Popes view of capitalism troublesome for
have-nots
By ANA MARIA ESCURRA
During the 1980s and 1990s, a deterioration in
social conditions has occurred that is remarkable for its breadth, its depth
and its global character. Inequality grew significantly, both within nations
and between nations, to the disadvantage of the South. Poverty increased
steadily in quantity and intensity, as did acute pauperization, particularly in
the South. Finally, processes calculated to exclude significant elements of the
population from the economic system have been consolidated, with resultant
unemployment and subemployment that now are structural, massive and
expanding.
From the beginning of his pontificate, and in continuity with Paul
VI, Pope John Paul II denounced this social outrage, insisting that the issue
was one of social and international justice that made it necessary to give
priority to the phenomenon of poverty.
In addition, since the mid-1980s, poverty in the South has
elicited significant concern among the Bretton Woods institutions that
constitute the principal mechanism for the global implantation of the
neoliberal paradigm -- the concept that the free-market solves all economic
problems. And what is still more remarkable, the World Bank took a leadership
role on the issue, proposing since 1990 that the highest priority of
international policies and of the banks own activities should be
precisely the lessening of global poverty.
Concern about poverty is thus spreading among a greater number of
international agents and agencies. This highlighting of the issue, at the same
time, brings into play very different and even contradictory diagnoses and
strategies because of divergent answers to this decisive diagnostic question:
What is the role the currently prevailing model of market-oriented
growth has played (and continues to play) in the global intensification
and expansion of inequality, poverty, pauperization and exclusion? In other
words, what role does neoliberal capitalism, with its structural adjustments,
play as a causal factor?
A central issue consequently is to determine how the problem
should be defined and what corrections are called for.
This issue is also a problem for the social teaching of John Paul
II, whose pontificate coincides almost exactly with the global establishment of
the neoliberal paradigm.
In various statements, some of them at a formal level, John Paul
has referred to the human deficiencies of capitalism. In
Centesimus Annus (1991), for example, his first social encyclical after
the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, he asked whether in the light of the
communist collapse capitalism might be considered as a model for
the countries of the South.
A complex answer
While insisting that the answer is complex and depends on what one
means by capitalism, John Paul answered affirmatively that capitalism is
understood as an economic system that recognizes the fundamental and positive
role of business, the market and private enterprise. In addition, and in
accordance with the tradition of papal teaching, he also reaffirms the
existence of a natural right to private ownership of the means of production
(capital as a form of ownership).
The point is decisive. To define this right as natural makes it
universal and untouchable, with the consequence that a historic regime becomes
naturalized and thus sacralized (since such rights would derive from God). In
this way, capitalist property is converted into an a priori, an axiom, none the
less ideological because of the appeal to the sacred.
At the same time, and also in conformity with the papal tradition,
John Paul defines liberal capitalism as the kind that accords an absolute right
to private property. This would give capital an intolerable primacy over labor.
Liberal capitalism is consequently rejected as having -- ever since the
industrial revolution -- originated the capital/labor conflict, and as being
the principal cause of injustice and exploitation.
With this in mind, and in continuity with his predecessors, John
Paul predicates a necessary pre-eminence of labor over capital. In
Centesimus Annus, nevertheless, he simultaneously and explicitly
identifies the capitalist free market as the most efficient instrument for
allocation of resources and satisfaction of needs. That, of course, is
precisely the nuclear thesis of the neoliberal philosophy and of neoclassic
economic theory.
At the same time, papal teaching has from the very beginning
rejected economic liberalism and in consequence it condemns uncontrolled
competition. That is to say that it insists that the capitalist market has
limits, an argument that John Paul revives. In Centesimus Annus itself,
he warns against the danger of an idolatry of the market, of a
radical capitalist ideology that in a fideistic way leaves to
the free development of market forces the solution of the problems of
exploitation and marginalization. This is clearly a criticism of
neoliberalism.
Yet if the pope at the same time affirms that the free market is
the best mechanism for assigning resources and satisfying needs, he is
formulating the precise foundational thesis of the neoclassical and neoliberal
edifice, as already noted. In addition, a logical corollary is that those
limits (of the market) must inevitably be restricted (not substantial). In this
respect, it is appropriate to note that since the early 1990s, recognition of
such limits began to be widely acknowledged, to the point of becoming a part of
the neoliberal agenda, especially among the Bretton Woods institutions. The new
hierarchy of poverty thus opened the doors to a relative aggiornamento
of the neoliberal program that was publicly announced in the World Banks
1990 Report on World Development.
This updating also had an influence on the area of discourse, with
the appearance of arguments that tend to depart from neoliberal orthodoxy. For
example, it is now claimed that there is no dichotomy between state and market,
between government intervention and laissez-faire. What is more, the inadequate
nature of the markets is recognized, with the World Bank actually recommending
some state intervention, though of course that intervention should be
reluctant, careful and market-friendly.
Neoliberalism has consequently evolved, while always holding to
its primary thesis, namely, that though the market may have limits, these do
not invalidate its intrinsic superiority. So we are left once more with the
concept of limited limits.
