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Capitalism re-clarified, from a different perspective I read Regina Schmiedicke's Issue 3 article on capitalism and agree with some of her statements but not all of them. I also read the counter articles by alumna Martha Blandford and by Michael Welker, who teaches in the economic department at Franciscan University. With all due respect to my colleague and Mrs. Blandford I feel the need to respond to their articles. Let me begin with Mrs. Blandford's. In disputing Regina's critique of capitalism, she states that "true capitalism has never existed; the closest to it was the U.S. economy before the turn of the century. History notes that social and technological progress was unprecedented during that time." This may be true, but exploitation of the newly arriving southern, central and eastern Europeans was perhaps at its peak as well. Parrillo (1990) in his book Strangers to These Shores writes: "At that time [the 19th century] the worker had no voice in working conditions...the fourteen-hour day, six days a week for low wages was common. There were no vacations, sick pay, or pension plans. Child labor was a norm...there was no workers' compensation if, as was likely, someone was injured on the job. A worker who objected was likely to be fired and blacklisted." If this was the great period of true capitalism then I certainly hope we do not achieve it again. Mrs. Blandford also states that the "truth about its [capitalism's] nature... has been drowned in a wave of misrepresentations, distortions, falsifications and almost universal ignorance." The acceptance of such a statement often depends on where one is located within a stratified system. It is certainly not a lie that the richest 20% in the U.S. own or control 80% of the country's wealth. Wealth is defined as that total amount of money and valuable goods that a person or family controls--including stocks, bonds and real estate. The poorest 20% own or control 1% of the wealth in the U.S. The top 20% of families with the highest earnings ($64,000 plus) receive 44.6% of all income, while the bottom 20% receive only about 4.4 percent. Income is defined as occupational wages or salaries and earnings from investments (Macionis, 1995 source). The point is, if one is in the top 20% one might say the system is fair, non-exploitive, and morally correct. If one is in the bottom 20% or even in the second 20%, which only owns or controls 15% of the nation's wealth, one might have a different view of the system. One could have a different point of view and not be universally ignorant; one might understand economic theory very well. What emerges from the facts is that most systems, economic or otherwise, need checks and balances. Sometimes the check on a free-market economy or a "true capitalistic" system is a government consisting of elected officials who have a moral concern for all people within the system. This does not mean the government is without flaw. All systems, because they consist of human beings, have the potential for exploitation. Now to address Prof. Welker and his criticisms of Regina Schmiedicke's article on capitalism. He states that "the best method is to start at the bottom...that is, at the level of moral persuasion, education on economic literacy and our Christian heritage, and personal conversion." I agree with this statement in principle; unfortunately many people--from the top to the bottom--have not arrived at this state of being. To simply expect corporations to take care of their workers out of some great moral concern has not worked in the past, nor do I think we can expect a change of heart in the near future. Therefore, the masses of people have a moral right to expect and persuade the government to intervene on their behalf: to help them obtain a just wage; to help them obtain a 40-hour work week; to help them get access to supplemental pension plans like social security; to help them get medical insurance; and to help them when corporations downsize to enhance their profit or pay a lower wage in another country. Prof. Welker also quotes Hayek who writes, "workers under capitalism, despite hardships of factory life, were better off financially and had better lives than prior to the spread of capitalism." This is probably true, but it does not justify any exploitation by corporations operating within a capitalistic system. A similar argument was made by many southern plantation owners concerning slavery. They argued, as did some southern white ministers, that slavery was an essential part of a great economic system, and that African Americans benefited from that system. Easy to say for those who are not the slaves. I would like to end with a number of quotes from various Popes. First, Pope Leo XIII, who said: "let workers and employers...make any bargains they like and in particular agree freely about wages; nevertheless, there underlies a requirement of natural justice higher and older than any bargain voluntarily struck; the wage ought not to be in any way insufficient...If...a worker is forced to accept harder conditions imposed by an employer or contractor, he is a victim of violence against which justice cries out." As history shows, the natural checks and balances of the marketplace are not enough to protect individual human beings from injustice. The government, at times, should and must intervene. Pope John XXIII states, "the remuneration of work is not something that could be left to the laws of the marketplace...It must be determined in accordance with justice and equity which require that workers must be paid a wage that allows them to live a truly human life and to fulfill their family obligations." Finally, Pope John Paul II stated, "the more that individuals are defenseless...the more they require the care and concern of others, and in particular the intervention of governmental authority."
