Dogmatic Liberal Capitalism is contrary to the Social Doctrine of the Church. To adhere to this political dogma is to opt out of Catholic Social Teaching, and to allow the world to define right from wrong rather than adhering to the Pillar of Truth.
Dogmatic Socialism/Marxism/Communism is contrary to the Social Doctrine of the Church. To adhere to this political dogma is to opt out of Catholic Social Teaching, and to allow the world to define right from wrong rather than adhering to the Pillar of Truth.
In both sides of a political debate, what you have here is one side that emphasizes commutative justice to the exclusion of distributive justice, or distributive justice to the exclusive of commutative justice. Simply put, its a lack of integration between the two, which is dynamic and must involve an ongoing discernment from one moment to the next. As St. John Henry Newman put it, most theological and philosophical truths are holistically understood when they subsist in a healthy tension with one another.
Yet, if we are raised in an environment that only submits two possible options, we develop a myopic either-or mentality. For example, we discover that in the doctrine on the Incarnation, Christ was both fully human and fully Divine, subsisting in a union by the very Person of the Son. Yet if we emphasize one to the exclusion of the other or compromise on both, we enter into error.
Likewise when we emphasize subsidiarity to the exclusion of solidarity, or solidarity to the exclusion of subsidiarity, we find ourselves only adding to the extremism on both sides of the debate.
If we emphasize “private property” to the exclusion of its ordering towards the universal and common good, we foster a self-referential system that inordinately disposes one towards an individualism that doesn’t understand its responsibilities, yet emphasizes his/her liberties.
The same is true for those who emphasize the obliteration of “private property” in order to serve the common good (technically greater good in this case), for in doing so we overstep and become a micromanaging system that does not entrust authority and regulation to competent persons, whereby we foster a dictatorship.
I think many have a difficult time, because simply put, they need to “blow-up” the myopic “either-or” method of assessing economic philosophy, and start over again. And I believe it can be aided by understanding a few things first:
(1) Original Sin and the impact of having no regulatory laws, or too many laws;
(2) Commutative Justice and Distributive Justice;
(3) What the Common Good is and how it differs from the Private Good;
(4) How the Private Good is ordered towards the Common-Good, the Common-Good to the Universal Good and the Universal Good to God (the Uncreated Good).
Without this sense of order, an avoidance of the naïveté to Original Sin, and micromanaging the effects of man’s inborn addiction to sin, leads only to exterior conversion through coercion but not actual interior change.
It must be noted that those who emphasize liberal capitalism want to avoid accountability for what they do with their private ownership; while those who emphasize a socialist doctrine do not want to be held accountable for their use of power or coercion. Accountability, however, is always in a discernment of what is good, and therefore all things must be ultimately ordered towards God for such accountability to be conducted well.
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Photo: Shea Rouda, Unsplash / PD-US
