Social Justice Isn't What You Think It Is

by Michael Novak

  FOR CATHOLIC SOCIAL thought, Niebuhr’s work suggests six specific lines of inquiry to pursue: The rejection of utopianism and a preference for a Christian realism; the more complicated considerations in group behavior than in individual behavior; a clearheaded analysis of the powers and interests at stake in social confrontations; and the often stark differences between distant ideals, proximate concrete ideals, and next immediate steps. In addition, Niebuhr makes frequent use of ancient Greek perspectives on irony and tragedy. All six of these points should figure prominently in Catholic social thought, but at present do not.

  (1) The rejection of utopianism: Utopianism is wishfulness that the world would be a nicer place than it is. A “no place,” as Thomas More’s Greek term expressed it. For instance, the utopian pictures a world without self-aggrandizing powers and deeply rooted interests that voraciously seek self-expansion, a world without irony and tragedy, a world without conflict, a world without sin. The Nazis and the Communists used dreamy images of a “Third Reich that will last a thousand years” and a “socialist paradise,” in which selfishness and possessiveness and greed would be banished once and for all. Underneath this dreamy utopianism, with its rosy images and alluring sentiments, was a hard utopianism that required harsh methods for dealing with recalcitrant resisters. Sometimes in Catholic social thought there is an easy way of speaking of peace that is innocent of the lessons taught by Saint Augustine about the deep, deep roots of war, conflict, insurrection, and chaotic disorder—ineradicable roots in the human heart. Saint Augustine foresaw wars and rumors of new wars in every generation. In our world today, there are at least sixty wars in progress.

  “Peace and justice” must not be allowed to sound utopian, hollow, pharisaical. Appeals for peace and justice must include a hard-edged awareness of the evils in the human heart and tested methods for checking them and turning their energies, despite themselves, in creative directions. Factions in societies, for instance, as James Madison set forth in Federalist 10, cannot be eliminated, but they can be turned to larger social good.

  (2) The greater difficulties presented by impersonal political groups, as compared with the more private, personal circles of family and friends, also need attention by ethicists. In the bosom of the family and in gatherings of friends, one can look into familiar eyes, recall many chains of shared experiences, and know how to read even small nuances of tone, smile, wink, and nod. When dealing with an antagonistic group, one will not have these human resources to draw upon at all, for it is typical of humans to envision social groups they have never met in caricature. Personal experience is narrow. Imagination is limited. Niebuhr was a pastor in Detroit during the severe labor strife of the 1920s and shrewdly noted that the auto executives (Henry Ford and others) tended to picture their workers as thuggish hooligans, while the workers pictured their bosses as cartoonish fat cats. Across group lines, failures of imagination are virtually assured.

  Among family and friends, one knows the names and faces of children and grandchildren, spouses and in-laws. One knows their tones of voice, the qualities of their hearts, their points of touchiness. For those shaped by American habits of the heart, it is not easy to imagine the intimate circles and characteristic feelings of members of the Taliban, or Russian invaders of Ukraine, or Syrian supporters of Bashar Assad. Social groups, on account of the limits of human imagination, experience, and mental ability, nearly always deal with one another as cardboard cutouts. Of course, many of us sit down at the Thanksgiving table with family members whose political, economic, and social views we cannot abide, and we can barely speak together of such matters. Much worse is it when we don’t even know the individuals on the other side of the issues. Note how the left in our country imagines the right, and the reverse. Cardboard cutouts. Greedy villains. Shallow souls incapable of learning from experience.

  (3) There is a typical avoidance among Christian ethicists of an analysis of the powers, interests, and temporal changes that shift beneath matters of social justice and political relations.

  (4) The difference between the ethical analysis of the end time and the ethical analysis of the “not yet.” The difference between political and social ideals and the next concrete, practical, prudent steps. The difference between the abstract common good and practical discernment among competing attempts to describe and identify it most realistically, the necessity of choice among practical routes to get there, the vital lesson that courses of well-intentioned action often have evil consequences, and the surety that the common good now in view is time-bound and movable—and may be a deviation from the fruitful path toward human flourishing.

