Light On Dark Water

Rush Limbaugh Vs. the Pope

I'm pretty sure it was 1992 when I first heard Rush Limbaugh, because I remember him talking about Bill Clinton's presidential campaign. It's hard for people who weren't around, and of conservative sympathies, at that time to understand how much fun it was when he came on the scene. Almost all the media, electronic and print, were conventionally liberal. There were a few token conservatives in the national media, like George Will, and there were the conservative magazines like National Review, but they were unheard outside the conservative ghetto. Suddenly there was this very irreverent and very prominent voice from the right, happily ridiculing all sorts of liberal persons and ideas that had always been treated with most solemn respect in the media. Limbaugh was witty and glib and didn't take himself too seriously, and was often rather insightful. I only heard him in brief snatches, if I happened to be driving around in the middle of the day when he was on. But I enjoyed what I heard.

The fun didn't last very long, though. I'm not sure whether Limbaugh got worse or I just got tired of him, but it seemed that bombast took over, and crude, often inaccurate and unfair, bludgeoning replaced wit. So within a few years I pretty much stopped listening to him, and have heard him only a very few times since then.

Not long after Evangelii Gaudium appeared, I read that Limbaugh had called it "pure Marxism." I thought that was pretty stupid, and wondered if that phrase was a fair representation of what he said, so I looked up the transcript. Yes, the Marxism quote was accurate and not unfairly pulled out of context. To extract and cite it was not even unkind, because the talk is such a rambling mess that one could hardly even mount an argument against it. I doubt very much that Limbaugh read more than a few snippets of EG; in fact it isn't clear that he read anything more than the news reports of it. But if he did read it, he's even dumber than the transcript makes him seem. I never took him for an intellectual but he did seem intelligent.  If you want to bother reading the transcript, it's here. There's not a funny remark in it. And that is one ugly web site.

Maclin Horton
, , ,

144 responses to “Rush Limbaugh Vs. the Pope”

  1. Art Deco

    In fairness to Limbaugh, very few people can talk on the radio for 15 hours a week and hold an audience, much less avoid uttering inanities.
    It is also indicative of starboard talk entering a fallow period.
    You see rank and file Republicans throw around political terms like generic insults. “Obama Marxist Regime” is a nonsense phrase. Call him a Marxist, call him a jerk, call him a fag (the generic insult when I was in junior high school), call him a horse’s ass (the generic insult my mother’s contemporaries favored), what’s the difference?
    If the stupids have taken over popular talk.

    Reply
  2. Mac

    Sure, he’s very gifted at what he does, or at least he used to be. But gosh…even allowing for the fact that this is a transcript of a stream of extemporaneous talk, it’s pretty poor.
    It seems like maybe 80% or so of political debate nowadays is just “nyah nyah nyah.” I hear a lot of very stupid and very nasty name-calling between Auburn and Alabama fans, and it occurred to me the other day that a great deal of political talk is pretty much the same sort of thing. Many exchanges would serve their purposes just as well if “Auburn” and “Alabama” were changed to “Democrat” and “Republican,” or vice versa.

    Reply
  3. Stu

    As a self-professed liberal I’ve never really listened to Limbaugh. But many years ago, would be circa 1998 as I remember where I was in my car, I happened to turn on the radio and he was speaking. He was ranting about some soccer player in South America who was gay and had done something terrible, I can’t remember what. He made the remark that this was par for the course for soccer players, implying that all soccer players were evidently gay and vicious. I thought, “this is great, now what happens?”, and of course people started calling in very upset. Upset because they loved him, but they also loved soccer! He wouldn’t really come out and say he had misspoken, but said something like, “I guess I was painting with a broad brush”. Anyway, that said, I try not to listen to any political talk on radio or TV. They are paid entertainers, trying to keep their sponsors and make money. They may not even believe what they say. It is hard to imagine, for instance, that Ann Coulter really believes everything she says. She makes Rush sound coherent and thoughtful!

    Reply
  4. Louise

    It seems like maybe 80% or so of political debate nowadays is just “nyah nyah nyah.” I hear a lot of very stupid and very nasty name-calling between Auburn and Alabama fans, and it occurred to me the other day that a great deal of political talk is pretty much the same sort of thing.
    Yes.
    I happened to turn on the radio and he was speaking. He was ranting about some soccer player in South America who was gay and had done something terrible, I can’t remember what. He made the remark that this was par for the course for soccer players, implying that all soccer players were evidently gay and vicious.
    I’m quite a fan of soccer, but this strikes me as rather hilarious. But I would probably get tired very quickly of that kind of thing.

    Reply
  5. Mac

    Whether or not I thought it was funny would depend completely on what was said, the tone, etc. The fact that his own audience was upset suggests that he seemed to be serious.
    But I have to say: hardly a day goes by that I don’t read or hear something equally obnoxious from a liberal or an atheist about conservatives or Christians.
    I haven’t read anything by Ann Coulter for a long time. I used to read her stuff when I ran across it and it was often quite funny in a mean way. But it seemed to get more mean and less funny.

    Reply
  6. Art Deco

    It is not just popular talk. I think Hugh Hewitt may maintain better standards. The thing is, there are various levels of discourse in any political tendency. The next step up would be opinion magazines, but they have all ceased publication or gone flat bar perhaps City Journal; it is hard to think of a prominent opinion journalist under the age of 45 who is engaging to read; Richard Lowry does not seem to be able to recruit any. Then there would be policy journals, but the two most salient, The Public Interest and Policy Review have ceased publication.
    The concerns of the policy shops like AEI are often narrowly tailored and driven by pending legislation and I would wager there are fewer and fewer starboard voices in academe.
    It just seems like a decadent period for the right.

    Reply
  7. Mac

    No argument from me on that last point. Re Richard Lowry’s personnel, I usually find Kevin Williamson entertaining. Offhand I can’t think of anyone else there who is more than ok–I mean, the sort of writer I’ll more or less automatically read just on the basis of his byline. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Hewitt.

    Reply
  8. Grumpy

    I was talking to a conservative friend, and he used to read NRO and I used to read the Spectator (English, not American), and now we don’t read any political magazines. It’s not that we have changed. It’s that the fun has gone out of the writing. Same as with Limbaugh, I guess (I heard of him when I was in the States in 1995, but don’t remember hearing him particularly).

    Reply
  9. Mac

    I’ve sometimes told myself to quit reading them. So many transient alarms…it’s not really worth the time and tension. I did give up my NR subscription several years ago, but I still read their web site. I don’t feel any particular need or desire to give up the New Criterion, but it’s not primarily political.

    Reply
  10. Louise

    It’s not that we have changed. It’s that the fun has gone out of the writing.
    And the fun may even have been it’s power. I think it’s good to laugh at the opposition. I mean those who oppose natural and divine law, not those who simply disagree about method etc.

    Reply
  11. Mac

    It was certainly fun, twenty years ago, to hear Rush Limbaugh openly make fun of people like Jesse Jackson and NOW.

    Reply
  12. Art Deco

    Richard Lowry’s personnel, I usually find Kevin Williamson entertaining. Offhand I can’t think of anyone else there who is more than ok-
    The thing is, Buckley had a variegated and often engaging crew of contributors which included academics such as Erik v. Kuenheldt Leddihn. A dozen years ago, it looked as if National Review could continue in that vein. Nowadays, though, of Lowry’s academics only Thomas Sowell (who is 83 years old) offers contributions with any degree of frequency and the humor writers he employed (e.g. Meghan Cox Gurdon and Florence King) are gone. The most engaging starboard writers now publishing (Megan McArdle and Ross Douthat) have had little or no association with the standing corps of opinion magazines. The younger employees over at National Review, most particularly the managing editor Lowry has employed for 10 years, are a vapid crew for the most part. Unlike other opinion magazines, NR has managed to maintain its circulation, but I would say it is eating its seed corn. You read the comment boxes over there (which have a large population of cranks, to be sure) and you discover something astonishing: the editor and his camarilla irritate the people who read their online edition.

