Catholic Social Thought, the Market and Public Policy – twenty-first century challenges – some introductory thoughts
Earlier this year, St. Mary’s University Press was launched and published its first book: Catholic Social Thought, the Market and Public Policy – twenty-first century challenges.
Like all books, it had a long gestation period. The late Professor Denis O’Brien, one of the greatest historians of economic thought of the 20th century was my tutor at the University of Durham. He contributed to my last edited book on Catholic social teaching. I always remember, as a student (40 years ago), reading the introduction to a book he wrote. In that book he lamented that the gestation period of a book was the same as that of an elephant. When, many years later, I checked the gestation period of an elephant, I discovered that even the gestation period of an African elephant, is less than two years – of an Indian elephant it is less. On this issue (and, possibly, this issue alone) Denis was wildly wrong – five years would certainly be nearer the mark for this book: as I know it is for many.
Producing any edited book is a bit like watching a slow cycle race – an edited book is not finished until the last author crosses the line. Nevertheless, I know that the chapter authors are very pleased with the finished product, and that is greatly to their credit.
Many people have helped with its development (not least, the chapter authors, of course, as well as my co-editor, Andre Alves). Forewords were kindly provided by Rt. Hon. Ruth Kelly and Archbishop John Wilson. The production team for St. Mary’s University Press at LPP were magnificent.
The book is a mix of theory, analysis and practice. It is a mix of doom and gloom (the chapter on government debt and demographics) and cautious optimism (the chapter on globalisation). It is balanced – though some reviewers who struggle with nuance won’t agree with that. It is, at times, radical, such as when it is proposed that our method of health provision should follow the lines laid out by Catholic teaching rather than being, as it was once suggested, a religion in and of itself. Each chapter is self-contained and they don’t have to be read in order.
In this post, I will mention three messages from the book which can be related to each of the last three popes.
In Centesimus Annus, John Paul II stressed how a market economy does not operate in an institutional vacuum. It pre-supposes peace, democracy, well-functioning government, stable money and private property and the absence of corruption. These are messages of Catholic social teaching down the centuries (with the possible exception of democracy). To a greater extent, though never perfectly, more countries developed these norms from the 40 years from about 1980. That period saw a greater reduction in poverty and greater improvements in measures of welfare for the world’s poorest than the whole of the previous 6,000 years put together. It also saw a huge reduction in global inequality. The principles of Catholic social teaching about the essential but limited role for the state produced the hoped-for results. Some of the authors of the book suggest that it would be helpful for the tradition to better recognise its success in this regard lest we under-estimate the importance of good governance for integral human development.
Pope Benedict (though this is true of all modern popes) wrote about the importance of much deeper civil society institutions when it comes to the regulation of economic life, the provision of welfare and the provision of education. As Pope Benedict put it: “economic forms based on solidarity, which find their natural home in civil society without being restricted to it, build up society”. Those authors amongst the team who provided the chapters for the book who would like a smaller state are not, as is generally suggested by naive critics, opposed to the virtue of solidarity. On the contrary, they believe that the virtue of solidarity, in all its richness, together with genuine fraternity and socialisation, needs to be intermediated by a much wider range of institutions than by the state alone, the function and modus operandi of which is quite specific.
And from Pope Francis we have the important theme that rightly ordered business is a noble vocation. This means that all people – not just business owners – must behave virtuously in the business economy. Freedom is not a free for all, but a call to choose what is good. Business is such an important part of social life that choosing virtue in business is a key determinant of promoting the common good.
If we had started the book today, we might have edited a different book. Pope Francis has said: “our own days seem to be showing signs of a certain regression…Goodness, together with love, justice and solidarity, are not achieved once and for all; they have to be realized each day”.
Sadly, this is true, and this is stressed in the introduction. The optimistic trends mentioned above are reversing with the predictable results. This just shows how important it is to continually work to promote the political conditions necessary that support the common good in economic life.
As well as chapters on globalisation, education, business, finance, healthcare, the environment, government debt, and so on, there is a comprehensive introduction and a short chapter on the sources of Catholic social teaching and a chapter on St. Thomas Aquinas and the late scholastics. Of course, the editors would be delighted if you were to buy the book. However, much of the content, and much else, is available on the website that the authors curate in both English and Portuguese. This website is continually updated and will have video content added shortly.