces "being" (SRS 28)

THE PAPAL RESPONSE TO CAPITALISM

But what the Church supplies is not an "alternative" system, not a "Third Way." The Church has no Third Way, mainly because she has no first or second way. Rather She offers set of guidelines and standards which arise from the moral order and which must be used to judge any alternative; it is for the laity to listen to the Word of God, as promulgated by the Church, and to devise ways to make that Word come alive in the world. Holy Mother the Church is, like all good mothers since Eve, a bit of a nag; she tells us that our room is dirty, but does not propose to clean them up herself. But also, like good mothers everywhere, she does not just nag, but offers guidance.

This guidance, offered through Her Social Teaching is extensive, but I will concentrate on just a few points: The Primacy of Labor over Capital, the Just Wage, the Just Distribution of Property, and Subsidiarity. But before any reform of systems can be attempted, there must be at the same time a reform of hearts, for the structures of sin must be met both on the structural level and on the level of the human heart, wherein we find the origin of sin. For above all other things, the Church seeks excise the "economism" noted by John Paul, and replace it with things of real value. But, "For this to happen, it is not enough to draw on the surplus goods which in fact our world abundantly produces; it requires above all a change of lifestyles, of models of production and consumption, and of the established structures of power which today govern societies" (CA 58.1). As faithful members of the laity, it is our duty to undergo this change of lifestyle, our duty to work out new models of production and establish the new structures of power.

THE PRIMACY OF LABOR OVER CAPITAL

The first principle is be established is, contrary to the economists, the primacy of labor over capital. Where capitalism favors capital as the efficient cause of wealth and labor the merely instrumental cause, the Church firmly asserts the reverse. This idea grows throughout the social encyclicals and reaches its fullest expression in John Paul. In Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII asserts, "It is only by the labor of workingmen that states grow rich." Leo is attempting to re-establish the proper symmetry between capital and labor, noting that while the one could not do without the other, the decisive factor is labor. "It is incontestable that the wealth of nations originates from no other source than from the labor of workers." (RN 51). This sentiment is repeated in by Pope Pius, "Is it not indeed apparent that the huge possessions which constitute human wealth are begotten by and flow from the hands of the workingman?" (QA 27-28). In John Paul's work, this idea is greatly enlarged.

"In view of this situation we must first of all recall a principle that has always been taught by the church: the principle of the priority of labor over capital. This principle directly concerns the process of production: In this process labor is always a primary efficient cause, while capital, the whole collection of means of production, remains a mere instrument or instrumental cause." (LE 52)

Moreover, capital itself is no more than the result of labor.

This gigantic and powerful instrument--the whole collection of means of production that in a sense are considered synonymous with "capital"--is the result of work and bears the signs of human labor.(LE 56)

Finally, this is not merely an "economic" point, but a spiritual one, since the primacy of labor represents, in the final analysis, "the primacy of man over things." (LE 57) Thus this primacy is the refutation of materialism and economism. From this analysis, John Paul gives us the criteria for judging an economic system:

A labor system can be right, in the sense of being in conformity with the very essence of the issue and in the sense of being intrinsically true and also morally legitimate, if in its very basis it overcomes the opposition between labor and capital through an effort at being shaped in accordance with the principle put forward above: the principle of the substantial and real priority of labor, of the subjectivity of human labor and its effective participation in the whole production process, independent of the nature of the services provided by the worker. (LE 58)

THE JUST WAGE

But if labor is primary, what is this to mean in actual practice? How are we to use the criteria given above? What, in other words, will be the mark of a system that "overcomes the opposition between labor and capital? The answer of the answers this question with the Just Wage.

The key problem of social ethics in this case is that of just remuneration for work done. In the context of the present there is no more important way for securing a just relationship between the worker and the employer than that constituted by remuneration for work. The relationship between the employer (first and foremost the direct employer) and the worker is resolved on the basis of the wage, that is, through just remuneration of the work done. (LE 88)

If the just wage is the key, how are we to determine what constitutes a "just wage?" First and foremost, we should keep in mind that it is not up to the mere free consent of the parties, a point on which all the encyclicals agree. This arises from the fact that labor has a social function, namely the support of families and the distribution of property. Hence, while a laborer may consent for himself to accept a low wage,

"But this matter must be judged far differently, if with the factor of personality we combine the factor of necessity, from which indeed the former is separable in thought but not in reality. ... Hence arises necessarily the right of securing things to sustain life, and only a wage earned by his labor gives a poor man the means to acquire these things."(RN 62, see also CA 8.1)

For a wage to be just, two conditions must be present. The first is that it must be sufficient to support a family. "The wage shall not be less than enough to support a worker who is thrifty and upright."(RN 63) ""Every effort must therefore be made that fathers of families receive a wage sufficient to meet adequately ordinary domestic needs." (QA 36, see also CA 8.1) Moreover, if the is not feasible, "social justice demands that reforms be introduced without delay which will guarantee every adult workingman just such a wage." (QA 36) This wage must also allow support of the family without requiring mothers to work outside the Home.

Such remuneration can be given either through what is called a family wage--that is, a single salary given to the head of the family for his work, sufficient for the needs of the family without the other spouse having to take up gainful employment outside the Home--or through other social measures such as family allowances or grants to mothers devoting themselves exclusively to their families.(LE 90)

However, the "family wage" is not in itself sufficient to determine the just wage, for another factor must be considered: the just distribution of property. That is, the wage is also the means for ensuring the workingman can come into capital of his own.

If a worker receives a wage sufficiently large to enable him to provide comfortably for himself, his wife and his children, he will, if prudent, gladly strive to practice thrift; and the result will be, as nature itself seems to counsel, that after expenditures are deducted there will remain something over and above through which he can come into the possession of a little wealth. We have seen, in fact, that the whole question under consideration cannot be settled effectually unless it is assumed and established as a principle, that the right of private property must be regarded as sacred. Wherefore, the law ought to favor this right and, so far as it can, see that the largest possible number among the masses of the population prefer to own property.(RN 65)

This is the heart of Papal policy: the just wage used to enable just distribution of property.

This programme cannot, however, be realized unless the propertyless wage-earner be placed in such circumstances that by skill and thrift he can acquire a certain moderate ownership... But how can he ever save money, except from his wages and by living sparingly, who has nothing but his labor by which to obtain food and the necessities of life? (QA 34)

Finally, it should be noted that the right to a just wage is more than a mere pious wish, but a requirement of objective morality.

The attainment of the worker's rights cannot however be doomed to be merely a result of economic systems which on a larger or smaller scale are guided chiefly by the criterion of maximum profit. On the contrary, it is respect for the objective rights of the worker that must constitute the adequate and fundamental criterion for shaping the whole economy, both on the level of the individual society and state and within the whole of the world economic policy and of the systems of international relationships that derive from it. (LE 80)

THE JUST DISTRIBUTION OF PROPERTY

As we have seen, one requirement of the just wage is that it permit a thrifty worker to acquire capital of his own. Throughout the encyclicals, the acquisition of property by the working class is the key to overcoming the divisions within society. Once again, it is in the work of John Paul that this idea is carried to it fullest, even to the extent of calling of for the socialization of property.

This just distribution appears in Rerum Novarum as the practical basis for peace between the classes.