    Reply
  13. Louise

    I can easily believe it, Maclin.

    Reply
  14. Mac

    Well, some of them. I guess, now that you mention it, more than is typical for a site like that. Many political sites that are known outside their own faithful seem to attract people who hate them, not only from the opposition but from other parties within the movement. A curious phenomenon.
    I’m surprised to hear that NR has maintained its circulation.
    I was sorry to see John Derbyshire go. I didn’t care for his brand of conservatism, and sometimes it was appalling, but he was almost always interesting. His apolitical Straggler column was one of the things I missed when I dropped my subscription.

    Reply
  15. Art Deco

    The trolls at National Review are a claque of adolescents. No, I mean professed supporters of something called ‘conservatism’ are dismissive of Lowry and National Review‘s central tendency, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not.
    The thing is, though, you read many of them and you realize something is deeply amiss among the attentive Republican rank-and-file. There is an intense culture of complaint which takes no interest in any kind of constructive policy adjustment and indulges in various sorts of magical thinking (such as the notion that the only institutional adjustments necessary are the repeal of the 16th and 17th amendments). Also, all politicians are contemptible bar the Tea partisan flavor-of-the-month (which is Ted Cruz at this time).

    Reply
  16. Mac

    Yes, I was including both disgruntled right-wingers and lefty trolls in the group that frequents a site they don’t like.
    I think the phenomenon you describe (no interest in constructive policy, etc.) is always there, on both sides of the right/left fence. To some degree it’s natural, in that the prospect of a simple and decisive solution is always appealing. It may be that it’s worse now. It sort of makes sense that it would be, given the general movement toward polarization. On both right and left there’s a sense of uncontrolled drift in a bad direction, and a consequent belief that what’s needed is a dramatic and uncompromising change.

    Reply
  17. Grumpy

    This observation is not calculated to increase my fan base! And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s no connection. But I think it’s because there is no real good conservative thought out there, at least none that is well known, that’s there’s no influence of conservative thought on the Pope’s political and economic thinking. Because, say what you like about Michael Novak, for instance, and I have to say I always liked The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism and admire the guy for writing it, he was an important influence on John Paul II. You can say that’s bullshit I guess and get angry and say the neo-cons only pretended to influence the pope, or that they should not have done. That’s not my point. Whether they should not or not, my observative is that there is no sufficiently interesting Catholic or Christian ‘Starboard’ thought (as Arty would say) out there to influence the Pope. And he only gets his ideas from stuff that’s around. His ideas don’t rain down from the sky. My point needn’t be taken as an evaluation, though everyone who reads this site knows me well enough to know how I evaluate it. But my observation is simply that unless there is good Christian political thought out there, the pope won’t be influenced by it.

    Reply
  18. Mac

    Don’t worry, your true fans will always stand by you.:-)
    I’m not a neo-con despiser, btw, so your positives about Novak are not especially negatives to me. I have my disagreements with them but I don’t think they’re evil subversives, heretics, etc.
    But as to your main point: it’s not a subject I’m remotely expert in, but I think you’re half-right, but only half. I think there is probably some stuff out there worth the pope’s attention, but it isn’t at a level of visibility to have come to his attention.

    Reply
  19. Grumpy

    I did cover myself for that by saying, ‘at least any that is well known’.

    Reply
  20. Art Deco

    Well, I think the Pope in his pronouncements on the economy should stop speaking as if we have to re-invent the aeroplane. There is an engineering solutions that works passably toward certain ends (though not toward all ends). It needs some adaptations and refinements. The Pope might address how the Church’s philanthropic activities might nest within institutions and what the personal obligations of communicants are.

    Reply
  21. Grumpy

    I agree.

    Reply
  22. Mac

    So you did (cover yourself). My bad.
    I think there’s a pretty big divide between those who see reform and gradual change of the existing order as the most viable path toward greater economic justice, and those who want to junk the existing machinery entirely and start over. I’m in the first camp. Some of the pope’s rhetorical flourishes make it sound as if he’s in the second, though I doubt that he actually is.
    “The personal obligations of communicants” is one of the things I had in mind in the longer piece, wishing the pope would speak more concretely to the faithful on this question, rather than–no, make that in addition to–talking in terms of structures and systems.

    Reply
  23. Louise

    “The personal obligations of communicants” is one of the things I had in mind in the longer piece, wishing the pope would speak more concretely to the faithful on this question, rather than–no, make that in addition to–talking in terms of structures and systems.
    I think I almost wish he would speak more concretely to the faithful on this question, rather than talking in terms of structures and systems.
    At any rate, I certainly am more interested in the former.

    Reply
  24. Mac

    I think there’s definitely a place for talking about structures and systems. Sometimes they really do embody sin in a very concrete way. Slavery, to pick an extreme example. But virtue and vice at the personal level logically precede that.

    Reply
  25. Mac

    About Novak and the other pro-capitalism neocons, by the way: I thought at the time (20+ years ago) that they provided a needed corrective to the sort of soft socialism that tended to be the working model of Catholic talk about economic matters. But they had a tendency to err in the other direction, with a much too idealistic conception of how capitalism works. As I’ve often said, none of them seemed to have much knowledge of the actual business world–which is pretty much the same charge I’d make against many of their opponents.

    Reply
  26. Rob G

    Interesting that one of their critics, John Medaille, apparently has a fair amount of business experience. He’s written that ISI book on distributism, but prior to that he’d done a book called The Vocation of Business in which he applies Catholic social teaching to the contemporary business world. I haven’t read it yet, but I have it on request through I.L.L. There’s a chapter available online which is quite the takedown of Novak.

    Reply
  27. Art Deco

    Interesting that one of their critics, John Medaille, apparently has a fair amount of business experience.
    I think he’s a real estate agent. That aside, one of his signatures is his emphatic insistence that contemporary economics is all nonsense. Wouldn’t take him too seriously.

    Reply
  28. Rob G

    We’ll see after I read the book. In the meantime, here’s his chapter on Novak:
    http://www.medaille.com/novak%20and%20capitalism.pdf

    Reply
  29. Louise

    I don’t have a very high opinion of modern economics. Medaille is a real estate agent – or was. I’d like to read his book.

    Reply
  30. Rob G

    I think he also taught/teaches religion at the Univ. of Dallas.

    Reply
  31. Mac

    I have that ISI book (Toward a Truly Free Market?) but haven’t read it. I read a chapter or two and it seemed pretty good, but I have a hard time making myself spend that much time reading about economics. Also, I’ve developed a bit of an aversion to Medaille because he’s so snarky in other things of his I’ve read online. If you’re going to do that, you need to be witty, and he wasn’t.

    Reply
  32. Rob G

    Yes, he does have a bit of an attitude at times. It doesn’t always show up but when it does it’s somewhat off-putting.

    Reply
  33. Mac

    One specific thing I remember is a crude and not even funny sexual joke about Sarah Palin. That put him in the “don’t bother” category for me as far as casual online stuff is concerned. Presumably he doesn’t do that in the book.

    Reply
  34. Rob G

    I certainly hope not!

    Reply
  35. Mac

    I only had time to read a page or so of the document you linked to, but I already hit something I don’t understand: “marginalism.” Is that a technical economic term? Theological?

    Reply
  36. Rob G

    I know it’s an economic term but I’m not sure about its exact definition. I think it has to do with the idea that values of goods & services are based on more than just their actual usefulness, but also on their marginal utility, which includes things like scarcity, tradability, etc. Not sure why he objects to it — I assumed it was something that he must have discussed earlier in the book.

    Reply
  37. Rob G

    Come to think of it, this could be why Medaille thinks “contemporary economics is nonsense.” If it’s all based on marginalism, as he seems to indicate, and he rejects marginalism, then he’d have to have fundamental disagreement with much if not all modern economics.