Thomas E. Graham, Ph.D.
I would like to thank David Bradshaw for his thoughtful criticisms of my article on corporate repentance, and especially for the Orthodox perspective he brings to the discussion, which helps me to further nuance and support my claims. Mr. Bradshaw rightly points out that repentance (metanoia, change of mind) is more than a matter of expressing regret or sorrow for sin. It also includes as one of its essential components a turning away from sin toward God--something which demands much more humility and self-denial. I heartily agree. But this act of turning and casting oneself on God's mercy, while it is primordially personal, nevertheless can and should have a corporate dimension just as sin has a corporate dimension. Jesus himself spoke in terms of this social aspect of sin when he said, "an evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign" and "the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, will be required of this generation." John the Baptist's ministry was to initiate repentance on both an individual and a national level, to "turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared." This act of turning is precisely what characterized the prayers of Daniel and Nehemiah. They might be called prayers of intercessory repentance: a spokesman acknowledges the people's sin (including his own part in it, however small), expresses a resolve (both his own and the people's) to turn away from sin, and implores God's mercy. One of the most potent aspects of such prayer is its ability to shed light on one's own hidden complicity in the sinful attitudes that give rise to the sin itself. For instance, if I fervently pray in intercessory repentance for the sin of contraception, even if I have never committed that sin, I might begin to recognize my own devaluing of human life, self-centered attitudes toward sexuality, disrespect for God's order, etc. But even more, any sins at all which I have committed have contributed (in however minute a way) to the societal situation in which such a sin is possible. My failure to love has affected others, who have affected others in turn, in a ripple effect which gets continuously broader as it gets less intense. Repentance and divine forgiveness reverse the ripple.* The ramifications of solidarity are felt even in natural human relations: insofar as an individual identifies himself with a group, he takes on in a certain way both the collective merits and the collective culpabilities of that group. Otherwise there is no way to make sense of such things as the "national apologies" which Japan and Germany have recently made for the crimes of World War II--crimes committed by the parents and grandparents of the present generation. All the more do those in the Church, who are incorporated into her through a living spiritual union, inherit both the merits and sins of their elders in the faith. Must the corporate repentance the Pope is calling for be completely unanimous in order to be valid? Surely the obstinacy of some does not annul the good act of the rest--if anything, the reverse is true (recall Abraham's plea with God to spare Sodom for the sake of a few righteous men). In a Church of 1 billion-plus members it is unlikely that we will ever see anything like unanimity on earth. The Church will always contain saints and sinners and a large crowd in between. Yet the spiritual unity of the Church allows the actions of a part to affect the whole. Regarding the vital issue of unity between the Church of East and West: it may be true, as Mr. Bradshaw maintained, that past atrocities have little bearing on the estrangement of the present (although they may have more than he realizes--historical memory can be both subtle and powerful). But even if they had caused no estrangement at all, there would still be a need to corporately repent for them, to do what our ancestors could or would not do: consciously acknowledge the evil for what it was, be sorry for it, turn away from it, resolve never to repeat it. Apart from this the evil perpetrated remains in a certain way "at large" in the world. Visible acts of reform are, of course, desperately needed as well. But any corporate reforms without the interior change of heart and horror of sin that corporate repentance brings would be a mere face-lift. More importantly, granted that all the problems Mr. Bradshaw mentions--and many more--are present in the Catholic Church, why should we not want to tackle these problems together? Faithful Catholics can empathize wholeheartedly with his consternation over the scandalous problems in the Church. As he is aware, one could just as easily list grave problems present in the Orthodox churches: lack of doctrinal and ecclesial unity, secularism (especially in the Orthodox communities of the West), inadequate formation of the clergy (especially in the East), inability to adapt to circumstances, to name a few. When has the Church not had to deal with problems of one kind or another? They do not lessen that fact that the Church is the body of Christ and that our unity is directly willed by him. The answer, then, is not to entrench ourselves against one another but to come closer together in humility and cooperation, seeking to benefit from each other's strengths in renewing the Church.