If this is done, excellent benefits will follow, foremost among which will surely be a more equitable division of goods. ... if the productive activity of the multitude can be stimulated by the hope of acquiring some property in land, it will gradually come to pass that, with the difference between extreme wealth and extreme penury removed, one class will become neighbor to the other. Men will work with greater eagerness and diligence, they will love the land cultivated by their hands, they will be more easily kept in the country of their birth, etc. (RN 66)

Quadragesimo Anno continues this program in a section provocatively entitled "Proletarian condition to be overcome by letting wage-earners attain to property:" (QA 33)

Every effort, therefore, must be made that at least in future a just share only of the fruits of production be permitted to accumulate in the hands of the wealthy, and that an ample sufficiency be supplied to the workingmen. ... Thus they will not only be in a position to support life's changing fortunes, but will also have the reassuring confidence that, when their own lives are ended, some little provision will remain for those whom they leave behind them. (QA 33)

These ideas find their most complex expression in Laborem Exercens". After attacking the capitalist view which treats private property as an "untouchable dogma," the Pope insists that the concept of ownership

Should undergo a constructive revision both in theory and in practice. If it is true that capital, as the whole of the means of production, is at the same time the product of the work of generations, it is equally true that capital is being unceasingly created through the work done with the help of all these means of production, and these means can be seen as a great workbench at which the present generation of workers is working day after day. (LE 66)

And what is this constructive revision? It is nothing less than the "socialization" of capital! (LE 65) In the Pope's view, the only legitimate title to capital "is that they should serve labor and thus by serving labor that they should make possible the achievement of the first principle of this order, namely the universal destination of goods and the right to common use of them." (LE 66) The encyclical expands on this idea:

In the light of the above, the many proposals put forward by experts in Catholic social teaching and by the highest Magisterium of the church take on special significance: [23] proposals for joint ownership of the means of work, sharing by the workers in the management and-or profits of businesses, so-called shareholding by labor, etc. Whether these various proposals can or cannot be applied concretely, it is clear that recognition of the proper position of labor and the worker in the production process demands various adaptations in the sphere of the right to ownership of the means of production." (LE 67)

Socialization of property is not to be confused with "collectivization," which would merely transfer power from the owners to a group of managers, (LE 68) rather:

We can speak of socializing only when the subject character of society is ensured, that 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." (LE 69)

We should at this moment pause to catch our breath, for what John Paul has done is indeed breathtaking. Whereas the strategy proposed by Leo and Pius is a gradual one, the current pope replaces it with a radical one. Whereas in the previous works a just wage and the encouragement of thrift would lead to a gradual acquisition of property and so make the classes "neighbors to each other," in this Pope the workers are to be included in the ownership of the workbench simply by virtue of being workers. Further, while the term socialization certainly doesn't mean socialism (quite the opposite!) is nonetheless a bold and provocative term for the Pope to use. As far as I can tell, it is without precedent in the Social Teachings. Further, it comes from a man who has himself bearded the socialist lion in its own den. However, this idea does accord well with John Paul's philosophy which places man at the center of work. In Centesimus Annus he identifies the human person, together with the earth itself, as the "principle resource" in creating wealth. (CA 32.2) It also accords well with the philosophy of work developed in Laborem Exercens, which as has been noted, makes the worker the primary and efficient cause of wealth.

SUBSIDIARITY

But if the worker is himself the cause of wealth and should therefore be associated with ownership of the means of production, how should this be accomplished? Once again, Laborem Exercens points the way:

A way toward that goal could be found by associating labor with the ownership of capital, as far as possible, and by producing a wide range of intermediate bodies with economic, social and cultural purposes; they would be bodies enjoying real autonomy with regard to the public powers, pursuing their specific aims in honest collaboration with each other and in subordination to the demands of the common good, and they would be living communities both in form and in substance in the sense that the members of each body would be looked upon and treated as persons and encouraged to take an active part in the life of the body." (LE 69)

These "intermediary bodies" constitute the essence and program of "subsidiarity," the notion of a large number of institutions, public and private, that interpose between the individual and the state or the major corporation. In this, John Paul follows the ideas of his predecessors, who all insist on the need. In all of the encyclicals, the most important subsidiary body (from an economic standpoint, and aside from the a wider diffusion of property itself) is the union. Rerum Novarum mentions associations for mutual aid, agencies to care for the worker and for his family in the event of accident, sickness or death, etc., but among all these "association of workers occupy first place." (RN 68, 69). In Quadragesimo Anno, the "syndicate" or binding union ("union shop" in current parlance) becomes the key organization for achieving the social aims of the worker and society at large. (QA 46) In Centesimus Annus the primary responsibility for overseeing human rights and "welfare" belongs first to subsidiary organizations, and only partially to the state, (CA 48.2,4,5) and the key organization is the Union. John Paul strongly affirms the right to form labor unions (LE 94), which have their root in medieval guilds, but which in the recent past grow from the struggle of workers to protect their rights. (LE 95). The unions are "a mouthpiece for the struggle for social justice, for the just rights of working people." (LE 96) In Quadragesimo Anno Pope Pius hoped that syndicates would make strikes unnecessary, but for John Paul the right to strike is clearly legitimate. (LE 100)

Subsidiarity has many more implications, which we can only briefly touch on here. It presumes the decentralization of power and is itself the guarantor of that decentralization. In this regard, it is also the guarantor of democracy, for whatever form the regime might take, be it monarchial, aristocratic, or democratic, the institutions of the people stand as bulwark against the abuse of office and the concentration of power.

SUMMARY

This brief analysis should allow us to glimpse the outlines of Papal strategy. In answer to the economistic elevation of things over people and capital over labor, it advances the personalist principle and the primacy of labor. With capital removed from its pre-eminent place, the Church calls for a wider distribution of property and hence a wider diffusion of power among the people. How is this diffusion to take place? Through the just wage, which arbitrates relations between capital and labor which itself is an objective right. How is this wage to be achieved? The Church lays stress not so much on governmental action, but on the action of subsidiary organizations, the primary one of which (aside from the distribution of ownership itself) is the union, which will be in a position to negotiate just wages with a more diverse group of owners.

THE DISTRIBUTIVIST RESPONSE

In one sense, it should not be necessary to say anything further about Distributivism, since the outlines are well defined in the section above. Indeed Distributivism originates mainly as a lay response to Rerum Novarum, and throughout its history the teachings of the Roman Pontiffs have served as inspiration. Nonetheless, as explained above, the Church's teachings are not a "program" or a platform. This is not to suggest that they are either "unrealistic" or "impractical;" on the contrary, one is impressed with their realism and forthrightness. But it is the job of the laity to make the Church's teaching alive in the real world, to prudently examine the situation in which we find ourselves and to devise plans and strategies to implement the teachings.

ECONOMICS SUBSIDIARITY

"Power follows property." Daniel Webster's dictum is no more than common sense. And Distributivism is based, above all else on common sense. To put the proposition succinctly, Distributivists believe that the best way to spread the benefits of freedom and economic initiative is through small property. Distributivism fears, above all else, the concentration of power that is the inevitable consequence of the concentration of wealth. If Daniel Webster can be believed, the two are in fact the same thing.

The key element of Distributivism is subsidiarity, and this on two orders: economic and political. On the economic order, the just distribution of property is itself the major instrument of subsidiarity. With no one to control the market, free competition will, if Adam Smith can be believed, thrive and the economic talent and initiative of the people will be released. It is important at this point to clarify what is meant by a "free market." Too often, this term is taken to mean a market "free of unwanted government interference." I say "unwanted," because there is a great deal of interference that established capitalists welcome: subsidies, protection from liability laws and lawsuits, regulations that raise the entry cost to potential competitors, etc. However, it is not merely governments that make markets un-free, but monopolists and oligarchies that can control them. I take it that a market is free if no buyer or seller can control the market. And the sign of this freedom is the diversity of the market; if there are no or few choices, we must assume a controlled market, a market that lacks freedom.