    Reply
  38. Mac

    Hmm. Well, I don’t think I’ll even venture an opinion on that. But here’s the Wikipedia article.

    Reply
  39. Art Deco

    “I know it’s an economic term but I’m not sure about its exact definition.”
    “Marginalism” is not a term used in economics. “Marginal” is a modifier used, as in ‘marginal utility’ and ‘marginal cost’ and ‘marginal productivity’. Its use in microeconomics mostly concerns the forces which theoretically determine prices, not the ‘value’ of something. I cannot imagine why Medaille finds it objectionable, but then my exchanges with the chap (and with Thomas Storck) have always been unilluminating.
    The last time:
    http://the-american-catholic.com/2010/09/05/on-populism-the-tea-party-and-politics/

    Reply
  40. Mac

    “…the forces which theoretically determine prices, not the ‘value’ of something.”
    Just off the top of my head, I’m not too surprised to hear that they object to that. From what I know of Tom Storck’s views, I can well imagine him wanting to put value in an absolute sense in first place.

    Reply
  41. Art Deco

    Here is Th. Storck
    http://distributistreview.com/mag/2013/05/aquinas-on-buying-and-selling/
    I do not think the topic is worth much of the sort of attention he gives it.

    Reply
  42. Rob G

    “Marginalism” is not a term used in economics
    The wiki piece that Mac linked indicates otherwise.

    Reply
  43. Daniel Nichols

    Well, John certainly displayed a lot more patience with the anonymous “Art” than I ever have in my own disputes with the guy. As a fellow left distributist, he has my sympathy. And if he is to be dismissed because he earned his bread as a realtor then I obviously can be laughed off the stage as a letter carrier. Please. And yes, I am of the school that considers millionaire theologian Novak and his peers as apologists for an evil system and enemies of the poor and of the working class. But then I have evolved into something of a revolutionary, albeit one promoting a “revolution of tenderness” in Francis’ lovely words…

    Reply
  44. Art Deco

    The wiki piece that Mac linked indicates otherwise.
    Waal, I spent nearly 500 hours in lecture halls and seminar rooms suffused with this subject, not to mention the time spent poring over textbooks, scholarly articles, and working papers. I did so at three different institutions. I’ve never heard a working economist utter the term.

    Reply
  45. Art Deco

    And if he is to be dismissed because he earned his bread as a realtor then I obviously can be laughed off the stage as a letter carrier. Please. And yes, I am of the school that considers millionaire theologian Novak and his peers as apologists for an evil system and enemies of the poor and of the working class.
    “Real estate agent” is a banal descriptive term. Rob G said ‘business experience’ and ‘real estate agent’ describes it with specificity. I cannot imagine why it bothers you.
    I am fascinated how you came by personal knowledge of Michael Novak’s balance sheet. Novak is eighty years old and has since he left the seminary been employed as an opinion journalist and think-tank denizen. Generally, salaries in the philanthropic sector have more circumscribed boundaries than they do elsewhere. Novak’s books are not the sort you make a pile out of. (Amy Welborn writes more popular literature than Novak; she once named the sum in royalties she usually receives from her apologetics series: around $14,000 per annum).
    as apologists for an evil system and enemies of the poor and of the working class.
    To which system are you referring?

    Reply
  46. Rob G

    “John certainly displayed a lot more patience…”
    Yes, I was rather surprised that Medaille remained relatively unruffled even when being basically ganged up on. He held his own pretty well, I’d say, without becoming particularly snarky. He served better than he was served, that’s for sure.
    I’ve received word from the library that my ILL request for his book has been fulfilled, and the book has arrived. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to look at it over the wknd and see what all this “marginalism” fuss is about.

    Reply
  47. Mac

    Here is the comment I was trying to post last night when the problem was happening. (And by the way I haven’t read any of the things y’all linked to above, apart from skimming one thing as noted below. Maybe while I’m eating lunch today.)
    Tom is a good guy, and he knows his stuff, and it’s good that he is thinking through these things.
    But I can’t make myself read that piece. I skimmed it, but I just don’t want to take the time to follow the argument in detail.
    Moreover, as much as I sympathize with the broad goals of distributism, I often find myself thinking that distributists are building elaborate machinery (not castles) in the air that wouldn’t work too well if you tried to bring it down to earth. There seems to be a suggestion (like I said, I only skimmed) that someone ought to have the authority to set just prices for everything. Hard to see that working out very well.

    Reply
  48. Art Deco

    Yes, I was rather surprised that Medaille remained relatively unruffled even when being basically ganged up on.
    He starts an argument, offers a number of unsupportable assertions, is obnoxious to various parties, and people responding to him with considerably more concision than he could manage constitute a ‘gang’. Got it.

    Reply
  49. Mac

    Btw, I think Daniel’s “millionaire theologian” jibe refers to a prize that Novak won some years ago–the Templeton prize, maybe?

    Reply
  50. Rob G

    Art, that’s certainly not how it reads to an outside observer. Maybe you’re seeing through the fog of war, but he was far more charitable to his interlocutors than they were to him. And it’s difficult to respond to every single counter-assertion when you’ve got 3 or 4 opponents increasing the number of them with every post.

    Reply
  51. Art Deco

    Maybe you’re seeing through the fog of war, but he was far more charitable to his interlocutors than they were to him.
    Yeah, such gems as
    “Wow! What you said about economists is 10 times worse that what I said; I just said they were ignorant; you’re saying they’re stupid. And Art, if they couldn’t see this train wreck coming, I see no reason to take their word on trade, or taxes, or anything else. ”
    Please yourself, Rob.

    Reply
  52. Art Deco

    Btw, I think Daniel’s “millionaire theologian” jibe refers to a prize that Novak won some years ago–the Templeton prize, maybe?
    It was a prize of 800,000 sterling awarded twenty years ago, when Novak was past 60. Presumably some of it went to the tax man. What his balance sheet looks like now depends on a number of unspecified ifs.

    Reply
  53. Mac

    Ok, I read as far in that American Catholic exchange as the point where Medaille likens the Tea Party to the Nazis. That was far enough.

    Reply
  54. Grumpy

    I always thought Medaille was a crashing bore. A real A1 saloon bar crasher.
    Did I ever get an explanation of what ‘secular stagnation’ is?

    Reply
  55. Mac

    [laughing]
    He may be right or he may be wrong about abstract economic ideas, but the stuff about the Tea Party was enough to make me discount his appraisal of contemporary politics.
    I don’t think so. I’d forgotten about it. Something Art said, I think?

    Reply
  56. Grumpy

    No I read the term ‘secular stagnation’ and I had never heard the word ‘secular’ used outside of a religious context. So with Art being the resident economics expert, I asked him.

    Reply
  57. Mac

    I found it (the search function here sometimes actually works). It’s in a comment on my first EG post. I’ll just paste it in here for convenience:
    “Art Deco: No, the comparison is very relevant. There is a secular trend in which labor is less physically taxing and hazardous.
    Art, could you explain what ‘secular’ means in this context? I came across the term ‘secular stagnation’ a few weeks ago. I could not figure out what it means. I asked two other theologians, and like me, they had never heard the term ‘secular’ to have any other meanings than those that relate to religion. Obviously in latin, the saeculum is the world, so it could mean ‘worldly’ – but I do not know what ‘worldly stagnation’ is, or what a ‘worldly trend’ is. Please explain.”

    Reply
  58. Art Deco

    It just refers to evolution over time, with year-to-year static filtered out.

    Reply
  59. Grumpy

    So it was here!
    But what is a ‘secular trend’? One that evolves over time? How could a trend not evolve over time?