Mary Healy, MA class of '89
Elizabeth Magaletta replies to Michael Healy on Feminism Michael Healy's disagreement with my argument has, as it seems to me, two roots: he does not perceive that masculinism confers on men more than ego benefits, nor that all men benefit from living in a masculinist culture, regardless of whether they are themselves guilty of chauvinistic attitudes. But they do; and so it cannot be claimed that women need defense only from "certain" men and that feminism is therefore unnecessary. For example: if I live in a society in which the laws against domestic violence are spottily and reluctantly enforced, I can, regardless of whether he actually beats me, be said to lack protection from my husband. Now a neutralist such as Healy might here point out that, if my husband is not a batterer, I don't need such protection. But whether he is a batterer or not is beyond my control. By failing to effectively or consistently punish wife-beating, society has left the decision of whether to beat me up to my husband. I am at his mercy. This is not to belittle the goodwill of men who would never do such a thing, but only to note that for society to leave women to rely, individually, on such goodwill, means putting them in an unacceptable state of helpless dependence. All women, therefore, need protection from all men. We must always be on our guard, because the level of protection extended to women at any given time is contingent on a wide and dynamic range of social and political factors. The name for this rationally vigilant stance is feminism. It might seem that we are now far afield from the points I brought in my original essay. But think of what the social factors might be, which would prevent society from protecting women from oppression. Surely the prevalence of what I have called "masculinism" would be close to the top of the list. I do not accuse masculinists of wishing to deny women protection from oppression and abuse; but if woman is found inferior, or if her worth is somehow relativized to man's, her claim to such protection is lessened considerably. The problem, then, is not simply one of "insulting" or "denigrating" one or the other sex--of hurting people's feelings--but rather one of human rights and civil liberties. Healy notes, though, that some feminists insult and denigrate men. Granted. But these attacks generally stay on the level of middle-class Western academic or political discourse, whereas for millennia masculinist "insults" have been the ideological foundation of systems in which women are disenfranchised, denied education, raped, enslaved, tortured, forcibly sterilized, starved, mutilated, imprisoned, beaten and killed. One major source of resistance to feminism is that many people, although shocked at these injustices, perpetrated against women by men, do not see that they are all, to a greater or lesser degree, perpetrated against women considered as women. My statement that all women need protection from all men does not mean that every man is the kind of man from whom all women need protection; it does mean that every woman needs protection from that kind of man. Feminism works to change both laws and attitudes and thereby to keep women secure in their rights. It also, quite naturally, participates in the debate as to what kinds of things are oppressive of women. The range of answers given to this question sometimes runs to extremes. These extremes do not invalidate feminism as such.