Distributivism works against market control not just on the governmental level, but also on the real world level. The economic diversity implied by many small owners in any given business is the only real antidote to the economic domination of which Pius XI warned us.

POLITICAL SUBSIDIARITY

We in America consider ourselves a democracy because we have the forms of democracy -elections, legislatures, political parties, etc. However, the reality of democracy can only be judged by the choices actually given to the people and how closely those choices coincide with the traditions, customs, mores, and will of the people. Throughout the Roman Empire, elections were held, elections that were as bitterly contested, as broadly debated, and as well financed as any of ours. The legions marched under the banner of SPQR, Senatus Populusque Romanorum, the Senate and People of Rome. Yet no one will contend that the Empire was a democracy. Throughout the communist period, all of the so-called Democratic Socialist Republics held elections, as they still do in China; but this formal democracy hardly masks the reality that no real choices are involved.

I think the "choices" represented in American Democracy are similarly hollow. The analysis offered by Mary Ann Glendon is here useful:

It does not seem an exaggeration to say that we currently have a party of big business playing lip service to traditional moral values, and a party of big government paying lip service to the need of working people and the poor. Even that distinction is collapsing as Democratic Party leaders cozy up to big business, and Republicans discover the joys of big government."

If the "differences" are no more then those expressed by the campaigns of Bob Dole and Bill Clinton, there is legitimate doubt about the reality of Democracy in America. How does this situation come about? I would argue that without subsidiarity, and particularly subsidiarity in the economic realm, real Democracy is impossible. Power will follow the money, and if the wealth is concentrated, power will be likewise. Consider, the average congressional campaign costs about $650,000.per candidate. The winner holds office for 730 days. Thus each and every day in office he must raise $867, Sundays, Christmases, and Easters included and no vacations allowed. That's $6,000 every week, over $25,000 every month. Note that all this is for an office that amounts to 1/425th of ½ of 1/3rd of one of the many levels of government that comprise the American Regime. With concentration of economic power, there are limited sources for such large amounts of cash and all candidates must work the same sources. Is it surprising that, by and large, they tend to say the same things?

Political subsidiarity will be the natural outcome of economic subsidiarity. Further, without economic subsidiarity, politics can never be more than a sham for those too small to have their own powerful lobbies.

IMPLEMENTING ECONOMIC SUBSIDIARITY

In discussing the implementation of economic subsidiarity, two things need to be made clear: the first is that it is not uian, and the second is that it must involve a revival of the sentiment for property. Concerning the first question, Distributivism is not a cure for poverty, ignorance, or disease; a perfect division is not sought, young men will still get acne and old ones gout; fools will gamble away their fortunes, and the poor will be with us, as always. What is sought is to restore the institution of property so that it becomes a real distinguishing mark of our society, to the extent that real power, economic, social, and political, is shifted to the lowest possible level.

Concerning the second question, we find a real bar to Distributivism. Mary Ann Glendon notes the problem:

Most Americans are highly dependent on big business and government: about a fifth of the labor force are public employees; a third work for the central core of large corporations (many under government contract or subsidy); the pensions of retirees are invested in the same corporations; recipients of governmental largesse include not only welfare clients, but a substantial fraction of the middle class (through government-insured loans, Medicare, and retirement income funded with general tax revenues). Most of these dependents have children or others who are in turn dependent on them."

In such a situation, "reform" as such is impossible without a reform of manners and morals. To some extent, that is happening, as people discover that the corporate world treats all workers as temporary, moveable, and replaceable. People are learning to take more responsibility for their own economic well-being. Nonetheless, we are still a long way off from reviving the sentiment for property.

That problem aside, let us look at just a few ways that in which property can be revived. I am not here offering a complete program, but merely pointing to a few things that may be done in order to demonstrate the kind of thinking that will be necessary to restore any meaningful subsidiarity. A more complete discussion can be found in Hillarie Belloc's The Restoration of Property. But what is being attempted is nothing less than a complete shift of power, both political and economic, for if we will not shift the latter, we cannot shift the former.

Differential Taxation

Tax rates for employee owned business could be lowered relative to corporations. This would recognize the "social" value of employee owned businesses and provide a real advantage in the marketplace.

Differential Regulation

No one would deny the need to regulate the workplace for such things as employee safety. Yet it seems that the real experts on this subject are the employees themselves. Government regulation often involves matters of no importance while overlooking areas of real danger, are expensive to implement, and are often poorly enforced. I would suggest that in companies were employees have real rule making authority, either because they own the company or because they have a strong union, that rule making be left to employees. This would advantage the employee owned company and give other companies an incentive to have a union.

Encouraging Cooperative Ownership and Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs)

Cooperatives allow holders of small capital to gather for larger projects and enterprises. In many states, there is no legal form under which they can exist. ESOPs allow for worker control of corporations by the purchase and/or distribution of company stock to the workers.

Reduce Property Tax Burden

At one time property presupposed income, and the property tax a form of income tax. For most people, this is no longer true. Nonetheless, many governmental expenses that have nothing to do with property are funded by the property tax. In Texas, this tax is a substitute for a state income tax, is highly regressive, and supports functions that have nothing to do with property, such as schools, and junior colleges. Property should be properly taxed for those services it receives, such as streets, police and fire, etc. but other services should find other sources.

Limiting Zoning Laws, Licensing Requirements, etc.

The economic value of one's Home is severely limited by zoning laws. Often these laws are trivial and overbearing. Certainly, no one wants a lead smelter or major factory in his or her back yards, but zoning, licensing, etc., often involves "overkill". This is especially true for the poor, for whom a Home may be the only economic asset.

Breaking the Educational Monopoly

The largest monopoly in this country is education. Vouchers, charter schools, freedom to choose one's district, Home schooling, etc., would help break this monopoly and restore control and responsibility for education to parents.

Breaking the Partisan Political Monopoly

Effective entry to the political system is controlled by the two political parties, which in itself is an extra-constitutional arrangement. Nonetheless, these parties are encoded in law by protections which make third parties difficult or impossible. They are also the recipients of vast public subsidies. The subsidies should be ended, and the requirements for getting on the ballot should be lightened so that politics may encompass as wide a range of views as is practical.

Summary

Distributivism is based on the realistic and intuitively grasped notion that power follows property, combined with a genuine love of freedom and a desire to spread the benefits of freedom and economic initiative as widely as possible. It is a real response to the Pope's call for "a change of lifestyles, of models of production and consumption, and of the established structures of power which today govern societies." (CA 58.1) As such, it deserves the serious and prayerful consideration of faithful Catholics everywhere.

©John C. Médaille
http://www.medaille.com/distributivism.html

john@medaille.com

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The Distributivism of Hilaire Belloc

by Bruce J. Brommel

“The choice lies between property on the one hand and slavery, public or private, on the other. There is no third issue.”

-Hilaire Belloc (1950)


Thus ends the preface of An Essay on the Restoration of Property, a short but monumental work on economics by Hilaire Belloc, one of the past century’s most prolific and influential Catholic writers.1 Perhaps no one more than he – nicknamed “Old Thunder” by his mother because of his fierce temperament 2– shook the Catholics of his day from their lethargy and challenged them to apply in practical ways the principles outlined by Pope Leo XIII’s landmark encyclical, Rerum Novarum (“On the Condition of the Working Classes”), for the restoration of a truly Catholic social life, particularly in the area of economics.