    Reply
  60. Marianne

    Here’s Webster’s third definition for “secular”:
    a : occurring once in an age or a century
    b : existing or continuing through ages or centuries
    c : of or relating to a long term of indefinite duration
    and here’s its etymology:
    Middle English, from Anglo-French seculer, from Late Latin saecularis, from saeculum the present world, from Latin, generation, age, century, world; akin to Welsh hoedl lifetime
    and here’s Investopedia on its use in economics:
    An adjective used to describe a long-term time frame, usually at least 10 years. It is important for investors to identify secular trends in markets, not just short-term trends, if they want to succeed. Examples of secular trends include an aging population (which will tend to have different spending and savings habits than a younger population), the expansion of a particular technology (such as the Internet) and heavy reliance on certain commodities (like oil).

    Reply
  61. Daniel Nichols

    The Templeton Prize was a cool million. And I figured that with all his enthusiasm for the virtues of the market that Mr Novak would have invested wisely. And he lived in Chevy Chase MD for very many years, one of the richest zip codes in the country, and now lives in Ave Maria Florida, a ghetto for affluent Catholics. He’s doing fine, thank you. And if AD is the resident expert on economics for LODW….Yikes. Give me ten John Medialles any day.

    Reply
  62. Grumpy

    Well did you know what secular stagnation was? I did not.

    Reply
  63. Daniel Nichols

    No, and I am sure Mr Medaille does not either. In fact I rarely have any clear idea of what Mr Deco is saying, other than it is hostile to me.

    Reply
  64. Art Deco

    And if AD is the resident expert on economics for LODW….Yikes.
    What’s your precise complaint?

    Reply
  65. Art Deco

    And he lived in Chevy Chase MD for very many years, one of the richest zip codes in the country,
    Alexandria, Va. is has income levels supposedly 83% above the national mean. I have a dear friend resident there in an apartment building which includes a pair of retirees, a flight attendant, and a postal worker.

    Reply
  66. Art Deco

    In fact I rarely have any clear idea of what Mr Deco is saying, other than it is hostile to me.
    ‘Secular stagnation’ is not a term I used. (I do not know what is stagnating, for one thing).
    No, Daniel. I am critical of what you say. The hostility is yours.

    Reply
  67. Mac

    Thanks, Marianne. I certainly had never heard that use of “secular” before.

    Reply
  68. Art Deco

    Chevy Chase, Md is as we speak abnormally affluent, with income levels about 3x national means. Collier County, Fla, has income levels about 38% above national means, or similar to a typical location somewhere in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan settlement. Rumor has it there are cheap apartments in Newark.
    That aside, the population of Collier County is 321,000, too large to be a ghetto in aught but the most globular metropolitan centers.

    Reply
  69. Grumpy

    Neither had I.
    Art, you said ‘secular trend’

    Reply
  70. Mac

    I don’t get your point about Collier County FL, Art. If you’re trying to argue against the presumption that Novak is quite well off, it’s probably a losing battle.

    Reply
  71. Art Deco

    I am not really arguing anything about Novak’s balance sheet, because I have not seen it.
    DN referred to Ave Maria, Fla. as a “ghetto for affluent Catholics”. That particular county is too populous to be called a ‘ghetto’. Some communities are above the mean and some are below, Collier County is above the mean, but scarcely farther above the mean than the 20 county New York – New Jersey metropolitan complex. As with the aforementioned residents of Alexandria, Va., non-affluent people do live in affluent neighborhoods. Some place that is as tony as Chevy Chase, that’s not going to be the case bar for an odd oldster here or there. Also, neighborhoods change over time. Chevy Chase was largely constructed ca. 1933 for the burgeoning federal civil service. My mother with her family lived there for ten years, seven of them in a rented house infested with rats. It was an ordinary bourgeois neighborhood then, not a haut bourgeois / patrician neighborhood. (And, of course, middle class living meant one car, a coal furnace you stoked at night, and trouble with rodents). At the time, you could go to inner city high schools if your father was a federal employee; that was considered a perk because the local high school was considered a backwater.
    Again, Novak’s award was 800,000 sterling. Given exchange rates in 1994, that would amount to about $1,200,000. No clue what his tax liability would be. A man his age might have been advised to place 50% in bonds, 10% in the money market, and 40% in equities, shift assets to bonds as he grew older. Nominal equity prices have about quadrupled since 1994. It is a reasonable guess that the portfolio would have a value of about $1.67 millon today with interest and dividend income of about $60,000 before taxes. For someone in Novak’s age group, it would be largely in municipal bonds so mostly tax free. Taxes and fees to portfolio managers would take about a third of that, leaving him $40,000 to spend.
    By the way, the Sandalista just inaugurated as Mayor of New York has home equity worth $1.4 million. He is 52 and has worked in the public and philanthropic sector all his life.
    There’s nothing about defending capitalism in print that makes you a shrewd investor, and I would wager Novak isn’t. He’s a lapsed seminarian who verbalizes for a living.
    Daniel brought up Novak’s balance sheet to discredit him, a logical fallacy sufficiently distinct that it has an ancient proper name. Even were the argument valid, it would be irrelevant in Novak’s case as he wrote The Spirit of Democratic Capitlism 11 years before the Templeton Foundation conferred that six-figure bon bon on him.

    Reply
  72. Mac

    Oh I see, I hadn’t noticed Daniel’s “ghetto” reference.
    Setting aside Novak’s evil ways, and speaking of affluence in the DC area, I’ve seen several references over the past few months to that area now being at, or within a place or two of, the list of wealthiest areas in the country. That strikes me as a pretty bad sign. A bloated capitol city seems a marker of decline.

    Reply
  73. Grumpy

    Dan one of the many things I like about LODW is that we get the whole spectrum of Christian political opinions here.

    Reply
  74. Marianne

    Art’s mention of rats in Chevy Chase reminded me of my house-sitting experience there in 2003. They were not only in the basement of the grand house I was in — I had to make loud noises when descending the stairs to do my laundry to let them know to hide, but they were also about outside at night so that I had to keep a sharp eye out for them on the walk from my car to the house. And once as I stood by a window drinking my morning coffee, I saw two run across the lush back lawn. Freaky.

    Reply
  75. Mac

    They need a cat or two. I live in a somewhat wooded area and I know the rats have got to be out there, but we’ve always had at least two cats, with at least one living mostly outside, and we never see either rats or mice.
    Thanks, Grumpy. I’m definitely a Big Tent sort of guy when it comes to Christians and politics.

    Reply
  76. Mac

    Maybe in part because my expectations of politics are quite low.

    Reply
  77. Grumpy

    I said ‘Christian’ because there are some political ideas which are just out for any of us, for instance any kind of Ayn Rand no safety-net for the poor libertarianism, or any form of national socialism or plain socialism makes the State a Church, something deserving absolute allegiance, or the deification of insurance companies.

    Reply
  78. Mac

    Agreed. The tent can be big, but it still has an inside and an outside.

    Reply
  79. Robert Gotcher

    Esp. deification of the insurance companies. 🙂

    Reply
  80. Mac

    Though I don’t think I’ve run across that particular heresy….

    Reply
  81. Robert Gotcher

    I’m all for condemning things before the rear their ugly heads. 🙂

    Reply
  82. Mac

    A sound policy.

    Reply
  83. Daniel Nichols

    Art, you asked for precise complaints. Well, and this is not restricted to your economic “expertise”, for one, your habit of stating convoluted rebuttals to the obvious. Yeah, I’m sure Novak lived in rat-infested hovels in Chevy Chase, or shared apartment buildings with my brother letter carriers. And if you think mentioning someone’s wealth is an ad hominem when the discussion is about poverty and justice I really don’t know what to say. One’s life experience is relevant in the extreme when one is discussing the socio/economic system. Capitalism has been very good to Mr Novak. But this is what you do. God knows what satisfaction you receive for constructing elaborate defenses for the indefensible; maybe you are just a contrarian; in which case I can sympathize
    And by the way, my knowledge of Chevy Chase is not merely academic. I had a girlfriend, a very serious one, in my mid-twenties, who lived in a big house overlooking Rock Creek Park. I spent a lot of time there, and after returning to the Church, worshipping at Blessed Sacrament on Chevy Chase Circle.