To sum up in the light of what has been said: To the extent that
imperfections of the market are recognized (even if these are limited), we are
faced with the need for corrective regulations and indeed a significant role
for the state. In this context, John Paul introduced an express criticism of
the welfare state (Centesimus Annus ), thereby repeating another key
thesis of the neoliberal agenda, for which such criticism was always basic.
Papal ambivalence
The result is that the social teaching of John Paul involves an
ambiguous diagnosis. On the one hand, and in agreement with the body of papal
teaching, he identifies the unregulated capitalist market as the primary and
determinant carrier of injustice and exploitation. At the same time, under
neoliberal influences, he supports theses favoring free competition, namely,
that the market is intrinsically superior and the welfare state is
defective.
The result is that we do not have an unequivocal identification of
neoliberal capitalism as the causal factor, and this leads to ambiguous
proposals. Thus, in agreement with his predecessors, John Paul judges that
liberal capitalism can accept corrections that will solve the social problem.
Along this line, he calls for public regulation of the market. Nevertheless, he
simultaneously plays down the key element in that control, namely, the state,
while strengthening the role of the market. The result is an equation typical
of the neoliberal agenda. His social teaching is consequently imprisoned within
the narrow limits of a corrective strategy that does not object essentially to
the dominant system and economic paradigm.
As social conditions in all parts of the world continue to
deteriorate, more calls are being heard for a new vision of development, a
substantial reorientation that would go beyond the limits of a strategy
designed merely to correct neoliberal capitalism.
Underlying these calls is a different diagnostic hypothesis,
namely, that the global social deterioration is in large part the fruit of the
neoliberal program; that we are faced with long-term negative consequences
inherent in this program; and that the capitalist market -- today elevated to
the status of a universal criterion -- is not a self-regulating mechanism
producing ideal social conditions. On the contrary, it constitutes a political
relationship, ensuring that those who hold more power are the winners, and it
leads inevitably to economic concentration.
This means that the production of inequality is intrinsic to the
functioning of the capitalist market. Because of this, and taking into account
the seriousness of the situation, neoliberalism and its effects merit a clear,
energetic and unambiguous condemnation, a condemnation that is still weak in
the papal teaching.
We are here faced with a first challenge for the papacy of
tomorrow.
Creating a new vision of development constitutes a major
theoretical and political task, one in which Christian social thinking should
obviously participate. As of now, we have more questions than answers. Some
contributions do, however, exist; and although general and preliminary, they
have significant elements in common. Concretely, they agree on the thesis that
human (and natural) life be located at the center of development.
This means that human well-being must be hierarchized as the
ultimate and exclusive objective of development. It must be the principal and
constitutive element, not a complementary piece subordinated to higher
purposes, such as economic growth or the search for profits and competitiveness
in the market. It must be the final end of the activity, never a means toward
another end, an instrument of production, a merchandise at the service of
accumulation and private gain. These, of course, are points already stressed by
Paul VI and reaffirmed by John Paul II.
When, however, we place human (and natural) life at the center of
development, a criterion -- alternative to that of the market and also
universal -- inescapably follows. This criterion has to be alternative, because
life hierarchized as the center of development is incompatible with the
neoclassical and neoliberal utopia of the capitalist market as the best
mechanism for the assignment of resources and the satisfaction of needs. To
attempt to achieve these two objectives simultaneously is a contradiction in
terms, one that -- as already noted -- is present in John Pauls social
teaching and creates another challenge for the future of papal social
teaching.
If, moreover, human (and natural) life is located at the very
center of development, and if in addition survival is at risk, it follows, in
our opinion, that the reproduction of life defines this alternative criterion.
This reproduction, nevertheless, is not limited to survival, even though
survival constitutes the acute and insistent challenge for vast numbers of
human beings.
Neither is it limited to the needs identified as
basic, even though these are increasingly left unsatisfied for
growing segments of the worlds peoples. Nor is it limited to the material
world. In consequence, there is emerging the notion of expanded reproduction of
life, that is to say the concept that all life on earth is in danger and not
just human life. This is an idea that fits in with the principle of the
universal destiny of goods (which is focused rather on distribution and
inequality).
Now, if the expanded reproduction of life (or similar concepts) is
really hierarchized as the end, then no means can be rejected a priori. In
consequence, neither can we crystallize absolutes as regards ownership of the
means of production.
This is even truer of capitalist appropriation, the basis of a
mercantile economic form that yields inequality. And it is still less logical
to appeal to the natural and the sacred as justifying that system. Here we have
yet another contradiction and a new challenge affecting a typical thesis of
papal social teaching.
In the last analysis, only if this reproduction is truly
consecrated as an end -- without ambiguities or restrictions imposed by the
means -- can it function as a universal and alternative criterion of judgment
on any historic form of ownership, and as a criterion of economic organization.
Ana Maria Ezcurra, who lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is a
psychologist and a specialist in Latin America studies. She coordinates
research on education and on society and religion at the Institute of Studies
and Social Action in Buenos Aires. Her many books include several studies of
Vatican politics. This is the eighth of 11 articles, edited by Gary MacEoin, to
be expanded and published as a book, The Papacy and the People of God
(Orbis Books).
National Catholic Reporter, December 5,
1997
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