Unfortunately today, critics and supporters alike of distributivism – also called distributism or distributionism – tend to distort, exaggerate or even contradict what Belloc has written on the matter. Whether out of simple ignorance or in a deliberate attempt to divorce Belloc’s views from their roots in authentic Catholic social teaching, the end result is that his distributist writings are too often represented as outdated and irrelevant to contemporary Catholics searching for solutions to the social ills of our day.

The purpose of this present study is to identify several of the more prominent distortions of his thought, allow Belloc himself to respond to them3, and demonstrate that his views are fully in line with Catholic social teaching.

The first such distortion we will examine seeks to label Belloc as merely a speculative social ethicist, whose ideas have no substantial significance in the “real world” of economics. Dr. Todd R. Flanders, speaking in “What’s Wrong with Distributivism?” asserts: “For distributivism was, and is in its newer manifestations, more a movement in ethics than in economics. Its most famous early exponents, Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton, were capacious thinkers for whom economic ideas and experience of economic systems were not foreign – yet these men too were not economists”4. Here Dr. Flanders seeks to promote the notion that the ethical view Belloc takes on economic matters (and how these affect individuals and families temporally, and even spiritually) really has nothing at all to do with a true study of solid economics. However, in doing so Dr. Flanders alienates his own thinking from the very foundation of genuine economics, relegating it to a merely speculative sphere reserved only for those with the institutionally conferred title of “economist.”

This betrays the very essence of true economics, which Father Denis Fahey, CSSp, explains in his book, The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World:

“Economics is the science which studies primarily the personal relations which constitute the family, the relations of husband and wife, parents and children, masters and servants, and then, secondarily, the relations of these persons to external goods (the right of property and the use and acquisition of wealth). Etymologically, economy is the government of the home and of the family5. Economics studies families in the constituent relations of their members and then in their conditions of existence”6.

That Belloc has primarily the good of the family in mind is clear from the very first page of his Essay:

“It is obvious that whoever controls the means of production controls the supply of wealth. If, therefore, the means for the production of that wealth which a family needs are in the control of others than the family, the family will be dependent upon those others; it will not be economically free. The family is ideally free when it fully controls all the means necessary for the production of such wealth as it should consume for normal living”7.

This brings us to another misunderstanding often made regarding the distributivism of Belloc, which was touched upon recently by Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr. in his Remnant article, “Capitalism Defended.” Dr. Woods describes a distributivism which advocates that “people withdraw from the division of labor of a market society and retreat instead into a kind of autarky … The emphasis here is on having as many people as possible be owners of their own land and of whatever means of production they employ”8. Dr. Woods introduces us to the benevolent cow he would unfortunately be forced to milk, were he coerced into such a society. However, forcing people to milk cows is not a part of Belloc’s distributivism because, speaking of such a self-reliant system, Belloc continues with his theme of the family and explains that:

“such an ideal is inhuman and, therefore, not to be fixedly attained, because man is a social animal. It is not impossible of achievement for a short time, and has been briefly achieved whenever a lonely settler has fixed himself with his family and his stores in an isolated spot. But such complete economic freedom for each family cannot be permanent, because the family increases and divides into further numerous families, forming a larger community. Moreover, even were the isolated free family to endure, it would fall below the requirements of human nature, its isolation stunting and degrading it. For men cannot fulfill themselves save through a diversity of interests and ideas. Multiplicity is essential to life, and man to be truly human must be social”9.

Dr. Woods asserts that distributists reject “the benefits that accrue to us from taking part in the large-scale division of labor that comprises the market economy.” However, once again, this is not the distributivism of Belloc, who continues:

“Society being necessary to man, there arise in the economic field these two limitations to economic freedom:—First , Difference of Occupation: Each in a society will concentrate upon what he has the best opportunity for producing and, by exchanging his surplus of it for that which another has the best opportunity of producing, will increase the wealth of all; or what comes to the same thing, lessen the burden of labour for all … For though the family exchanges its surplus, or even all its production, for the surplus of others, yet it retains its freedom, so long as the social structure, made up of families similarly free, exercises its effect through customs and laws consonant to its spirit: the Guild; a jealous watch against, and destruction of, monopoly; the safeguarding of inheritance, especially the inheritance of small patrimonies”10.

Belloc then continues the development of his distributivist idea with an explanation of the role of the State:

“— Second, A Principle of Unity: There must exist in some form the State. A sufficiently large unit for the development of the Arts and the better complexities of life must be organized. Its power must be appealed to for the satisfaction of justice, the prevention of internal disorder and for the arrangement of defence against external aggression. In general the State must exercise some restraint upon the ideal economic freedom of the family or freedom itself cannot be guaranteed”11.

Once again, regarding the function of the State, Belloc finds himself completely misunderstood by many of his critics. Dr. Flanders, wishing to embrace Belloc at least on this aspect of the issue at hand writes, “But Belloc rendered yet greater service to lovers of liberty. Central to his critique of both collectivism and the “capitalist” servile state was an opposition to state power and to the coercive power of laws that expropriate and transfer wealth and labor”12. He describes Belloc as having “overwhelming opposition to state power and control,” and calls state encroachment in economic matters Belloc’s “chief worry”13. Unfortunately for Dr. Flanders, the Belloc he wants isn’t the Belloc he gets, for Belloc himself testifies:

“There must be laws to protect property not only against direct rapine but against dissolution through the exaggeration of competition. There must be State sanction for the powers of the Guild, for the process of Inheritance, for the restriction of undue burdens. There must be some official machinery for fostering the propagation of small property just as there is official machinery today fostering the destruction of small, widespread property by large owners…” 14.

In fact, Belloc describes State regulation as the key to the success of his plan because:

“our effort will fail unless it be accompanied by regulations making for the preservation of private property, so much of it as shall have been restored… Well-divided property will not spring up of itself in Capitalistic society. It must be artificially fostered. Communism will spring up of itself in Capitalistic society, for it is a product of Capitalist thought and moves along the same lines as Capitalism. But well-divided property will not so arise. Moreover, once restored, Property must be constantly sustained or it will lapse again into Capitalism… [Historically,] Capitalism only arose after the safeguards guaranteeing well-distributed property, private property, had been deliberately broken down by an evil will insufficiently resisted. It was not Capitalism that came first and gradually dissolved the institution of well-divided property; it was the conditions under which alone well-divided property could survive, and had survived for centuries, which were first destroyed. Only then, after their destruction, was the field free for the growth of plutocracy in politics and Capitalism in the economic structure of the State”15.

Speaking further about the Guilds, Belloc points out that they were “chartered and established by positive laws”16, and he is consistent in emphasizing throughout his work that State support is essential for the maintenance of economic freedom, which he summarizes thus:

“Economic freedom is in our eyes a good. It is among the highest of temporal goods because it is necessary to the highest life of society through the dignity of man and through the multiplicity of his action, in which multiplicity is life. Through well-divided property alone can the units of society react upon the State. Through it alone can a public opinion flourish. Only where the bulk of the cells are healthy can the whole organism thrive. It is therefore our business to restore economic freedom through the restoration of the only institution under which it flourishes, which institution is Property. The problem before us is, how to restore Property so that it shall be, as it was not so long ago, a general institution.

"Three provisos must be kept clearly in mind before we approach the problem and attempt its practical solution.

