Revisiting Rerum Novarum
Catholic News Service recently had a brief report on a conference at Catholic University of America on Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII’s encyclical on labor and capitalism. I was struck by two quotes from John Sweeney, former head of the AFL-CIO, who was one of the keynote speakers:
“Let us remind our entire church that ‘Rerum Novarum’ is not a cafeteria of suggestions and ideas from which we are free to pick and choose, but the modern expression of an unbroken line that stretches from the Book of Genesis, throughout the Old Testament, to the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ himself.”
He also called for an alliance between the Church and the labor movement, saying that this is necessary if “the labor movement is to survive and perpetuate our mission of being what amounts to an action arm of Catholic social teaching.”
So what lessons should we take from Rerum Novarum? In preparing this post I went back and skimmed over the encyclical again. I was struck by a couple things. First, Leo XIII faith in the “natural law” seems almost naive at times, and his reading of it seems ahistorical. This is no particular fault of his: it gripped much of 19th century intellectual life. For example, his defense of “private property” based on natural law seems unable to distinguish between owning a house and a plot of land, and owning an industrial behemoth which dominates and controls the economic health and well being of entire regions.
Second, I found the document remarkably timid. There is no doubt it was groundbreaking in a lot of ways, but Leo XIII seemed unable or unwilling to engage in a sustained critique of the existing social/economic order. Indeed, the bulk of his opening critique is an attack on “socialism,” though given the ferment on the left in this period, and the wide range of ideas that were being debated, it does have the flavor of a strawman argument. He condemns particular abuses of the capitalist system, but I did not get the sense that he was scrutinizing it to the same degree. This leads to my final question: to what extent are the positive principles he enunciates weakened by this failure to engage and question the existing order of things?
Comments are closed.
For example, his defense of “private property” based on natural law seems unable to distinguish between owning a house and a plot of land, and owning an industrial behemoth which dominates and controls the economic health and well being of entire regions.
This is exactly right and this same (intentional?) inability to distinguish between different types of “property” continues to fuel capitalist/libertarian arguments against that boogeyman “socialism” today.
Indeed, the bulk of his opening critique is an attack on “socialism,” though given the ferment on the left in this period, and the wide range of ideas that were being debated, it does have the flavor of a strawman argument.
This, too, is dead on. Despite the claims of the right that The Church® has “proclaimed” that Catholicism and socialism are “incompatible,” there is not, nor has there ever been, one thing called “socialism” for The Church® to critique. (The fact that Obama is still condemned as a “socialist” is proof enough of that.) It also overlooks the obvious marxian influence of Pope John Paul II’s early social teaching (an influence he never renounced, to my knowledge) and that our current Pope is a fan of a particular stream of socialism.
Good insights, but we need to keep in mind that Rerum Novarum is part of Catholic doctrine. As such it should be read toward harmonizing it with all of the teaching. As stated in Caritas in Veritate:
“In this sense, clarity is not served by certain abstract subdivisions of the Church’s social doctrine, which apply categories to Papal social teaching that are extraneous to it. [T]here is a single teaching, consistent and at the same time ever new. It is one thing to draw attention to the particular characteristics of one Encyclical or another, of the teaching of one Pope or another, but quite another to lose sight of the coherence of the overall doctrinal corpus. (No. 12)
I wonder what they said about paragraph 36: “if in workshops and factories there were danger to morals through the mixing of the sexes or from other harmful occasions of evil.”
Or paragraph 42: “Women, again, are not suited for certain occupations; a woman is by nature fitted for home-work, and it is that which is best adapted at once to preserve her modesty and to promote the good bringing up of children and the well-being of the family.”
Do we say that these passages have been superseded by modernity?
If so, what happens to the living wage idea? The notion of a living wage, after all (see paragraph 46), rests on the need for a man “comfortably to support himself, his wife, and his children.” But if women are in the workforce competing for the same jobs, the notion of a living wage collapses: are women to be paid enough to support a man, while men are paid enough to support a woman as well? Where does all the extra money come from, such that everyone can earn enough for two people?
More than two, SB. There are (hopefully and especially in Catholic families) children to take care of.
Yes indeed, which just makes the living wage ideal more inapplicable, no? How is it supposed to be the case that each individual earns that much?
SB writes, “Where does all the extra money come from, such that everyone can earn enough for two people?”
It comes from the extra work that is being done! Wealth is not a finite pie to be divided. Wealth is created by work making the pie bigger.
David’s comments regarding property and timidity resonate with a famous critique of the encyclical by Henry George, the author of Progress and Poverty. Here is a link:
http://www.wealthandwant.com/HG/the_condition_of_labor.htm
Interesting. I had heard (vaguely) of Henry George and of the single-taxers, but I had not heard of this letter. Thanks!
Interesting reflections. I found myself re-reading Rerum Novarum a couple months back and found myself liking it even more than I recalled — perhaps for some of the same reasons that are critiqued here.
I must admit, I’m confused by:
For example, his defense of “private property” based on natural law seems unable to distinguish between owning a house and a plot of land, and owning an industrial behemoth which dominates and controls the economic health and well being of entire regions.
I have yet to hear any logical explanation of why these should be treated differently other than something amounts to, “Ah, but the means of production are things owned by other people, while my house is owned by me.” One can, of course, attempt to make the distinction based on bigness, but that runs into the issue of means of production which are comparatively small — which given Leo’s apparent interest in a craftsman based economy seems to be something which he thought about a fair amount.
Well, since there are many cultures that do not take “private property” as an obvious given, it would seem that there is something in the whole concept that needs to be interrogated. As for this distinction, one could also reason along the lines of the inter-relation between the ideas of “ownership”, “use” and “control.” This ties into the notion of “bigness” you mention. Indeed, there is a strand of modern socialist thought which grapples with this very notion: how to allow private property on a small scale while preventing the accumulation of property (and the resulting economic control) on the large scale.
But I think your last sentence further makes my point: Leo XIII was interested in a small scale economy focused on crafting and artisans, but did not seem able to reconcile his ideas of private property, based in this setting, with the reality of the centralized industrial society that was forming. He envisions wealth accumulation in terms of owning land—in other words, as Marx would put it, in acquiring the means of production of the former feudal system, but not the means of production of the current capitalist system.