What Ryan Missed
What Catholic social teaching says about solidarity and subsidiarity
T
he U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
has rightly criticized Paul Ryan’s proposed draconian cuts to social programs that aid the poor.
Catholic scholars rebuked Ryan for
claiming
that his budget reflects principles of Catholic social teaching. Ryan
deserves credit for elevating Catholic social teaching to a central
place in the discussion. Unfortunately, he badly misunderstands two
bedrock principles of CST—solidarity and subsidiarity. He also
misinterprets how these principles apply to the scourge of poverty in
the United States.
Ryan correctly identifies one aspect of solidarity, namely the
“recognition of the common ties that unite all human beings in equal
dignity,” as he puts it. However, Catholic social teaching adopted the
view of Heinrich Pesch, S.J., (1854-1926) and Oswald von Nell-Breuning
S.J., (1890-1991), who envisioned three aspects of solidarity: 1)
solidarity as
de facto human interdependence; 2) solidarity as
an ethical imperative; and 3) solidarity as a principle concretized in
legislative policies and institutions.
Official Catholic
social teaching has long accorded a positive role for the government in
protecting the economic rights and well-being of people.
By its very nature, solidarity requires advocating social change on
the structural level. This is the case because eliminating the causes
of the suffering of the wounded and oppressed requires embodying
solidarity in social policies and institutions. In other words,
solidarity includes but goes beyond charity to promote justice and
human rights, particularly by empowering the marginalized. Charity is
important, but never sufficient to meet the needs of the poor, as Pope
Benedict reminds us in
Caritas in Veritate. Christians must
thus foster the common good through “the institutional path—we might
also call it the political path—of charity, no less excellent and
effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbor
directly.” As John Paul II argued, the entire social, economic and
political order should be shaped by the principle of solidarity.
In his
speech at Georgetown University, Ryan claimed that “Civil public dialogue goes to the heart of
solidarity,
the virtue that does not divide society into classes and groups but
builds up the common good of all.” There is a grain of truth here.
Solidarity does aim to allow all people to participate in and benefit
from the common good. As the philosopher Fr. Józef Tischner of the
Polish
Solidarnosc movement argued,
solidarity excludes no one. However, Pope John Paul II, who developed
the concept of solidarity more than any other pope, acknowledged “the
positive role of conflict” when it “takes the form of a struggle for
social justice.” He also stated solidarity sometimes requires taking
the side of the poor when their rights and welfare are jeopardized.
Thus, solidarity does not imply “a live and let live” approach to
politics; it makes demands of all of us. Solidarity does not seek to
vanquish oppressors, but it always insists on the truth and challenges
oppressors to see themselves for what they are, as Tischner maintained.
Government Is Not the Problem
Ryan also attempts to enfeeble solidarity by flanking it with the
principle of subsidiarity. Ryan approvingly cites Pope Benedict’s claim
that “… subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any form
of all-encompassing welfare state.” But Ryan fails to acknowledge the
positive side of subsidiarity. When possible, it is better for smaller,
local groups to solve their own problems. However, Catholic social
teaching posits that larger entities, including governments, have a
responsibility to assist individuals and communities when they cannot
effectively solve their own problems.
Subsidiarity, therefore, does not support Ryan’s libertarian
“government is the problem” approach. Official Catholic social teaching
has long accorded a positive role for the government in protecting the
economic rights and well-being of people. The principle of
subsidiarity was developed to ensure that governments work in tandem
with individuals and local groups to promote the common good. In other
words, subsidiarity protects the right and duty of participation.
Persons cannot fulfill their right and duty to participation if they
suffer from poverty, discrimination, unemployment, untreated illnesses,
etc. Both civil society and the state have the responsibility to create
the conditions for the full participation of all in the common good.
In the words of Pope John XXIII, “intervention of public authorities
that encourages, stimulates, regulates, supplements, and complements,
is based on
the principle of subsidiarity.”
Contrary to Ryan’s imagination, the current pope has not embraced
modern-day laissez faire capitalism or neoliberalism. Rather, Pope
Benedict sees the redistribution of wealth through government programs
as a necessary fulfillment of subsidiarity, given neoliberal
capitalism's strong tendency to generate vast inequality and large
swaths of poverty. At times, the pope even sounds a lot like Occupy Wall
Street, albeit in slightly more Vaticanese terms: “grave imbalances
are produced when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for
wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a
means for pursuing justice through redistribution.”
The pontiff clearly sees a robust role for government, which does
not violate the principle of subsidiarity. In addition to wealth
redistribution, governments should promote full employment and oversee
multiple levels of institutions to ensure access to sufficient food and
water. Benedict also decries the slashing of social safety nets and
the evisceration of labor unions, which has jeopardized the rights of
the poor and workers. He laments erosion of the “solidarity associated
with the traditional forms of the social State.” If that doesn’t vex
Paul Ryan and Catholic neoconservatives enough, the pope contends that
globalization must be governed by authorities at the local, national
and international levels in order to foster “economic democracy.”
Those looking to the Polish pope, whom neoconservatives mistakenly
dubbed unabashedly pro-capitalist, will search in vain. John Paul II
contended governments should not thwart citizens’ efforts to assuage
the needs of the poor. However, the state should provide support when
necessary. Moreover, the state can take on the lion’s share of
responsibility of providing for the rights and welfare of its citizens
when intermediary groups cannot fulfill this role (
Centesimus Annus, no 48).