“The first proviso is that in the restoration of property we are not attempting, and could never reach, a mechanical perfection. We are only attempting to change the general tone of society and restore property as a commonly present, not a universal, institution.

“The second proviso is that we cannot even begin such a reform unless there is a favorable state of mind present in society, a desire to own property, sufficient to support and maintain the movement and to nourish institutions which will make it permanent.

“The third proviso is that in this attempt to restore Economic Freedom, the powers of the State must be invoked”17.

Finally, we must turn our attention to those who wave the Distributist flag, yet – unlike Belloc – attempt to cast off any relationship it has with the True Religion18. Writing in the December 1996 issue of Generally Speaking, the newsletter of The American Chesterton Society, M. De Marco elaborates:

“Distributivism, as a theory about the just society, can be detached from the spiritual as easily as any of its rivals. So on the issue of Distributivism and Religion, let us say instead that if religion is a good (and if any particular religion is the best) then it is bound to flourish in the just society. For once men are free and self-sufficient, they will have ample opportunity to know the good and follow it. Likewise, let us say that the unjust society must discourage true religion, either by outright oppression or by the institution of values (such as covetousness) which corrupt men.”

De Marco than declares that “the separation of Distributivism and Religion has been established”19.

Besides the false notion that Truth will spring of itself from the goodness of man, which is basic Rationalism 20, this concept of separation also does not ring true for sons and daughters of the Catholic Church, for as Leo XIII explains in his encyclical letter “On Christian Democracy”:

“It is the opinion of some, and the error is already very common, that the social question is merely an economic one, whereas in point of fact it is, above all, a moral and religious matter, and for that reason must be settled by the principles of morality and according to the dictates of religion”21.

Fr. Fahey, writing in The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, concurs:

“The indirect power of the Church over temporal affairs, whenever the interests of the Divine Life of souls are involved, presupposes, of course, a clear distinction of nature between the ecclesiastical authority, charged with the care of divine things, and the civil authority, whose mission is concerned with purely temporal matters. In proportion as the Mystical Body of Christ was accepted by mankind, political and economic thought and action began to respect the jurisdiction and guidance of the Catholic Church, endowed, as she is, with the right of intervention in temporal affairs whenever necessary, because of her participation in the spiritual Kingship of Christ. Thus the natural or temporal common good of States came to be sought in a manner calculated to favour the development of true personality, in and through the Mystical Body of Christ, and social life came more and more fully under the influence of the supreme end of man, the vision of God in three Divine Persons.

“Accordingly, Catholic Social Order, viewed as a whole, is not primarily the political and economic organization of society. It is primarily the supernatural social organism of the Church, and then, secondarily, the temporal or natural social order resulting from the influence of Catholic doctrine on politics and economics and from the embodiment of that influence in social institutions”22.

Belloc embraces the moral nature of all of man’s actions, in both the spiritual and temporal dimensions, when he defends the intrinsic good of economic freedom for individuals: “We cannot do good, or evil, unless we do it freely; and if we admit the idea of good at all in human society, freedom must be its accompaniment”23. Thus Belloc does not, like some distributivists, embrace the “fatal theory”24 and seek to tear asunder what God has joined, but respects and defends the Divine Truth that all aspects of society and culture must tend towards the salvation of our souls.

Belloc has been accused of promoting economic ideas which were too “impractical and impracticable”25 to solve the problems of his day, which are the problems of our own day. Dr. Flanders accuses Belloc of incorrectly seeing “patterns of property use as static rather than dynamic”26, when in truth Belloc understands the “diversity which is life”27 and admits,

“There will be many comparatively poor, and some comparatively rich. There will presumably be some portion of dispossessed. But Property, and its accompaniment, Economic Freedom, will be the mark of society as a whole”28. In reality, the solutions he proposes are eminently human, and always tending towards the salvation of the soul. For Belloc, “property is essential for a full life”29. While others seek to oversimplify the problems, eliminating this or that element of the issue at hand, Belloc looks at life in all of its beautiful and complex reality, and proposes something bluntly honest: “But whereas the Servile State to which we are now tending can be complete, the Proprietary (or Distributist) State neither can, nor should be, complete; for it cannot of its nature be mechanical”30. He says elsewhere, “There can be no perfection about it; it must remain incomplete; nor could there be a better proof that the attempt is a human one, consonant to human nature”31.

Well, so much for Utopia, I guess. But isn’t Belloc’s solution sympathetic to our own human experience, well-grounded in the realities of daily life? As I sit at the dinner table writing these notes with an old leaky pen, as children cry and laugh and play in the background, and spill milk and cookie crumbs on my scattered books and papers, and as I explain to my wife what she needs to type up for me, since she is faster with her two hands than I am with my two fingers, I find more truth and comfort and hope in the practical thoughts of a man who wrote and spoke, not for the love of some obscure and unfathomable academic economic principle, but for the love of all of us, which springs from true Charity:

“It has been found in practice, and the truth is witnessed to by the instincts in all of us, that such widely distributed property as a condition of freedom is necessary to the normal satisfaction of human nature”32.

In rejecting all or part of what is essentially distributist, critics reject also what is essentially Belloc: the common man, the family man, the faithful son of Holy Church.

Footnotes:

(1) An Essay on the Restoration of Property was first published in 1936 by the Distributist League. It is now under the domain of the Hilaire Belloc Estate. Belloc lived from 1870 to 1953.

(2) Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc, by Joseph Pearce, p. 1.

(3) All quotes of Belloc are taken from An Essay on the Restoration of Property as reprinted by IHS Press, Norfolk, VA, 2002.

(4) “What’s Wrong with Distributivism?” by Dr. Todd R. Flanders; http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/adjunct/papers/distribute.html, p. 1.

(5) Internal footnote: Lecons de Philosophie Sociale (vol I, p. 148), “Economy, as its name expresses, studies the order of the human household, arranging, according to their respective values, persons and things (Philosophie Economique, by J. Vialatoux, p.78.

(6) The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, by Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp. (Third Edition), p. 6-7.

(7) Essay, pp. 25, 26.

(8) “Capitalism Defended” by Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr., Remnant Sept 30, 2004 (p. 13).

(9) Essay, p. 26.

(10) Ibid., p. 26.

(11) Ibid., p. 26.

(12) Flanders, p. 3.

(13) Ibid., p. 4.

(14) Essay, p. 38.

(15) Ibid., p. 39-40, 41. This appears to echo perfectly the thoughts of Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum, May 15, 1891, paragraph 6: “After the old trade guilds had been destroyed in the last century, and no protection was substituted in their place, and when public institutions and legislation had cast off traditional religious teaching, it gradually came about that the present age handed over the workers, each alone and defenseless, to the inhumanity of employers and the unbridled greed of competitors. A devouring usury, although often condemned by the Church, but practiced nevertheless under another form by avaricious and grasping men, has increased the evil; and in addition, the whole process of production, as well as trade in every kind of goods has been brought almost entirely under the power of a few, so that a very few rich and exceedingly rich men have laid a yoke almost of slavery on the unnumbered masses of non-owning workers.”(16) Essay, p. 95.

(17) Ibid., p. 33.

(18) This concept of separating commerce from morality is actually capitalist in origin. As Amintore Fanfani relates in Catholicism, Protestantism and Capitalism: “Another difference between the mentality of the pre-capitalist and that of the capitalist is this: the former considers that appraisement of value in the economic sphere should be governed by moral criteria; the latter would make the economic criterion the sole norm of such appraisements” (emphasis mine). Interestingly, as an aside, the thesis of his book is that the errors of Capitalism actually arose from and were fostered by corrupt Catholics towards the close of the Middle Ages – and helped precipitate the end of that era – rather than by Protestants at a later period, as is believed by many.