Elizabeth Magaletta, Junior, classics and philosophy
Regina Schmiedicke defends the third way The responses in Issue 5 to my Issue 3 article criticizing the excesses ofcapitalism and proposing that distributism offers a "more Catholic" alternative have made me realize that I need to explain more fully what distributism means. For instance, both Michael Welker and Martha Blandford have virtually identified it with Marxism, which it is not. The name "distributism" is perhaps misleading. It was coined by a group of thinkers in England around the turn of the century who proposed that the government help bring about an economic recovery for the nation by passing a bill making it financially feasible for owners of large plots of land to sell them off in smaller parcels to individual families, to allow people from the underclass to become self-sufficient. In other words, distributists were calling for a voluntary distribution of land and resources, with no government coercion, just government incentives. This is nothing like communism. Bear in mind, too, that England was then still pretty much ordered according to the landowners and serfs of feudal times. Thinkers pushing to "democratize" English society recognized that political rights for the underclass would mean nothing without corresponding economic rights. But I suppose if someone is not aware of the historical context, the term "distributism" might suggest the idea of government forcibly "re-distributing" resources, as the Marxists and welfare-state bureaucrats envision. It apparently did to Mrs. Blandford, since she reads government coercion into my proposals for subsidiarity, although I said nothing of the sort. Government action is certainly not the only way social change can be brought about. In fact, I would argue that although a government might attempt to bring about a distributist-type society by law, such a society would be both unjust and unstable. In order to last, a distributist society must be built from the ground up--by individuals, families and businesses deciding to live out distributive principles and conducting their business accordingly. I would add here that trying to live out distributism generally involves some type of simplification of lifestyle--really, a conversion of heart away from materialism and profit motives. Should society decide to adopt distributism, there are ways to maintain it that do not involve the government at all. Consider the medieval guilds. They were run by the business owners themselves, who set standards of quality, arranged for fair prices, and initiated apprentices into the trade through a system of training and promotion that allowed opportunities for anyone who was willing to make something of himself. The guilds protected the individual owner's freedom and dignity by allowing him to exercise his ability to work, to create, and to build within parameters that not only set limits on individual avarice but fostered solidarity among would-be competitors. The guilds were famous for their town entertainments and parties, which were organized by all the members. As the economic foundation of the society, they accomplished their purpose admirably. Today, guilds exist in a modified form under the name "occupational groups" in some locations. Papal encyclicals have repeatedly called for the revival of occupational groups as a way for individuals to achieve social justice in a marketplace that favors giantism. If we were to look beyond trade groups and guilds, there is room for government legislation to encourage distributism. For example, the state government could decide to set a tax on chains--a business that owned only one store would be given a tax break, where businesses that had several stores would be taxed accordingly, making mega-chains financially punitive. The same could be done with huge agribusinesses, to make the family farm a financially viable venture once more. These sorts of laws might hamper the "liberty" of big business, but they would undoubtedly enhance the freedom of the community to live more personally and wholesomely. But we need not wait for legislation to start living more "distributively" ourselves, that is, in ways that I think reflect our Faith and our humanity more perfectly than our unquestioning participation in the market-at-large does. I already mentioned patronizing local businesses, which not only give more money back to the community than outsider-owned chains, but are more susceptible to local influence. For example, it would probably be easier to get the locally-owned pharmacy to stop selling Playboy than the nearest Stop n' Go. A good rule is to avoid malls whenever possible. Malls impoverish the downtown areas of cities, which have been the traditional havens of individual owners and new businesses. The effect of the Fort Steuben mall on the downtown area is obvious to anyone who has driven through Steubenville. I realize that, for most of us, finding a low price on an item we need tends to take priority over where it comes from. And it's generally true (but not always true!) that prices in chain stores are lower. But the short-term benefits are miniscule compared with the long-term effects on the consumer and the economy. Wal-Mart has been praised as a "moral" and "family-friendly" company. However, the company has become notorious for its predatory underpricing. When it moves into an area, it deliberately underprices many of its goods (it can afford to), which forces the local auto parts stores, clothing stores, pharmacies, bookstores, and so on, to lower their prices, which few of them can afford to do. People (including sometimes, I admit, myself) flock to Wal-Mart to find good deals. It's tempting to buy cheap. But when Wal-Mart has put all the competition out of business, will it remain so cheap--or so moral? I hate to sound ominous, but the situation is rapidly getting desperate and very few people apparently see where thoughtless consumerism and praise of capitalism is leading our nation's economy, never mind our culture. If indeed we do experience the economic collapse many think likely, will McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Lowe's, IBM, AT&T, Lockheed Martin and the other monster corporations be able to salvage the families of all their employees? I harbor serious doubts. Many of them can't keep their workers employed now. It's become almost a matter of principle to search out local farmers and buy our produce direct, to dine at the local restaurants, or only buy handmade toys from small catalog companies or craft fairs-more expensive than ToysRus, but worth the price! There are fewer unpleasant encounters with crass advertising, less canned music, more friendly exchanges with owners. If we as Catholics value opportunity, if we value a diverse and rich marketplace, if we value our families and a family-centered culture, then we should work towards family-centered economics. It only makes sense.
Regina (Doman) Schmiedicke, Class of '92
© The University Concourse, December 6, 1996 |
