Many people
today, regardless of their religious or philosophical persuasion, cannot tell
the difference between a principle, especially an absolute principle, and the
application of the principle. For
example, in the Catholic Church the former is doctrine and cannot be changed
even to meet greatly changed conditions, while the latter is discipline and
must be changed to meet changing conditions.
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| Pope Benedict XV |
This is something
that Pope Benedict XV stated rather explicitly in § 25 of Ad Beatissimi
Apostolorum, his first encyclical in 1914. As he said, you must do “[o]ld things, but in a new way.” Surprising many people, the pope was not just
talking about changes in principle. He was also talking about the mindset that leads people to
think that it is okay to change things as long as you think it can and ought to
be changed — what he called “the Spirit of Modernism.” As he explained,
Nor do We merely desire that
Catholics should shrink from the errors of Modernism, but also from the
tendencies or what is called the spirit of Modernism. Those who are infected by
that spirit develop a keen dislike for all that savors of antiquity and become
eager searchers after novelties in everything: in the way in which they carry
out religious functions, in the ruling of Catholic institutions, and even in
private exercises of piety. Therefore it is Our will that the law of our
forefathers should still be held sacred: “Let there be no innovation; keep to
what has been handed down.” In matters of faith that must be inviolably adhered
to as the law; it may however also serve as a guide even in matters subject to
change, but even in such cases the rule would hold: “Old things, but in a new
way.”
Now, the “bad”
part about this is that it is from a religious authority who seemed to be
talking only about religion, and only a specific religion, at that. This allowed people with religious allergies
to ignore the basic truth, and religious people to reinterpret it to mean
whatever they wanted it to mean. As a
result, people ended up believing or non-believing whatever it was they started
with in the first place, and are doing exactly the same thing today.
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| Maybe there needs to be a little rethinking. . . . |
For example, a
standard doctrine in mainstream economics is that it is impossible to finance
new capital formation without cutting consumption and accumulating the surplus
in the form of money savings. The
different schools of economics all have different ways of accumulating savings,
but all of them rely utterly on the assumption that you cannot produce anything
until and unless you have saved something out of production with which to
produce.
They all ignore
the logical absurdity that assumes you can’t produce something until you have
produced something. The idea that you
can purchase the means to produce by promising to pay for it out of what you
produce in the future is completely alien to people enmeshed in the mainstream
schools of economics. Even the so-called
individualists assume that if an individual does not have something, he can
never have anything unless he produces enough to save as well as consume. Obviously, when human labor is in direct
competition with advancing technology, this
is impossible except in extraordinary cases.
As a result, the
socialists assume that abolition of private property and redistribution of
existing wealth are essential for a just economy. Private property must go because it allows
individuals to appropriate what the socialists claim belongs to everyone. Redistribution is mandatory because it is the
mechanism by means of which private property is usually abolished.
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| Pope Leo XIII |
The problem with the
socialist assumptions, of course, is that they deny the right of every human
being to be an owner, and the rights of ownership that make ownership
meaningful. Under current
assumptions about production and finance (that turn out to be wrong), most
people cannot be productive except through their labor. The experts, therefore, insist on
changing the principle — private property — instead of how the principle is
applied. Instead of figuring out ways
more private people can become owners, then, they try to eliminate private ownership.
In Catholic teaching,
for example, there is an exception made to the inviolability of private
property in “extreme cases.” And extreme
means extreme: people must be in actual danger of death or permanent
harm unless they receive material aid immediately. In extreme cases, under the principle of
double effect, duly constituted authority may redistribute goods to keep people
alive and in reasonable health as an emergency measure. That is the sense of what Pope Leo XIII said
in § 22 of Rerum Novarum,
[W]hen what necessity demands has
been supplied, and one's standing fairly taken thought for, it becomes a duty
to give to the indigent out of what remains over. “Of that which remaineth,
give alms.” It is a duty, not of justice (save in extreme cases), but of
Christian charity — a duty not enforced by human law. [Emphasis added.]
In the most
absolute extreme cases, when all other recourse has been exhausted, it is even permissible
take what one or one’s dependents need immediately to stay alive. The caveats are that the need must truly be
dire, only what is absolutely needed is taken, all other recourse really has been exhausted, and what is taken comes out
of another’s “superabundance,” i.e., out of what another could not
possibly use for himself or his dependents.
There is the further caveat that what was taken must be restored at such
time as it becomes possible.
And then there’s
what the socialists do, which we will cover in the next posting n this subject.
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