    Reply
  84. Grumpy

    Michael Novak has not done all that well out of capitalism. He got his million or whatever from winning a prize, not from buying or selling or trading or investing.
    I take your point, that things look very different if one is rich or poor. But, as Mac pointed out, he wrote most of his influential books before he got that prize. So he cannot simply have been blinded by wealth. As several of us said, it is quite true that he is naïve about the ways of business. He’s a bit of an egg head.
    He did his best writing at a time when a secular leftism had infiltrated Catholic thinking about politics. He did well to criticize it, and he did not only hit back with a secular conservativism. He spoke of the necessary Jewish or Christian and religious underpinnings of a market economy.

    Reply
  85. Art Deco

    Daniel, whatever I “think” of it, the argument is ad hominem. That aside, it is irrelevant given the sequence of events in his biography, both because his writings preceded the award and because he is not defending his own life and vocation; the man has no history in the business sectors and neither did his wife.
    You have a terrible time interpreting what people say to you and apprehending why they are saying it.
    You have not offered any coherent complaint about my remarks on economic topics, or my background in the subject. I am not an expert. I have had just enough instruction to recognize when someone talks rot, and John Medaille talks rot. Sorry to break it to you.

    Reply
  86. Daniel Nichols

    Micheal Novak, though, received his prize for his work defending capitalism, so in that sense the system has been very good to him: he gives the capitalists the moral structure they need, and they pay him well. Not that I think he was mercenary in writing that stuff; at that point he was reacting to the naive leftism of his younger years; like most neoconservatives he simply switched ideologies, sort of like when I was young and became disillusioned with the American nationalism that had been drummed into my head. I simply started wearing a NLF flag on my lapel instead of an American one.
    And Artie: I also recognize when someone talks rot.

    Reply
  87. Mac

    Quite a rogue’s gallery of capitalist tools here.

    Reply
  88. Grumpy

    If only I could find some way of intimating to the Templeton people that I am a capitalist look like the 14th Dalai Lama! If only someone would tell them I’m a capitalist tool like Charles Taylor. I have applied three times for a Templeton grant in the last 18 months with no success at all. If only someone could just hint to them that I am a life long believer in the superiority of the market economy, despite my thorough going ignorance of such economic terms as ‘secular’ and marginal!
    Has anyone ever hinted to them, perhaps, that I regard American capitalism as the only form of successful communism, creating such a dominance of cheap, affordable machine made goods over beautiful handmade artifacts that only the wealthy capitalist nomenclatura class can afford to avoid socialist uniformity?
    OK Templeton guys, I have a few elitist thoughts, but deep down, I’m a capitalist tool!

    Reply
  89. Daniel Nichols

    And an aspiring sellout. :^)
    Of course the Templeton prize has gone to a wide variety of people, many not friendly to capitalism. I’m sure various influences have swayed whatever committee makes the choice. It’s all pretty political, like the Nobel prizes. But Novak won for his work favoring capitalism, and got rich for his efforts. That is all I am saying. And I should note that what changed him from a socialist to a pro-market conservative was reflection on his family’s story: from Slovak peasant immigrants to prosperous factory workers who gave him a college education and a ticket out of Johnstown. Problem is, the guy is 80, and still talks as if that is the status quo. That and I do not see him acknowledging that his family’s prosperity was not handed to them by benevolent owners, but was wrested from them by the efforts and sacrifices -sometimes to the point of death- of organized labor.

    Reply
  90. Daniel Nichols

    Wrested, that is, from the owners.

    Reply
  91. Mac

    Your second paragraph has blown several fuses in my brain.
    I do think there’s some potential here for you to impress the Templetonians. You could tweak your 1 Samuel book to emphasize the fact that the Israelites recognized that they would be better off having a rich guy rule over them, and God, in a pragmatic recognition of human weakness, decided to make the best of it and reluctantly agreed.

    Reply
  92. Mac

    Cross-posted–I was replying to Grumpy.

    Reply
  93. Rob G

    Economist Herman Daly has written that one of the things wrong with modern economic thinking is that is no longer a fully-orbed study that includes ethical and philosophical aspects, but that it has been reduced to what used to be called chrematistics, that is the “science” of making money.
    In other words, economics is no longer a humane science but is instead an extended exercise in number-crunching. The mathematical, chrematistic aspect of economics has become the whole hog. It seems that anyone who takes this reductionist approach to economics wouldn’t have much time for a Medaille or a Schumacher or a Roepke, or even someone like Fr. Albino Barrera, who has advanced degrees in both theology and economics.
    I’m with Daniel – I like a little philosophy/theology to come with my economics. Otherwise, it’s just glorified mathematics.

    Reply
  94. Art Deco

    That and I do not see him acknowledging that his family’s prosperity was not handed to them by benevolent owners, but was wrested from them by the efforts and sacrifices -sometimes to the point of death- of organized labor.
    Organized labor is not responsible for domestic prosperity. The activities of organized labor can shift some income around, mainly from various other parties to their clientele. The various other parties include unorganized workers, who tend to be lower-skill and fairly impecunious.

    Reply
  95. Mac

    “I like a little philosophy/theology to come with my economics.”
    I certainly wouldn’t argue with that, and I don’t think anyone else here would. Nor, for that matter, would Novak, from what I’ve read of him. No doubt there’s a place for studying economic data alone, as a sociologist studies social data. But economics in the larger sense, of trying to understand and prescribe–certainly that can’t be pursued in isolation from theological/philosophical questions.

    Reply
  96. Art Deco

    I’m with Daniel – I like a little philosophy/theology to come with my economics. Otherwise, it’s just glorified mathematics.
    You are presupposing a skill set most economists do not have. Most of them are also fairly conservative about the extent of their actual expertise.

    Reply
  97. Art Deco

    It seems that anyone who takes this reductionist approach to economics wouldn’t have much time for a Medaille or a Schumacher or a Roepke, or even someone like Fr. Albino Barrera,
    No, they would regard it as tangential to economic discourse and something they, as economists, were not much better at than the next fellow. (And the real problem with Medaille is with his positive statements, not his normative ones).

    Reply
  98. Mac

    You seem to be using the term “economics” in the sense I mentioned above, studying the data from a more or less detached quasi-scientific point of view. Which I guess is how the academic discipline of economics understands itself. Whereas someone like Novak or Medaille is looking at economic life from a philosophicial/theological perspective.

    Reply
  99. Art Deco

    Medialle may look at it that way. He also makes pronouncements on current economic conditions and the utility of economics as a discipline.

    Reply
  100. Mac

    Daniel said, further back somewhere: “But Novak won for his work favoring capitalism, and got rich for his efforts. That is all I am saying.”
    I’m sorry to say this, and I may regret doing so, but: it really isn’t. You’re attacking him personally, intimating strongly that he’s somehow corrupt, and that the Templeton prize was a payoff from appreciative capitalists, thus suggesting that the Templeton people are also corrupt. You’ve hardly touched his ideas, just his biography. It’s almost pure ad hominem, and it doesn’t advance your cause at all.