(19) “Against ‘The American Distributist’ by Daniel Krotz” by M. De Marco, http://mdemarco.web.wesleyan.edu/gkc/distrib/essay.html, p. 1.

(20) See Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864, especially paragraphs 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9. Paragraph 4 reads: “All the truths of religion proceed from the innate strength of human reason; hence reason is the ultimate standard by which man can and ought to arrive at the knowledge of all truths of every kind.” – Condemned. Also see Fahey’s The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, Chapter 4: “The Revolutionary Deification of Man,” Section D – Rationalism, Naturalism and Revolution.
(21) Graves de Communi Re, January 18, 1901, paragraph 11.

(22) The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, p. 5.

(23) Essay, p. 30.

(24) Libertas Praestantissimum (On the Nature of True Liberty), by Pope Leo XIII, June 20, 1888, paragraph 18.

(25) Flanders, p. 1.

(26) Ibid., p. 4.

(27) Essay, p. 30.

(28) Ibid., p. 36.

(29) Ibid., p. 28.

(30) Ibid., p. 36.

(31) Ibid., pp. 33-34.

(32) Ibid., p. 27.

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Immortale Dei

by Pope Leo XIII





Table of Contents
The Role of the Church
The State as Reflection of God's Will
The State and Church as Cooperative
State and True Relgion
Public Office
The State Confirming the Sanctity of Marriage
Liberty
Separation of Church/State
Lockean Influences and False Individualism
Pluralism

THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH

The Catholic Church, that imperishable handiwork of our all-merciful God, has for her immediate and natural purpose the saving of souls and securing our happiness in heaven. Yet, in regard to things temporal, she is the source of benefits as manifold and great as if the chief end of her existence were to ensure the prospering of our earthly life

But, though endeavors of various kinds have been ventured on, it is clear that no better mode has been devised for the building up and ruling the State than that which is the necessary growth of the teachings of the Gospel

And just as the end at which the Church aims is by far the noblest of ends, so is its authority the most exalted of all authority, nor can it be looked upon as inferior to the civil power, or in any manner dependent upon it

In very truth, Jesus Christ gave to His Apostles unrestrained authority in regard to things sacred, together with the genuine and most true power of making laws, as also with the twofold right of judging and of punishing, which flow from that power. "All power is given to Me in heaven and on earth: going therefore teach all nations . . . teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you."(12) And in another place: "If he will not hear them, tell the Church."

Hence, it is the Church, and not the State, that is to be man's guide to heaven. It is to the Church that God has assigned the charge of seeing to, and legislating for, all that concerns religion; of teaching all nations; of spreading the Christian faith as widely as possible; in short, of administering freely and without hindrance, in accordance with her own judgment, all matters that fall within its competence

And, assuredly, all ought to hold that it was not without a singular disposition of God's providence that this power of the Church was provided with a civil sovereignty as the surest safeguard of her independence

Moreover, she gives encouragement to every kind of art and handicraft, and through her influence, directing all strivings after progress toward virtue and salvation, she labors to prevent man's intellect and industry from turning him away from God and from heavenly things

THE STATE AS REFLECTION OF GOD'S WILL

...every body politic must have a ruling authority, and this authority, no less than society itself, has its source in nature, and has, consequently, God for its Author. Hence, it follows that all public power must proceed from God. For God alone is the true and supreme Lord of the world. Everything, without exception, must be subject to Him, and must serve him, so that whosoever holds the right to govern holds it from one sole and single source, namely, God, the Sovereign
Ruler of all

The right to rule is not necessarily, however, bound up with any special mode of government

...God has always willed that there should be a ruling authority, and that they who are invested with it should reflect the divine power and providence in some measure over the human race

They, therefore, who rule should rule with evenhanded justice, not as masters, but rather as fathers, for the rule of God over man is most just, and is tempered always with a father's kindness

Since, then, no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God, and since the chief duty of all men is to cling to religion in both its teaching and practice—not such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion which God enjoins, and which certain and most clear marks show to be the only one true religion—it is a public crime to act as though there were no God

So, too, is it a sin for the State not to have care for religion as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit; or out of many forms of religion to adopt that one which chimes in with the fancy; for we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will. All who rule, therefore, would hold in honor the holy name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favor religion, to protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of the laws, and neither to organize nor enact any measure that may compromise its safety

But, if those who are in authority rule unjustly, if they govern overbearingly or arrogantly, and if their measures prove hurtful to the people, they must remember that the Almighty will one day bring them to account, the more strictly in proportion to the sacredness of their office and preeminence of their dignity

THE STATE AND CHURCH AS COOPERATIVE

The Almighty, therefore, has given the charge of the human race to two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human, things. Each in its kind is supreme, each has fixed limits within which it is contained, limits which are defined by the nature and special object of the province of each, so that there is, we may say, an orbit traced out within which the action of each is brought into play by its own native right

One of the two has for its proximate and chief object the well-being of this mortal life; the other, the everlasting joys of heaven. Whatever, therefore in things human is of a sacred character, whatever belongs either of its own nature or by reason of the end to which it is referred, to the salvation of souls, or to the worship of God, is subject to the power and judgment of the Church. Whatever is to be ranged under the civil and political order is rightly subject to the civil authority. Jesus Christ has Himself given command that what is Caesar's is to be rendered to Caesar, and that what belongs to God is to be rendered to God

There must, accordingly, exist between these two powers a certain orderly connection, which may be compared to the union of the soul and body in man

There was once a time when States were governed by the philosophy of the Gospel. Then it was that the power and divine virtue of Christian wisdom had diffused itself throughout the laws, institutions, and morals of the people, permeating all ranks and relations of civil society. Then, too, the religion instituted by Jesus Christ, established firmly in befitting dignity, flourished everywhere, by the favor of princes and the legitimate protection of magistrates; and Church and State were happily united in concord and friendly interchange of good offices. The State, constituted in this wise, bore fruits important beyond all expectation, whose remembrance is still, and always will be, in renown, witnessed to as they are by countless proofs which can never be blotted out or ever obscured by any craft of any enemies. Christian Europe has subdued barbarous nations, and changed them from a savage to a civilized condition, from superstition to true worship. It victoriously rolled back the tide of Mohammedan conquest; retained the headship of civilization; stood forth in the front rank as the leader and teacher of all, in every branch of national culture; bestowed on the world the gift of true and many-sided liberty; and most wisely founded very numerous institutions for the solace of human suffering. And if we inquire how it was able to bring about so altered a condition of things, the answer is--beyond all question, in large measure, through religion, under whose auspices so many great undertakings were set on foot, through whose aid they were brought to completion

STATE AND TRUE RELIGION

Now, it cannot be difficult to find out which is the true religion, if only it be sought with an earnest and unbiased mind; for proofs are abundant and striking. We have, for example, the fulfillment of prophecies, miracles in great numbers, the rapid spread of the faith in the midst of enemies and in face of overwhelming obstacles, the witness of the martyrs, and the like. From all these it is evident that the only true religion is the one established by Jesus Christ Himself, and which He committed to His Church to protect and to propagate

For the only-begotten Son of God established on earth a society which is called the Church, and to it He handed over the exalted and divine office which He had received from His Father, to be continued through the ages to come."As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you"

All this, though so reasonable and full of counsel, finds little favor nowadays when States not only refuse to conform to the rules of Christian wisdom, but seem even anxious to recede from them further and further on each successive day.