What does subsidiarity look like in the current American context?
Take the case of job creation and the right to work. Private employers
directly enable the fulfillment of this right by providing jobs. But
the state must provide the legal, economic and social frameworks
necessary for the realization of this right. As John Paul claimed, “the
state has a
duty to sustain business activities by creating
conditions which will ensure job opportunities, by stimulating those
activities where they are lacking or by supporting them in moments of
crisis” (emphasis mine). The American Jobs Act, decried by Paul Ryan as
excessive government, attempts to do just this.
Subsidiarity in Action
In the area of social welfare, the popes envisioned government
supporting local groups and agencies and directly assisting the needy
as necessary. This is exactly what the U.S. government does today. In
fact, the government enables Catholic organizations (and many others)
to engage in various works of mercy. Over the last two years, the
government increased funding levels for this purpose, even allocating
federal stimulus money to faith-based charities. In 2010 Catholic
Charities alone received about $2.9 billion from the federal
government, which is 62 percent of its
entire budget. Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota, like most of its counterparts around the country, relied on the government for about
80 percent of its revenue.
This is the principal of subsidiarity in action. The government
supports those who can best provide not only material assistance, but
also respond to “deeper human need,” as John Paul put it.
Ryan believes that the government’s role in combatting poverty
should be radically reduced, leaving the taxpayer to do as she or he
pleases with her income and assets. He disregards Catholicism’s
insistence on the universal destination of all goods and the duty to
contribute to the common good by paying taxes in proportion to one’s
ability. In Ryan’s words, “basic economics and basic morality both tell
us that people have a right to keep and decide how to spend their
hard-earned dollars.” The fate of the poor, in this view, should be
largely left to private organizations.
Can churches, synagogues, mosques and other NGO’s sufficiently rise
to the task, using only charitable donations? Not according to
economist
Robert Reich.
Only about 10 percent of all charitable contributions aid the poor,
Reich says. The rest (about $40 billion in tax breaks for charitable
giving) goes to maintaining religious organizations (properties,
salaries, etc.), the arts and universities (which, as I have written
elsewhere, increasingly exclude the poor). Moreover, Ronald Sider demonstrates in
Fixing the Moral Deficit: A Balanced Way to Balance the Budget that
private initiatives provide only 6 percent of all food assistance in
the United States. Replacing the federal government’s $485 billion
dollar antipoverty programs would require every U.S. congregation to
contribute an additional $1.5 million dollars. Sider therefore concludes
that “churches should do more, but they cannot begin to replace” the
federal government in addressing poverty.
As Ryan acknowledged, the level of poverty today in the United
States constitutes “exceptional circumstances,” to use John Paul II’s
phase. The amount of need is so great—1 in 6 Americans experience
poverty according to Ryan’s Georgetown speech—that charitable
organizations cannot possibly meet it. In other words, ameliorating the
situation requires direct government involvement, in addition to
facilitating the work of organizations like Catholic Charities.
Demystifying the Causes of Poverty
Ryan provides the wrong solutions to poverty for two reasons. As I
have argued, he misinterprets solidarity and subsidiarity. He also
misunderstands poverty’s causes in the United States. Contrary to Ryan's
contention, the causes of poverty are not rooted in an expansive
government and a culture of dependency on hand-outs. Rather, it is
rooted in government’s failure to perform its duties in accordance with
the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity. In other words, “smaller
government” caused the problem.
First, the welfare reform of 1996 precipitated a substantial rise in poverty. A new
report
from the National Poverty Center concludes that households living in
extreme poverty—less than $2 a day—increased by 130 percent to 1.46
million. The number of children suffering the same fate doubled to 2.8
million. According to the report, “this growth has been concentrated
among those groups that were most affected by the 1996 welfare reform.” A
recent
New York Times article
highlighted the human costs, stating that those dropped from welfare
rolls—mainly single mothers—resorted to desperate measures to survive.
“They have sold food stamps, sold blood, skipped meals, shoplifted,
doubled up with friends, scavenged trash bins for bottles and cans and
returned to relationships with violent partners—all with children in
tow.”
Many people lucky enough to have steady jobs earn “poverty wages.”
Seventy-five percent of the working-age adult poor have jobs. As the
Economic Policy Institute
reports, steady gains in productivity over several decades have
translated into more wealth for stockholders, but little gain for many
wage-earners.
In addition, the government failed to adequately regulate the
financial sector, which led to the economic collapse of 2008.
Unemployment skyrocketed, in turn swelling the level of poverty. As
Simon Johnson and James Kwak argue in their acclaimed book,
13 Bankers:
“the failure to regulate not only derivatives, but many other
financial innovations, made possible a decade-long financial frenzy
that ultimately create the worst financial crisis and deepest recession
the world has endured since World War II.”
Finally, the rising U.S debt is not the cause of poverty, nor does
it threaten social protections for the poor in the way Ryan contends.
Economist Charles Clark has debunked this
debunked this myth,
calling for the virtue of truth telling to augment solidarity and
subsidiarity in the discussion of the federal budget. Clark’s essay
explains in more detail than possible here why the economics of Ryan’s
claims are false.
We should be grateful that Paul Ryan has reintroduced the concepts
of solidarity and subsidiarity to our political discourse. Now we need
to make sure they remain there, and that we understand and embody them
in a way faithful to the Catholic tradition.
No comments:
Post a Comment