    Reply
  101. Daniel Nichols

    Maclin: I stated clearly that I did not think that he was mercenary in writing his quasi-theological defenses of the capitalist order, that this was in recognition of the way his poor Slovak family had advanced in the US and in reaction to his early leftism. How this implies corruption escapes me.
    I did say that he prospered from his defense of corporate capitalism, and while I can find nothing about the composition of the committee that chose to award him the Million Buck prize, somehow I doubt it was composed of Catholic Workers or labor priests.
    And I have addressed his ideas ad nauseum, as you should know. The man has served as apologist for the corporate capitalist order, and, with Weigel and Neuhaus and Sirico and others of their ilk, has convinced too many Catholics that said order is compatible with Catholic social teaching, which is a scandal to anyone victimized by that “order”. And if you recall, in the build-up to the Iraq War, Novak and Weigel and (?) Neuhaus made a trip to Rome to convince JPII to soften the Church’s teaching on Just War, which forbids pre-emptive war. Thank God the pope resisted their entreaties.
    And Arthur Decorum:Organized labor is not responsible for domestic prosperity. The activities of organized labor can shift some income around, mainly from various other parties to their clientele. The various other parties include unorganized workers, who tend to be lower-skill and fairly impecunious.
    Of all the bullshit you have spewed over the years that is about the most bullshittest. You actually think that Labor took money and benefits from even poorer workers, rather than the owners? Dang, you are indeed Denso. And do you not acknowledge that the wealth that their efforts so wrested were in fact created by Labor? Do you believe in the Primacy of Labor, as the popes teach? Why are you so ungrateful to those who fought and suffered and died for workers’ rights and a just wage?
    Do you get Saturdays off? Thank the Union. Do you get holidays off? Ditto. Paid sick leave? Ditto again. Do you get paid overtime pay? Thank the Union. Worker’s Comp if you are hurt on the job? Again, thank the Union. Do you think these things, and a thousand others that you take for granted, were benevolently bestowed upon workers by the kindly owners?
    And I am not exaggerating about the price: Union men and women were fired (still are), beaten, jailed, even killed to wrest economic rights from the hands of the capitalists. In the town where I live, in the late 30s, three strikers were shot and killed at a steel mill by local police and National Guard.
    Of course you are anonymous; for all I know you do not work for a living at all. But for the rest of us, either beneficiaries of the struggles of our forebears, or suffering because of the decline of Labor, these are not to be dismissed so casually (and callously).

    Reply
  102. Mac

    Yes, you said that–after repeatedly insinuating that it was mercenary. Either way, it’s a focus on the man, not the question.

    Reply
  103. Mac

    Not that there is any great need to rake over the question itself, on which we know that we have significant disagreements.

    Reply
  104. Art Deco

    Daniel,
    The evolution of mean working hours in industry – their increase during the middle portion of the 19th century and their subsequent decline through the early decades of the 20th century, antedated extensive or intensive unionization of the American workforce. The unions were important in a few sectors in this regard – teamsters, for example – but unions at that time were largely associations of craftsmen who had a certain amount of bargaining power. Prior to 1935, efforts to organize the mass of industrial workers had largely failed (or, in the case of the Laborers union, had degenerated into a racket run by the Sicilianate mob).
    I would refer you to David Witwer’s volume on the history of the Teamsters. Physical rough justice was how unions went about their business prior to 1935. They did not have the tools in law and equity to do otherwise. Violence courtesy employers not surprising. In certain circumstances, state intervention not surprising.
    The benefits you have mentioned – workmen’s compensation, leave times, &c. can be secured by statutory legislation or emerge spontaneously in markets. The functional discretion employers have in how they treat their workforce is not unlimited. They need to recruit and retain good workers.
    You know, you have an unseemly hostility to anyone who merely takes exception to one of your bilious assertions. I actually am a lapsed SEIU member, for what it’s worth. The story of how my office came to be unionized and the results when it was are mordantly amusing. The union reps were passably conscientious, as far as I could see. It was just that nothing in their tool box could address the genuine problems in my office. None of that matters, really. I am here to discuss issues. I am not here to discuss me. I am not that interesting in any case.
    I am also not in the business of manufacturing bogies (“corporate capitalism”) and throwing rotten food at them. You have to look at the contours of political economy various places and see what deficiencies can be addressed by a change of structure rather than a change of spirit. Public policy can address the former, not the latter.
    Leaving aside modes adapted only to agrarian societies, you’ve got your choice between the command economies, unfettered free enterprise (seldom seen in its pure form, at least after 1914) and various mercantilist, social-democratic, and syndicalist qualifications to ‘free enterprise’. If your hankering after something else, you would do well to digest the experience of Yugoslavia and Israel (another entity to which you have an unseemly hostility) in attempting to construct something else (and recruit a main brain more knowledgeable that John Medaille).

    Reply
  105. Rob G

    “they would regard it as tangential to economic discourse and something they, as economists, were not much better at than the next fellow.”
    Correct, which demonstrates my point. “Economics” as currently understood is no longer economics as classically understood. It has been reduced from a humane science to a quantitative one. As I said above chrematistics, which used to be considered just one facet of the whole economic picture, has become that whole picture.

    Reply
  106. Rob G

    I am also not in the business of manufacturing bogies (“corporate capitalism”)
    It’s not a manufacturing. It’s a renaming of what used to be referred to as “industrial capitalism” now that it’s no longer primarily industrial. One has to have a name for the Big Business side of our two-headed national Leviathan, and corporate capitalism is as good as any.

    Reply
  107. Art Deco

    “Economics” as currently understood is no longer economics as classically understood.
    Classically understood when and by whom?

    Reply
  108. Art Deco

    It’s not a manufacturing.
    Yes it is, Rob, because he’s using an abstract term not as a piece of short-hand but in lieu of actually delineating troublesome practice in social life.

    Reply
  109. Daniel Nichols

    Thanks Rob. My made-up name, “corporate capitalism”, happens to be a very precise description of a very real and all-encompassing Thing.
    And thanks for the cartoon version of labor history, Artless. The famous union song goes “Which side are you on?” I think you have made yourself clear.

    Reply
  110. Rob G

    From Aristotle up until Adam Smith’s time. After Smith, the trend in the focus began to be on the numbers aspect at the expense of the “household” aspect. This is not really to be blamed on Smith, however; it’s not his fault that the economists who came after him spent all their time, metaphorically speaking, with The Wealth of Nations and ignored The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

    Reply
  111. Art Deco

    Rob, you are confounding social philosophy with more specialized modern academic disciplines.

    Reply
  112. Mac

    “One has to have a name for the Big Business side of our two-headed national Leviathan, and corporate capitalism is as good as any.”
    Agreed. I’ve often said, maybe earlier in this very thread, discussions about contemporary economic systems have a bad tendency to get bogged down in arguments about the word “capitalism.” It doesn’t have any fixed definition that everybody agrees on, so you run into things like people insisting that it only means the right to private property. But whatever our system is, it is not merely private property and free enterprise. “Corporate capitalism” is a reasonable tag for the actual existing economic order in this country.

    Reply
  113. Mac

    I don’t see it as a severe problem that “chrematistics” (that’s a new one on me) constitutes the whole or the biggest part of “economics” considered as an academic social-science (problematic term) discipline. We still have no lack of people with definite views on the ethical and philosophical questions involved, and some reasonable level of acquaintance with chrematistics (Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman, to pick two ideological opposites). The more fundamental problem to me is a sort of national assumption about the importance of wealth, e.g. the term “better life” almost always refers to “more money,” and “the American Dream” is almost always depicted in terms of material advancement.

    Reply
  114. Daniel Nichols

    That’s right, Maclin. I have had arguments with people about “capitalism” in which I gradually became aware that they thought I opposed private property, or favored a State monopoly or something (something few modern socialists favor, which is why they need a new name). That is why I now usually specify “corporate capitalism”. Far from “using an abstract term not as a piece of short-hand but in lieu of actually delineating troublesome practice in social life” I think it is pretty descriptive, and everyone but Arto recognizes what I am talking about. And I think that it is pretty obvious that is what Francis was talking about when he said the “the socio-economic system is unjust at its root.”