Nevertheless, since truth when brought to light is wont, of its own nature, to spread itself far and wide, and gradually take possession of the minds of men, We, moved by the great and holy duty of Our apostolic mission to all nations, speak, as We are bound to do, with freedom. Our eyes are not closed to the spirit of the times. We repudiate not the assured and useful improvements of our age, but devoutly wish affairs of State to take a safer course than they are now taking, and to rest on a more firm foundation without injury to the true freedom of the people; for the best parent and guardian of liberty amongst men is truth. "The truth shall make you free."

And, in truth, whatever in the State is of chief avail for the common welfare; whatever has been usefully established to curb the license of rulers who are opposed to the true interests of the people, or to keep in check the leading authorities from unwarrantably interfering in municipal or family affairs; whatever tends to uphold the honor, manhood, and equal rights of individual citizens—of all these things, as the monuments of past ages bear witness, the Catholic Church has always been the originator, the promoter, or the guardian

PUBLIC OFFICE

It follows clearly, therefore, that Catholics have just reasons for taking part in the conduct of public affairs. For in so doing they assume not nor should they assume the responsibility of approving what is blameworthy in the actual methods of government, but seek to turn these very methods, so far as is possible, to the genuine and true public good, and to use their best endeavors at the same time to infuse, as it were, into all the veins of the State the healthy sap and blood of Christian wisdom and virtue

Models of loyalty to their rulers, submissive, so far as was permitted, to the sovereign power, they shed around them on every side a halo of sanctity; they strove to be helpful to their brethren, and to attract others to the wisdom of Jesus Christ, yet were bravely ready to withdraw from public life, nay, even to lay down their life, if they could not without loss of virtue retain honors, dignities, and offices

...Further, it is unlawful to follow one line of conduct in private life and another in public, respecting privately the authority of the Church, but publicly rejecting it; for this would amount to joining together good and evil, and to putting man in conflict with himself; whereas he ought always to be consistent, and never in the least point nor in any condition of life to swerve from

In these Our days it is well to revive these examples of Our forefathers. First and foremost, it is the duty of all Catholics worthy of the name and wishful to be known as most loving children of the Church, to reject without swerving whatever is inconsistent with so fair a title; to make use of popular institutions, so far as can honestly be done, for the advancement of truth and righteousness; to strive that liberty of action shall not transgress the bounds marked out by nature and the law of God; to endeavor to bring back all civil society to the pattern and form of Christianity which We have described

THE STATE CONFIRMING THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE

Furthermore, domestic society acquires that firmness and solidity so needful to it from the holiness of marriage, one and indissoluble, wherein the rights and duties of husband and wife are controlled with wise justice and equity; due honor is assured to the woman; the authority of the husband is conformed to the pattern afforded by the authority of God; the power of the father is tempered by a due regard for the dignity of the mother and her offspring; and the best possible provision is made for the guardianship, welfare, and education of the children

LIBERTY

But that harmful and deplorable passion for innovation which was aroused in the sixteenth century threw first of all into confusion the Christian religion, and next, by natural sequence, invaded the precincts of philosophy, whence it spread amongst all classes of society. From this source, as from a fountain-head, burst forth all those later tenets of unbridled license which, in the midst of the terrible upheavals of the last century, were wildly conceived and boldly proclaimed as the principles and foundation of that new conception of law which was not merely previously unknown, but was at variance on many points with not only the Christian, but even the natural law

As regards opinion, whatever the Roman Pontiffs have hitherto taught, or shall hereafter teach, must be held with a firm grasp of mind, and, so often as occasion requires, must be openly professed

Ever, therefore, consistent with herself, while on the one hand she rejects that exorbitant liberty which in individuals and in nations ends in license or in thraldom, on the other hand, she willingly and most gladly welcomes whatever improvements the age brings forth, if these really secure the prosperity of life here below, which is, as it were, a stage in the journey to the life that will know no ending

In political affairs, and all matters civil, the laws aim at securing the common good, and are not framed according to the delusive caprices and opinions of the mass of the people, but by truth and by justice; the ruling powers are invested with a sacredness more than human, and are withheld from deviating from the path of duty, and from overstepping the bounds of rightful authority; and the obedience is not the servitude of man to man, but submission to the will of God, exercising His sovereignty through the medium of men

Especially with reference to the so-called "liberties" which are so greatly coveted in these days, all must stand by the judgment of the apostolic see, and have the same mind. Let no man be deceived by the honest outward appearance of these liberties, but let each one reflect whence these have had their origin, and by what efforts they are everywhere upheld and promoted. Experience has made Us well acquainted with their results to the State, since everywhere they have borne fruits which the good and wise bitterly deplore. If there really exist anywhere, or if we in imagination conceive, a State, waging wanton and tyrannical war against Christianity, and if we compare with it the modern form of government just described, this latter may seem the more endurable of the two. Yet, undoubtedly, the principles on which such a government is grounded are, as We have said, of a nature which no one can approve

In the same way the Church cannot approve of that liberty which begets a contempt of the most sacred laws of God, and casts off the obedience due to lawful authority, for this is not liberty so much as license, and is most correctly styled by St. Augustine the "liberty of self-ruin," and by the Apostle St. Peter the "cloak of malice." Indeed, since it is opposed to reason, it is a true slavery, "for whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin." On the other hand, that liberty is truly genuine, and to be sought after, which in regard to the individual does not allow men to be the slaves of error and of passion, the worst of all masters; which, too, in public administration guides the citizens in wisdom and provides for them increased means of well-being; and which, further, protects the State from foreign interference

So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law. A well-spent life is the only way to heaven, whither all are bound, and on this account the State is acting against the laws and dictates of nature whenever it permits the license of opinion and of action to lead minds astray from truth and souls away from the practice of virtue

SEPARATION OF CHURCH/STATE

To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from life, from laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error. A State from which religion is banished can never be well regulated; and already perhaps more than is desirable is known of the nature and tendency of the so-called civil philosophy of life and morals. The Church of Christ is the true and sole teacher of virtue and guardian of morals. She it is who preserves in their purity the principles from which duties flow, and, by setting forth most urgent reasons for virtuous life, bids us not only to turn away from wicked deeds, but even to curb all movements of the mind that are opposed to reason, even though they be not carried out in action

So, also, as to the duties of each one toward his fellow men, mutual forbearance, kindliness, generosity are placed in the ascendant; the man who is at once a citizen and a Christian is not drawn aside by conflicting obligations; and, lastly, the abundant benefits with which the Christian religion, of its very nature, endows even the mortal life of man are acquired for the community and civil society. And this to such an extent that it may be said in sober truth: "The condition of the commonwealth depends on the religion with which God is worshipped; and between one and the other there exists an intimate and abiding connection"

On the question of the separation of Church and State the same Pontiff writes as follows: "Nor can We hope for happier results either for religion or for the civil government from the wishes of those who desire that the Church be separated from the State, and the concord between the secular and ecclesiastical authority be dissolved. It is clear that these men, who yearn for a shameless liberty, live in dread of an agreement which has always been fraught with good, and advantageous alike to sacred and civil interests

