Social Justice Isn't What You Think It Is

by Michael Novak

  We have insisted, it is true, that since the end of society is to make men better, the chief good that society can possess is virtue. Nevertheless, it is the business of a well-constituted body politic to see to the provision of those material and external helps “the use of which is necessary to virtuous action.”15

  So Leo saw that poverty is no longer inevitable for the human race. It is socially, morally wrong. It must be alleviated. But through socialism?

  Thirteen Reasons Why Socialism Is Evil and Will Fail

  With no hesitation, Leo dismissed the promises of socialism as futile—doomed to embarrassing failure—and evil. He recognized plenty of inequities and wrongs in the economic world of 1891:

  To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies. They hold that by thus transferring property from private individuals to the community, the present mischievous state of things will be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy. But their contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that were they carried into effect the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.16

  Leo later returned to dwell on the evils socialism would bring in its train. His reflections were all the more remarkable, since at the time neither the Soviet Union nor any other example of modern socialism actually existed. Leo was arguing from principles about human nature that are repeatedly verified in human experience. Thus, based solely on principle and its historical verification, he confidently predicted that socialism would be proven not only unjust, but more than that, too:

  It is only too evident what an upset and disturbance there would be in all classes, and to how intolerable and hateful a slavery citizens would be subjected. The door would be thrown open to envy, to mutual invective, and to discord; the sources of wealth themselves would run dry, for no one would have any interest in exerting his talents or his industry; and that ideal equality about which they entertain pleasant dreams would be in reality the levelling down of all to a like condition of misery and degradation. Hence, it is clear that the main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into the commonweal. The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property. This being established, we proceed to show where the remedy sought for must be found.17

  In these two paragraphs, Leo listed six reasons why socialism is evil and doomed to failure. Let us number them plainly here. The first six problems with socialism are:

  1. It works upon the poor man’s envy of the rich.

  2. It strives to do away with private property.

  3. It contends that all property should become the property of the state.

  4. It robs the lawful possessor of what is his natural right.

  5. It expands without clear limits the functions of the state.

  6. It causes confusion in the community.

  But Leo does not stop here. He keeps stomping away:

  7. The socialist project strikes at the interests of the wage-earner by depriving him of liberty to dispose of his own wages.

  8. Still worse, socialism destroys the poor man’s hope of bettering his condition in life:

  Socialists, therefore, by endeavoring to transfer the possessions of individuals to the community at large, strike at the interests of every wage-earner, since they would deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his wages, and thereby of all hope and possibility of increasing his resources and of bettering his condition in life.18

  9. Socialism places man on the level of the other animals, by denying him basic human rights and his use of his freedom to reason, choose, and act for himself, his family, and others:

  What is of far greater moment, however, is the fact that the remedy [socialists] propose is manifestly against justice. For, every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own. This is one of the chief points of distinction between man and the animal creation, for the brute has no power of self direction, but is governed by two main instincts, which keep his powers on the alert, impel him to develop them in a fitting manner, and stimulate and determine him to action without any power of choice. . . . It is the mind, or reason, which is the predominant element in us who are human creatures; it is this which renders a human being human, and distinguishes him essentially from the brute. And on this very account—that man alone among the animal creation is endowed with reason—it must be within his right to possess things not merely for temporary and momentary use, as other living things do, but to have and to hold them in stable and permanent possession; he must have not only things that perish in the use, but those also which, though they have been reduced into use, continue for further use in after time.19

  10. By placing the state first, socialism undermines the natural order of things, in which man precedes the state:

  Man, fathoming by his faculty of reason matters without number, linking the future with the present, and being master of his own acts, guides his ways under the eternal law and the power of God, whose providence governs all things. Wherefore, it is in his power to exercise his choice not only as to matters that regard his present welfare, but also about those which he deems may be for his advantage in time yet to come. Hence, man not only should possess the fruits of the earth, but also the very soil, inasmuch as from the produce of the earth he has to lay by provision for the future. Man’s needs do not die out, but forever recur; although satisfied today, they demand fresh supplies for tomorrow. Nature accordingly must have given to man a source that is stable and remaining always with him, from which he might look to draw continual supplies. And this stable condition of things he finds solely in the earth and its fruits. There is no need to bring in the State. Man precedes the State, and possesses, prior to the formation of any State, the right of providing for the substance of his body.20

  11. Socialism commits injustice by ordering that one man’s labor be enjoyed by another, without the laborer’s consent:

  Is it just that the fruit of a man’s own sweat and labor should be possessed and enjoyed by any one else? As effects follow their cause, so is it just and right that the results of labor should belong to those who have bestowed their labor.21