    Reply
  115. Rob G

    Yes, Mac, but chrematistics is traditionally defined as “the science of wealth-creation,” and when almost all of economics becomes reduced to the study of money — how it’s made, how it moves, etc. — this feeds into that very national assumption you mention.
    Daniel, I wasn’t aware that you invented the term “corporate capitalism”! 😉

    Reply
  116. Daniel Nichols

    Never claimed that Rob; just that I try to use it so I am not misunderstood as a Stalinist or something.

    Reply
  117. Art Deco

    And I think that it is pretty obvious that is what Francis was talking about when he said the “the socio-economic system is unjust at its root.”
    [chuckles].

    Reply
  118. Daniel Nichols

    And which “socio-economic system” do YOU think he was talking about?

    Reply
  119. Rob G

    “Never claimed that Rob; just that I try to use it so I am not misunderstood as a Stalinist or something.”
    I know! But Art speaks as if he’s never heard the term before. That’s what I was getting at.

    Reply
  120. Mac

    ‘.. chrematistics is traditionally defined as “the science of wealth-creation,”…’
    Oh, I assumed it just meant “number-crunching.” 🙂

    Reply
  121. Daniel Nichols

    Ah, dense me.

    Reply
  122. Art Deco

    Rob, “all of economics” is not the study of ‘money’. It is the study of production and distribution.

    Daniel, the Pope might articulate what a ‘just’ economic system at it’s root looks like. If that’s not articulated in his mind, the statement is a throwaway line. With reference to your previous complaints about the Weigel/Neuhaus complaint about some phrases in one of JP II’s encyclical, our current Pope is quite capable of ill-thought-out statements. (But who am I to judge?).
    Actually existing institutions cannot be ‘just’ full stop because they are run by human beings. They can merely approximate justice. Also, there are not too many working examples of economic systems in operation, at least not too many which encompass an economy predominantly industrial and commercial. If the Pope is conjuring up something from his imagination, he is not educating unless he shows his work. If the Pope’s idea of ‘unjust’ is manifested in contemporary Argentina, that’s interesting, because the ratio of transfer payments to domestic product in Argentina is quite high (0.11, which is immense in a country with a chronic problem with tax enforcement).

    Reply
  123. Daniel Nichols

    The pope assumes, I would think, that one understands that he is not speaking in a void, but within the whole tradition of CST, which has pretty articulately described what a system that approximated justice would look like. Within that understanding, which is how any papal statement must be seen, and which renders the neocon argument that CA signaled a revolution in papal thought ridiculous, it is significant that he did not say that the system is fundamentally just and needed reform, but that is is in fact unjust at its root.
    But I know, that Francis, so obscure, so hard to understand (rolling eyes).

    Reply
  124. Art Deco

    The pope assumes, I would think, that one understands that he is not speaking in a void, but within the whole tradition of CST, which has pretty articulately described what a system that approximated justice would look like.
    Nope. Those encyclicals raise as many questions as they answer.

    Reply
  125. Daniel Nichols

    I do not doubt that you have a very hard time understanding them.

    Reply
  126. Art Deco

    There is nothing ‘hard to understand’ about the language of paragraphs 43-46 of Rerum Novarum. What is perplexing would be what is assumed antecedently, how what is prescribed is to be implemented, and subsidiary points about the Pope’s prescriptions.

    Reply
  127. Rob G

    A possibly interesting piece by Jeremy Beer on this very issue (I haven’t read it yet, just briefly skimmed it). It looks like it dates from November but Jeff Polet just linked it at FPR yesterday.
    http://anamnesisjournal.com/2013/11/communio-economics-anthropology-liberalism/

    Reply
  128. Marianne

    Most of this discussion is way over my head, but I just wanted to point out something that John Storck wrote that appeared in The Distributist Review about whether capitalism at its root is a just or unjust system:

    Although I am a Distributist, I admit, as Pius XI went on to say [in his 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno], that the capitalist organization of an economy is not essentially unjust. It is not unjust to own property and hire someone else to work with that property—provided of course that a just wage is paid. But although such an arrangement is not in itself unjust, it is not necessarily wise when it becomes the characteristic means of organizing an entire economy. Catholics must accept that the capitalist system can be just, but Catholics are not required to hold that capitalism is the best economic system.

    Reply
  129. Louise

    Capitalism is only unjust insofar as it involves usury. To the extent that it does not, it is not unjust. At least, that’s what I get from reading Belloc.

    Reply
  130. Daniel Nichols

    Yes, Pius XI said that and no pope has said that this sort of capitalism is inherently unjust, so long as a just wage is paid. Which sort of eliminates off the bat a good part of our economy. And there is this, posted today by Robert Reich: “A new report from Oxfam shows that the world’s richest 85 people now have the same amount of wealth ($1.7 trillion) as the bottom half the world’s population combined (that’s 3.5 billion people). The world’s wealthiest 1 percent have $110 trillion, 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world.” That is criminal and obscene, and that is the status quo. If that form of capitalism, “corporate capitalism” for those of you in Deco Falls New York, is not “unjust at its root” then what, pray-tell, is?

    Reply
  131. Art Deco

    Why not think of the mechanism of how that came to be?
    Something from Thomas Sowell: there is nothing inevitable about [material] progress and people generally live as well or ill as their ancestors.
    Technological innovation and adaptation and organizational sophistication varies geographically at any one time, as does the trajectory of societies over time, with some rising in relative standings and some falling and some remaining in about the same place.
    You’ve got two responses. One draws on Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein and contends that the condition of the Third World is a consequence of its interaction with Europe &c. This rather counter-intuitive idea has one fault: very few of the contentions of this school of thought could be empirically verified. There were some interesting correlations discovered by Christopher Chase-Dunn and others (I think mostly regarding societies which had a good deal of mineral wealth).
    Your other out is to contend that the globe should comprehend some vast international welfare scheme and we are all derelict in not setting one up. I have had occasion to wonder if Francis actually thought this.

    Reply
  132. Art Deco

    Capitalism is only unjust insofar as it involves usury. To the extent that it does not, it is not unjust. At least, that’s what I get from reading Belloc.
    The problem is that the teaching on usury has been all over the map. Other than something called ‘usury’ being illicit, I cannot see how it could be considered a part of the ordinary magisterium. One of the more extreme statements was a letter issued to the Italian bishops in 1745. Conventional financial intermediation would be impossible were the prescriptions of this letter followed. There is such a thing as ‘Islamic finance’ wherein financial intermediation takes place without explicit interest. Needless to say, the Pope in 1745 did not suggest adopting Sharia-compliant banking.

    Reply
  133. Mac

    I do consider, as I’ve said at length, Francis’s remarks in EG to be less useful than they might be. They place the discussion in the abstract realm of argumentation about systems. “Unjust at its root” certainly describes any economic order I’ve ever seen or heard of. Perhaps village-size tribal arrangements don’t fit that description, but they’re not useful comparisons for large-scale economic activity. The idea that we can just dismantle the existing order and replace it with something else strikes me as foolish, especially if you want to add the condition that the new order be an improvement on the old. And yes, if that’s what Francis meant to be saying, I would still say it’s foolish, and would say it to him without feeling the least bit guilty or disloyal in doing so. But on the other hand it’s not utopian to push for changes toward a healthier and less unjust system.
    I think those statistics about shares of the world’s wealth are somewhat misleading, because so much of “wealth” in our world is intangible, in the form of stocks and other financial instruments. It’s not the same as saying that the 1% hold 65 66ths of the land area of the earth, including all its natural resources–the actual material lifeblood of mankind. Those 85 could give away their fortunes without making any significant improvement in the lot of an impoverished African. But it’s still a bad situation.
    Thanks for the Storck quote, Marianne. “that the capitalist system can be just” seems a useful thing to keep in mind as a guide for achievable goals.

    Reply
  134. Mac

    Just to be clear: I’m certainly not saying that I think the existing order is the last word, and that nothing beyond tinkering around the edges can ever be hoped for or attempted. I think a social/economic order deeply informed by Catholic teachings would be rather different, and better. And I hope the movement over the next century or so will be in that direction.

