In the previous postings on this subject — which sort of makes Fulton Sheen sound like the villain in a TV police drama — we looked at what private property is and why private property is important. Today we look at how ownership is to be exercised, which brings in the concept of stewardship.
So, what about this “stewardship” issue? That is easily answered. As Sheen pointed out, the State cannot justly make laws forcing us to “do right” with what we own, especially against our will. After all, is forced charity really charitable? Is coerced virtue truly virtuous?
Of course not. As Sheen noted, “If Crucified Truth were turned into coercive truth, all Christianity would have failed.” (Freedom Under God, 212.) The same applies to other religions. A revealed religious truth that relies on compulsion to implement and sustain it contradicts the essence of faith itself as a willingness to believe.
That is why the popes put the whole issue of “stewardship” under charity, not justice. Our lack of charity is something for which we answer to God (assuming we believe in Him), not to man. As Leo XIII explained,
[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. . . . It is a duty, not of justice (save in extreme cases), but of Christian charity — a duty not enforced by human law. But the laws and judgments of men must yield place to the laws and judgments of Christ the true God, who in many ways urges on His followers the practice of almsgiving. . . . Whoever has received from the divine bounty a large share of temporal blessings, whether they be external and material, or gifts of the mind, has received them for the purpose of using them for the perfecting of his own nature, and, at the same time, that he may employ them, as the steward of God's providence, for the benefit of others. (Rerum Novarum, § 22; cf. John XIII, Mater et Magistra (“On Christianity and Social Progress”), 1961, §§ 119-120.)
The apparent paradox is thus resolved. It is obvious Sheen was speaking of humanity’s moral responsibilities under charity and justice enforced by God, not legal rights and duties under justice alone enforced by the State. Natural rights — the rights to be an owner, to be alive, to be free, and so on — remain always and everywhere inviolable (absolute) in our relations with other human beings and society at large.
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Pope Leo XIII
That does not mean we may abuse or
misuse our rights to harm others in any way. As Sheen explained, “The right itself must not be curtailed, but only the abuse.” (Freedom Under God, 169.) The utendi et abutendi (“use and
abuse”) of Roman law (Ibid., 56, note 21.) refers not to what we may do to others with
what we own, but what we may do to or with what we own — the right of disposal.
Thus, as Leo XIII noted, “it is not man's own rights which are here in question, but the rights of God, the most sacred and inviolable
of rights.” (Rerum Novarum, § 40.)
As far as human law is concerned, our right to be an owner, our right to private property, is absolute and inalienable. The right to be an owner is built into human nature as created by God. The sole exception to the right to property and rights of property is what Leo XIII called “extreme cases.” (Ibid. §§ 119-120.) To meet an emergency, duly constituted authority may redistribute a measure of wealth. Redistribution for any other purpose is an abuse of the State’s power to tax. (Dr. Harold G. Moulton, The New Philosophy of Public Debt. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1943,71-73; cf. Rerum Novarum, § 47, Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno (“On the Restructuring of the Social Order”), 1931, § 49.)
Louis O. Kelso
There is, however, a problem that
surfaces with respect to recognizing and protecting every human being’s right
to be an owner, especially of labor-displacing
capital (e.g.,
robots, intellectual technology), which increasingly creates
the bulk of the world’s wealth. Most of the world accepts without question the
disproved assumption that the only way to finance new capital formation is to refrain from consuming all
that you produce. In this way, savings
can be accumulated for investment. In
other words, you must presumably first produce something and refrain from
consuming it before you can produce anything for consumption. This is what Louis Kelso called “The Slavery
of Savings” (See the subtitle of Louis O. Kelso and Mortimer J. Adler, The New Capitalists. New
York: Random House, 1961: “A Proposal to Free Economic Growth from the Slavery
of Savings”; “past” savings is understood.)
If we respect human law, this fallacy (or, at least, incomplete truth) of past savings as the only source of financing for new capital restricts all ownership to those who already own and who can afford to refrain from consuming all they produce. The alternative within this framework — humanly speaking — is to change the definition of private property, and put the State in the place of God, with the power to change the definitions of natural rights; “re-edit the dictionary,” as the past savings economist John Maynard Keynes put it. (John Maynard Keynes, A Treatise on Money, Volume I: The Pure Theory of Money. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1930, 4.)
Pope Pius XI
Given the assumption of the absolute
necessity of past savings to finance new capital, then, we are faced with two
alternatives. Neither of these is either
realistic or acceptable, but (depending on your orientation) is plausible. We
then have a third alternative that does not appear to be practicable.
The alternatives are capitalism, socialism (“Communism”), and what Sheen called “diffused possession” (“Catholicism”), and others “social Christianity.” (Leo XIII expressed a preference for the term “Christian Democracy” over “Social Christianity,” which too easily becomes “Christian socialism.” See Graves de Communi Re, §§ 4-5, 10; Cf. Quadragesimo Anno, § 120.) We can, however, more accurately describe a just “diffused possession” as “the Just Third Way.” Because justice is based on universal moral values promoted by all major religions, Sheen perhaps should have characterized it as catholic, rather than “Catholicism.” As Sheen explained,
There are three possible solutions of the problem of property. One is to put all the eggs into a few baskets, which is capitalism; the other is to make an omelet out of them so that nobody owns, which is Communism; the other is to distribute the eggs in as many baskets as possible, which is the solution of the Catholic Church. Or to characterize them differently: selfish possession (Capitalism); personal dispossession with collective selfishness (Communism); diffused possession (Catholicism). (Freedom Under God, 33.)
How to reconcile the right to be an owner with the rights of ownership will be covered in the next posting on this subject.
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