  12. The socialist state intrudes into family life and the household and thereby destroys the home:

  The contention, then, that the civil government should at its option intrude into and exercise intimate control over the family and the household is a great and pernicious error. . . . Paternal authority can be neither abolished nor absorbed by the State; for it has the same source as human life itself. “The child belongs to the father,” and is, as it were, the continuation of the father’s personality; and speaking strictly, the child takes its place in civil society, not of its own right, but in its quality as member of the family in which it is born. And for the very reason that “the child belongs to the father” it is, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, “before it attains the use of free will, under the power and the charge of its parents.” The socialists, therefore, in setting aside the parent and setting up a State supervision, act against natural justice, and destroy the structure of the home.22

  13. Finally, socialism propagandizes falsely and denies the necessary lot of humanity. Socialism necessarily advances by deluding. The truth is not in it:

  To suffer and to endure, therefore, is the lot of humanity; let them strive as they may, no strength and no artifice will ever succeed in banishing from human life the i
lls and troubles which beset it. If any there are who pretend differently—who hold out to a hard-pressed people the boon of freedom from pain and trouble, an undisturbed repose, and constant enjoyment—they delude the people and impose upon them, and their lying promises will one day bring forth only evils worse than the present. Nothing is more useful than to look upon the world as it really is, and at the same time to seek elsewhere, as We have said, for the solace to its troubles.23

  In summary, socialism is not a livable system for humans, for it incites envy, the most evil of social passions.

  I thought of this passage in 1991, when I arrived in what my ticket called Leningrad. When we landed, however, the name of that famous city had reverted to presocialist Saint Petersburg, the jewel of pre-Soviet Russia. The flags snapping in the wind were the blue, white, and red bars of the old Russia; gone were the hammer and sickle. That night, a Russian philosopher, flush with pride at how he and an entire crowd of his fellow citizens had faced down the Soviet tanks commanded to crush them, rejoiced now in his nation’s new liberty. Now he was a freedom fighter, too. He pounded me on the chest. “Next time you want to start an experiment like socialism, try it on animals first. Humans it hurts too much.” (I enjoyed the irony of him blaming me.) A little later, after a vodka or two, he again announced: “If you socialized the Sahara, within two years people would be standing in line for sand.”

  The Root of Evil in Socialism Is Forced Equality

  Leo was not at all shy about calling a spade a spade. After noting how socialism would incite envy, encourage invective, and disturb creative order, Leo’s next words were so strong one suspects him to be carried away like a preacher with hyperbole and brimstone. But what he predicted actually happened. Witness the deliberate starvation of millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s because they refused to give up their family lands.

  Most of all it is essential, where the passion of greed is so strong, to keep the populace within the line of duty; for, if all may justly strive to better their condition, neither justice nor the common good allows any individual to seize upon that which belongs to another, or, under the futile and shallow pretext of equality, to lay violent hands on other people’s possessions.24

  Moreover, Leo’s unflinching eyes saw that a certain inequality is inherent in individual talent and behavior. And such inequality is a great advantage for human societies:

  It must be first of all recognized that the condition of things inherent in human affairs must be borne with, for it is impossible to reduce civil society to one dead level. Socialists may in that intent do their utmost, but all striving against nature is in vain. There naturally exist among mankind manifold differences of the most important kind; people differ in capacity, skill, health, strength; and unequal fortune is a necessary result of unequal condition. Such inequality is far from being disadvantageous either to individuals or to the community. Social and public life can only be maintained by means of various kinds of capacity for business and the playing of many parts; and each man, as a rule, chooses the part which suits his own peculiar domestic condition.25

  Where then does this destructive dream of equality come from? That self-destructive metaphysics is built on conflict and enmity. Leo wrote:

  The great mistake . . . is to take up the notion that class is naturally hostile to class, and that the wealthy and the working men are intended by nature to live in mutual conflict. So irrational and so false is this view that the direct contrary is the truth. Just as the symmetry of the human frame is the result of the suitable arrangement of the different parts of the body, so in a State is it ordained by nature that these two classes should dwell in harmony and agreement, so as to maintain the balance of the body politic. Each needs the other: capital cannot do without labor, nor labor without capital. Mutual agreement results in the beauty of good order, while perpetual conflict necessarily produces confusion and savage barbarity.26

  And for still another reason, God made human life an occasion for individual virtue and merit, as many parables of Jesus highlight:

  As for riches and the other things which men call good and desirable, whether we have them in abundance, or are lacking in them—so far as eternal happiness is concerned—it makes no difference; the only important thing is to use them aright. Jesus Christ, when He redeemed us with plentiful redemption, took not away the pains and sorrows which in such large proportion are woven together in the web of our mortal life. He transformed them into motives of virtue and occasions of merit; and no man can hope for eternal reward unless he follow in the blood-stained footprints of his Saviour.27