    Reply
  135. Rob G

    It has long been my suspicion that corporate capitalism has been growing more and more consolidated — monopolistic, iow — but has been doing so behind the scenes and under the radar, so to speak. A book I’ve just run across, Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism by Barry C. Lynn bears this out. (Note: this is not the same Barry Lynn who’s the pro-“wall of separation” activist. This guy is a journalist who writes for various business and financial publications). I picked up a copy of the book over the weekend but haven’t really looked at it yet.

    Reply
  136. Louise

    This is the essay I most appreciate, although Economics for Helen is good too.
    http://www.catholictradition.org/Classics/belloc2-2.htm
    “Usury being a demand for money that is not there [a tribute levied, not upon the produce of capital, but upon a margin beyond that produce, or even upon no produce at all], Usury being therefore, when once it is universally admitted, at first a machine for ultimate draining of all wealth into the hands of lenders and for reducing the rest of the community to economic servitude at last; Usury being at last a system which must break down of its own weight—–when the demand made is greater than all productivity can meet—–why, it may be asked, has it been practiced with success for so long? Why does it seem to be at the root of so vast a progress in production throughout the world?
    That it has been in use successfully for all these generations, ever since it was solidly established in general practice during the seventeenth century, no one can deny. Nor can anyone deny that it has accompanied [and, I think, been largely the cause of] the great modern expansion in production. And here arises one of those apparent contradictions between a plain mathematical truth and the results of its negation in practice, of which experience is full. Persuaded by such appearances [for they are appearances only, and deceptive], most men abandon the abstract consideration and are content with the practical result. It is on this account that even so late in the day as this the mere mention of the word “Usury” and a discussion of its ethics has about it the savor of something ridiculous.
    Not so long ago everyone would have told you that to adopt the attitude I am adopting here was to write oneself down a crank. The conclusions to which every clear mind must come in the matter were not even considered, but brushed aside as imperfect notions proper to early and uncritical ages when men had not thought out economics or any other science.
    The increasing, though still small number of educated men who are growing suspicious of such contempt for the immemorial past and for the moral traditions of Christendom will give these objections less weight than they were given a generation ago; but they still have overwhelming weight with the general. If you say today, “Usury is wrong,” or even, “Usury is dangerous,” or even no more than, “Usury must in the long run break down,” all but a very few will, even today, refuse to follow this discussion of the matter. Most of the careless and all the foolish will put you into the company of those who think the earth is flat.
    The error is theirs, not ours; yet their error has, as I have said, solid practical backing; for Usury has worked successfully. Productivity has been vastly increased since Usury took root. The last three hundred years have been centuries of immense expansion, and the leaders of it have been precisely those who first threw Christian morals overboard.
    What is the explanation? The explanation lies in three considerations:
    First, when Usury is universally permitted and enforced, it becomes only part of a general activity for the accumulation of capital with the object of investment. In the days when Usury was illegal and punished, the accumulation of capital for investment was hampered. Incidentally, those days were also days in which the production of wealth upon an increasing scale was not regarded as the end of man. But at any rate, from the purely economic point of view, the ceasing to inquire how capital would be used, the laying it down as a rule that all capital had a right to interest, no matter how it was invested, obviously tended to make accumulation more rapid, and incidentally, to make men keener to ferret out opportunities for productive as well as for unproductive lending.” …

    Reply
  137. Louise

    …”With that, of course, though from other causes, went the increase of men’s powers over nature, the curve of which rose more and more steeply, and perhaps is still rising—–though there are signs of fatigue and of interference with that process from causes other than economic, in spite of the rapid accumulation of further scientific knowledge and of its economic application.
    This increase in our powers over nature is the second reason why the false action of Usury has been masked for so long. The economic evil of Usury stimulated and accompanied great economic advantage of accumulation for Production, and this legitimate use of money had its opportunity given it by a flood of geographical discovery and new achievements in Physical Science.
    The third reason why Usury has not yet worked out its full ill effect is that it has long been automatically checked by repeated breakdowns which wiped out usurious claims. Capital unproductively lent failed to receive its tribute and had to be written off. It is true that Usury on such capital is commonly the last thing to be written off; but written off it is continually, and this intermittent pruning of the unearned tribute has prevented the real character of that tribute from appearing in its full force.”

    Reply
  138. Rob G

    It’s interesting to note how the transformation of usury into “interest” has somewhat paralleled the transformation of avarice into “self-interest.”

    Reply
  139. Art Deco

    It has long been my suspicion that corporate capitalism has been growing more and more consolidated — monopolistic, iow — but has been doing so behind the scenes and under the radar, so to speak. A book I’ve just run across, Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism by Barry C. Lynn bears this out
    Ah, the wonders of Amazon.
    1. The book’s contents list no data tables whatsoever.
    2. The “Select Bibliography” lists a long run of monographs. There are few scholarly articles and the only references to economic literature are antique (the more recent was from 1958).
    3. If he purports to be writing about recent phenomena, he has an odd way of going about it. You usually do not see a work with references drawn from such an extensive time frame (including 19th century literature and Depression-era literature). Being conservative, I would say that the reference of median age was drawn from from around about 1988.
    4. He seems to fancy that WalMart is an anti-trust violator.

    Reply
  140. Art Deco

    It’s interesting to note how the transformation of usury into “interest” has somewhat paralleled the transformation of avarice into “self-interest.”

    No, it’s not.

    If you fancy you can run an economy without financial intermediation, you’d best tell us how.

    Reply
  141. Rob G

    I appreciate the Cliffs Notes version, Art, even if it does come via a somewhat unreliable third party source, but methinks I’ll wait and have a look-see at the actual book itself, tyvm.
    “No, it’s not.”
    Well, as there’re no charts and graphs involved I suspect it wouldn’t be, to you.
    “If you fancy you can run an economy without financial intermediation, you’d best tell us how.”
    I don’t believe anyone here implied that.

    Reply
  142. Mac

    I certainly have nothing useful or interesting to say about the question of interest and usury, so I won’t say anything. Cornered, though, makes me think of something I considered saying earlier in this thread, re the term “corporate capitalism,” but decided not to because it sounds so close to looney-fringe stuff. Namely, that the close relationship of this corporate capitalism to the federal government brings to mind another word: fascism. I mean some of its principles, not the violent totalitarianism which is what the word mainly conveys now. I know, I know…but American liberalism, as represented for instance by Obama, seems to have made its peace with big business and to have decided that its future is not in giving the state ownership of big enterprises, but in bringing them into a sort of partnership directed toward agreed-upon national goals. The government protects the profits of big business and finance, and those in turn support and implement the government’s policies. I haven’t studied the history of fascism to any great extent, so maybe I’m wrong, but I think this kind of state-and-capital union was often one of its principles.

    Reply
  143. Rob G

    Some writers have referred to that as “state capitalism.” But I guess from another side it could be seen as “corporate statism.”

    Reply
  144. Mac

    Better terms–less inflammatory, not to mention more accurate. At most that kind of symbiosis is only one aspect of fascism.
    I was skimming the Wikipedia article on fascism earlier and noted this interesting characteristic: “nationalist authoritarian goals of creating a regulated economic structure to transform social relations within a modern, self-determined culture”. It’s interesting and a bit scary to me that over the past few years I’ve heard a lot of liberals denouncing conservatives as unpatriotic, un-American, etc., over issues like gay marriage.
    And: “a political aesthetic of romantic symbolism, mass mobilisation, a positive view of violence, and promotion of masculinity, youth and charismatic leadership.” Take away the part about violence and substitute something like “equality” for “masculinity” and it sounds a lot like Obama-ism.

    Reply

Leave a comment

Instagram / TikTok / X

Designed with WordPress