  Niebuhr treats all these matters under the rubric of the commandment of Christian love, which he refers to as appearing in history as an urgent drive toward the “impossible possibility” of a civilization based on love. He insists that it is necessary to move forward and keep striving, even within the always incomplete, sinning, and faulty world that we inherit.

  (5) The age-old persistence of irony in human actions. Since Catholic educators embrace the classics so much more than most of their secular counterparts, it is surprising that Catholic moralists have not made as fertile use of the classic concept of irony as Niebuhr has, say, in The Irony of American History, and in almost all his writings. For it is a matter of common experience that human actions nearly always have unintended consequences, which often sharply contrast with best intentions. Within the buzzing, blooming, chaotic field of contingency in which all humans act, humans walk less in light than as blind men. We cannot possibly foresee all contingencies, nor take account of them in our plan of action. Thus, with absolutely no intention of doing so, we often defeat our own purposes. Ironically, good intentions are no shield against self-destruction.

  (6) The tragic element in human actions. Often in the Greek and Roman classics we are shown how the very virtues of a human agent often lead to his undoing. A man’s oft-proved courage may on one occasion lead him to take a step too far, which ends in his fatal wounding. A woman’s famous cunning and wit may suffuse her with a conceit that blinds her to a tiny detail that on this occasion betrays her into downfall. Tragically, human strengths often bring human defeats. The seemingly iron-clad law sometimes makes us feel—to use a classic expression—like playthings of the gods.

  In brief, human moral action is far deeper and more complex than most moralists today portray it. Far too many, in the very moment they take pride in their exquisitely refined moral distinctions, utter false simplicities.

  How is it that Catholic moralists, above all, so systematically overlook the power of irony and tragedy in moral reasoning and moral action? This is not the place to develop a whole schema of these elements in human action. The aim here is solely to stir others to deepen the sophistication of Catholic social thought on these points, grounded in the wisdom contained in long, humble, historical experience.

  To end with one down-to-earth example: How is it that the most Catholic continent of all, South America, with an open field for continuously implementing Catholic social thought ever since 1891, should come into the twenty-first century with the second-largest population of truly poor persons on the planet? With so many structural deficiencies? For all its strengths, Catholic social thought carries within it far more false turns, inner irony, and even human tragedy than its partisans (ourselves included) typically address.

  The Problem of “Structural Sin”

  Saint Augustine warns that even after a human being has been, by the grace and mercy of God, healed of the consequences of a fall, a once-fallen soul is like a knee that has popped out of joint from a hard fall in sports. Even after it is healed, that knee remains acutely vulnerable to going lame again. For this reason, the human race needs institutional checks and balances against human weaknesses and repeated falls. At the same time, it also needs institutions that do not smother personal responsibility.

  Modern progressive movements, including the Wilsonian progressivism of the early 1920
s, shifted its focus away from the acts of individuals in order to lavish its attention on social structures. They turned morality inside out: forget the individual heart and individual action; judge morals by social activism and structural changes. The source of evil lies not in man’s heart, progressives judged, but in the traditions that constrict his future and sometimes crush him. The most humane thing, they opined, is to break the hold of these oppressors and to replace them with perfectible human institutions. The most philosophical of progressives held that history itself—some forceful, predirected push—created a tide that irresistibly moved the world in a progressive direction. And “more progressive” here means stronger government, more scientifically managed bureaucracies, and more tightly regulated individuals. The progressive task is to be “on the right side of history,” to hold the correct political and social opinions, to go with the flow.

  In short, progressives were convinced: History always flows in the progressive direction. Historical determinism as a kind of religion. Ideologues who insist that their systems were protected by historical determinism—the Nazis and the Communists, most obviously—regularly slide down into disgrace.

  But history is not predetermined. Free women and free men again and again redirect it. Christian realists detect no sinless structures in this sinful world—not in any culture, not in any state, not even in the Church; not in past history, not now, not in the future. Human life is not like that; nature is not like that; reality is not like that.