  Still again, all must contribute to the common good. Each individual must do so according to his own talents and capacities, but not all in the same way. Social space in which individual commitments can be freely made is, therefore, necessary:

  But although all citizens, without exception, can and ought to contribute to that common good in which individuals share so advantageously to themselves, yet it should not be supposed that all can contribute in the like way and to the same extent. No matter what changes may occur in forms of government, there will ever be differences and inequalities of condition in the State. Society cannot exist or be conceived of without them.28

  In other words, Leo predicted that great inequalities would persist under communism. And so they did.29 Leo XIII’s main task, however, was not to condemn socialism, but to specify the remedy for it. He saw in the material progress of the nineteenth century, including the steam engine, locomotives, gas lights, and (on the horizon) electricity, that poverty is not the necessary condition of the human race. More and more people could be freed from the shackles of poverty. “The poor ye shall always have with you” is no fateful imperative. If wealth could be created to raise the lot of many humans (of all nations) out of poverty, then poverty is not a necessary condition but a wrong. And what is the creative remedy? Not socialism.

  If Not Socialism, What?

  Leo XIII recommended that free and self-determining persons turn to their own distinctive strengths: social initiatives and the arts of association. They themselves should conceive of and build free labor unions and many other organizations seeking to better the life of all. And their aim should be to better life not only materially, but also in the pursuit of truth, beauty, and the interior love of God and love of neighbor. All humans need to learn to cooperate with one another for the good of all. They need to learn to focus not only on themselves.

  To get to this point, Leo said quite forcefully that the “liberal” (that is, capitalist) nations would have to undertake serious reforms. He was not ready to condemn liberalism, but he was not ready to give it a clean bill of health, either. He held that both utilitarianism and Anglo-American individualism had too narrow a view of the importance of community. He feared that liberalism left the lonely individual too much at the tender mercies of the omnivorous state. Here I think Leo XIII shares a vision not unlike Tocqueville’s in Democracy in America. Tocqueville noted new forms of community taking shape in America, which people on the Continent did not perceive. In America, Tocqueville noted how local associations were everywhere having beneficent effects. He praised the American emphasis on building small communities: villages, then towns, then counties, then states, and only in the end a united community of one nation. Further, Americans showed much more reverence for religion than Europeans, at least religions of the biblical type (Jewish and Christian) which highly valued both the person and the community.

  Furthermore, as Pius XI later noted in Quadragesimo Anno, Leo XIII’s distance from communism and capitalism was not symmetrical: He severely criticized capitalism and insisted on its revision, whereas he rejected socialism root and branch.30

  Although Leo did not expressly linger on it here, the practices of the new habits he called for constituted in themselves a new school of virtue, suitable to free and democratic times, in which lay persons and their associations would have ever larger concerns for one another, and active and coop
erative roles in changing the world. Rerum Novarum was preceded by the vision of Novus Ordo Seclorum: “of new things” and “the new order of the ages.” Each of these visions had something to teach the other.

  [CHAPTER 9]

  Forty Years Later: Pius XI

  DESPITE THE GREAT DEPRESSION THAT HAD SPREAD WORLD-WIDE since the Wall Street crash of 1929, the seasoned and tough-minded Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical in 1931 that noted the social and economic progress since 1891. The project of social reconstruction launched by Leo XIII still faced grave challenges. Much remained to be done. Still, in law and in fact, the situation of workers had clearly improved, and nearly all the advanced nations (the only ones with an industrial proletariat) had inaugurated programs of social legislation. Labor unions effected many beneficial changes in the lives of workers. The radio, the cinema, the telephone, the automobile all arrived; then, too, progress in agriculture, railroads, and the early beginnings of air transport; plus great advances in the prevention and cure of many common diseases, and also advances in vision and dental care. All these were transforming the conditions of daily life . . . until BOOM! The crash came, and tens of millions suffered.

  On the negative side, especially in Germany, the aftermath of the First World War (1914–18) had encouraged the growth of great cartels, and banking in particular had become worrisomely concentrated. Pius XI denounced this dangerous economic centralization in no uncertain terms.

  Yet Pius XI’s longest-lasting contribution to Catholic social thought was that relatively new concept which he called “social justice.” It lay behind the postwar term “social market economy,” as well as behind European social democratic and reformist capitalist movements generally. But what did it mean to Pius XI? The person to interrogate first is the German Jesuit who played an important role in drafting Quadragesimo Anno.