As a consequence, the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion

The authority of God is passed over in silence, just as if there were no God; or as if He cared nothing for human society; or as if men, whether in their individual capacity or bound together in social relations, owed nothing to God; or as if there could be a government of which the whole origin and power and authority did not reside in God Himself. Thus, as is evident, a State becomes nothing but a multitude which is its own master and ruler. And since the people is declared to contain within itself the spring-head of all rights and of all power, it follows that the State does not consider itself bound by any kind of duty toward God. Moreover. it believes that it is not obliged to make public profession of any religion; or to inquire which of the very many religions is the only one true; or to prefer one religion to all the rest; or to show to any form of religion special favor; but, on the contrary, is bound to grant equal rights to every creed, so that public order may not be disturbed by any particular form of religious belief

A similar state of things would certainly have continued had the agreement of the two powers been lasting. More important results even might have been justly looked for, had obedience waited upon the authority, teaching, and counsels of the Church, and had this submission been specially marked by greater and more unswerving loyalty. For that should be regarded in the light of an ever-changeless law which Ivo of Chartres wrote to Pope Paschal II: "When kingdom and priesthood are at one, in complete accord, the world is well ruled, and the Church flourishes, and brings forth abundant fruit. But when they are at variance, not only smaller interests prosper not, but even things of greatest moment fall into deplorable decay"

Accordingly, it has become the practice and determination under this condition of public polity (now so much admired by many) either to forbid the action of the Church altogether, or to keep her in check and bondage to the State

Now, natural reason itself proves convincingly that such concepts of the government of a State are wholly at variance with the truth. Nature itself bears witness that all power, of every kind, has its origin from God, who is its chief and most august source

Admirably, according to his wont, does St. Augustine, in many passages, enlarge upon the nature of these advantages; but nowhere more markedly and to the point than when he addresses the Catholic Church in the following words: "Thou dost teach and train children with much tenderness, young men with much vigor, old men with much gentleness; as the age not of the body alone, but of the mind of each requires. Women thou dost subject to their husbands in chaste and faithful obedience, not for the gratifying of their lust, but for bringing forth children, and for having a share in the family concerns. Thou dost set husbands over their wives, not that they may play false to the weaker sex, but according to the requirements of sincere affection. Thou dost subject children to their parents in a kind of free service, and dost establish parents over their children with a benign rule. . . Thou joinest together, not in society only, but in a sort of brotherhood, citizen with citizen, nation with nation, and the whole race of men, by reminding them of their common parentage. Thou teachest kings to look to the interests of their people, and dost admonish the people to be submissive to their kings. With all care dost thou teach all to whom honor is due, and affection, and reverence, and fear, consolation, and admonition and exhortation, and discipline, and reproach, and punishment. Thou showest that all these are not equally incumbent on all, but that charity is owing to all, and wrongdoing to none."(19) And in another place, blaming the false wisdom of certain time-serving philosophers, he observes: "Let those who say that the teaching of Christ is hurtful to the State produce such armies as the maxims of Jesus have enjoined soldiers to bring into being; such governors of provinces; such husbands and wives; such parents and children; such masters and servants; such kings; such judges, and such payers and collectors of tribute, as the Christian teaching instructs them to become, and then let them dare to say that such teaching is hurtful to the State. Nay, rather will they hesitate to own that this discipline, if duly acted up to, is the very mainstay of the commonwealth."

And, in fact, the Church is wont to take earnest heed that no one shall be forced to embrace the Catholic faith against his will, for, as St. Augustine wisely reminds us, "Man cannot believe otherwise than of his own will."

LOCKEAN INFLUENCES AND FALSE INDIVIDUALISM

Amongst these principles the main one lays down that as all men are alike by race and nature, so in like manner all are equal in the control of their life; that each one is so far his own master as to be in no sense under the rule of any other individual; that each is free to think on every subject just as he may choose, and to do whatever he may like to do; that no man has any right to rule over other men. In a society grounded upon such maxims all government is nothing more nor less than the will of the people, and the people, being under the power of itself alone, is alone its own ruler. It does choose, nevertheless, some to whose charge it may commit itself, but in such wise that it makes over to them not the right so much as the business of governing, to be exercised, however, in its name

And it is a part of this theory that all questions that concern religion are to be referred to private judgment; that every one is to be free to follow whatever religion he prefers, or none at all if he disapprove of all. From this the following consequences logically flow: that the judgment of each one's conscience is independent of all law; that the most unrestrained opinions may be openly expressed as to the practice or omission of divine worship; and that every one has unbounded license to think whatever he chooses and to publish abroad whatever he thinks

The sovereignty of the people, however, and this without any reference to God, is held to reside in the multitude; which is doubtless a doctrine exceedingly well calculated to flatter and to inflame many passions, but which lacks all reasonable proof, and all power of insuring public safety and preserving order. Indeed, from the prevalence of this teaching, things have come to such a pass that may hold as an axiom of civil jurisprudence that seditions may be rightfully fostered. For the opinion prevails that princes are nothing more than delegates chosen to carry out the will of the people; whence it necessarily follows that all things are as changeable as the will of the people, so that risk of public disturbance is ever hanging over our heads

With reference to matters that are of twofold jurisdiction, they who administer the civil power lay down the law at their own will, and in matters that appertain to religion defiantly put aside the most sacred decrees of the Church. They claim jurisdiction over the marriages of Catholics, even over the bond as well as the unity and the indissolubility of matrimony. They lay hands on the goods of the clergy, contending that the Church cannot possess property. Lastly, they treat the Church with such arrogance that, rejecting entirely her title to the nature and rights of a perfect society, they hold that she differs in no respect from other societies in the State, and for this reason possesses no right nor any legal power of action, save that which she holds by the concession and favor of the government. If in any State the Church retains her own agreement publicly entered into by the two powers, men forthwith begin to cry out that matters affecting the Church must be separated from those of the State

PLURALISM

To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God

Doctrines such as these, which cannot be approved by human reason, and most seriously affect the whole civil order, Our predecessors the Roman Pontiffs (well aware of what their apostolic office required of them) have never allowed to pass uncondemned. Thus,Gregory XVI in his encyclical letter Mirari Vos dated August 15, 1832, inveighed with weighty words against the sophisms which even at his time were being publicly inculcated—namely, that no preference should be shown for any particular form of worship; that it is right for individuals to form their own personal judgments about religion; that each man's conscience is his sole and all-sufficing guide; and that it is lawful for every man to publish his own views, whatever they may be, and even to conspire against the State

Hence, lest concord be broken by rash charges, let this be understood by all, that the integrity of Catholic faith cannot be reconciled with opinions verging on naturalism or rationalism, the essence of which is utterly to do away with Christian institutions and to install in society the supremacy of man to the exclusion of God

For, when the management of public business is in harmony with doctrines of such a kind, the Catholic religion is allowed a standing in civil society equal only, or inferior, to societies alien from it; no regard is paid to the laws of the Church, and she who, by the order and commission of Jesus Christ, has the duty of teaching all nations, finds herself forbidden to take any part in the instruction of the people

From these pronouncements of the Popes it is evident that the origin of public power is to be sought for in God Himself. and not in the multitude, and that it is repugnant to reason to allow free scope for sedition. Again, that it is not lawful for the State, any more than for the individual, either to disregard all religious duties or to hold in equal favor different kinds of religion; that the unrestrained freedom of thinking and of openly making known one's thoughts is not inherent in the rights of citizens, and is by no means to be reckoned worthy of favor and support. In like manner it is to be understood that the Church no less than the State itself is a society perfect in its own nature and its own right, and that those who exercise sovereignty ought not so to act as to compel the Church to become subservient or subject to them, or to hamper her liberty in the management of her own affairs, or to despoil her in any way of the other privileges conferred upon her by Jesus Christ

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