  Nonetheless, the term “sinful structures” was first given prominence among liberation theologians in Latin America. No one denies that Latin America has for some generations been desperately in need of new institutions. Three systemic changes, for example, would be of immense practicality in raising up the poor of Latin America (and elsewhere). First is better education: In some Latin American states less than half the population has an education that goes beyond sixth grade. Further, this education normally does not emphasize invention, discovery, and enterprise, but rather passive acceptance. Perhaps as a consequence, Latin Americans have invented few products, medicines, or household appliances of their own, and instead must use many invented on other continents. Latins are only beginning to restructure their schools so as to promote invention and know-how and enterprise—as John Paul II wrote, the main causes of the wealth of their nations.6 Latins are extremely good at creativity in the fields in which it is much supported: the novel, dance, music, and others.

  Secondly, most poor people in Latin America (of whom there are large majorities in almost every nation) find it far too cumbersome—and expensive—to protect their own small business with legal incorporation. Hernando de Soto has found that it can take 6,000-plus hours of delays and visits to government offices, and handfuls of bribes and fees amounting to well over $8,000—five times the average worker’s annual income—in order to gain legal incorporation.7

  By contrast, in Hong Kong, it takes something like $30 and an application sent through the mail. The government is required to provide a timely response, within six weeks. After all, government does not create small businesses; it merely lists them on its official rolls as incorporated. That registration allows these small corporations to operate legally, to borrow money in the name of the corporation, and the like.

  Thirdly, the poor need cheap and easy access to credit, that is, the opportunity to borrow money to launch a business, at a low, reasonable, stable, payable rate. Before a business can sell its products, it has many start-up and production costs. To pay these, it needs to borrow money. Borrowed money is the mother’s milk of new businesses.

  These three simple reforms alone would greatly improve the present and future prospects of the poor in Latin America. They correct three pervasive “sins” in the Latin American approach to political economy. No doubt, these are not the structural sins spoken of by the liberation theologians. But they are easy to grasp and do show how the term has some validity, even though the use of the term “sin” here is merely metaphorical.

  In fact, the term “structural deficiency” seems more empirically accurate than “structural sin.” Do structures go to hell or to heaven? Personal responsibility is required for sin, which is a reflective, deliberate personal act. Most people in the world today (and in all prior centuries) live under structures that do not protect human rights or honor human dignity. In the light of full human flourishing, virtually all social structures in history have been seriously deficient.

  Can anyone think of a perfect social structure anywhere on earth?

  A Still Deeper Difficulty

  A far deeper difficulty with the concept of “sinful structures” is that it allows individuals to escape personal responsibility. If a structure “sins,” which agents are responsible? Who repents? Who leads the way to better practices and outcomes? As then-Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out in 1986, in his Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation, “sin” is a category that is properly used only of persons, who knowingly and willingly choose to turn away from the will of the Lord and to violate his friendship and his laws. Ratzinger writes:

  The priority given to structures and technical organization over the person and the requirements of his dignity is the expression of a materialistic anthropology and is contrary to the construction of a just social order. On the other hand, the recognized priority of freedom and of conversion of heart in no way eliminates the need for unjust structures to be changed. . . . It remains true however that structures established for people’s good are of themselves incapable of securing and guaranteeing that good. The corruption which in certain countries affects the leaders and the State bureaucracy, and which destroys all honest social life, is a proof of this. Moral integrity is a necessary condition for the health of society. It is therefore necessary to work simultaneously for the conversion of hearts and for the improvement of structures. For the sin which is at the root of unjust situations is, in a true and immediate sense, a voluntary act which has its source in the freedom of individuals. Only in a derived and secondary sense is it applicable to structures, and only in this sense can one speak of “social sin.”8

  In his earlier Instruction on Certain Aspects of the “Theology of Liberation” (1984), Ratzinger had already clarified this point:

  To be sure, there are structures which are evil and which cause evil and which we must have the courage to change. Structures, whether they are good or bad, are the result of man’s actions and so are consequences more than causes. The root of evil . . . lies in free and responsible persons who have to be converted by the grace of Jesus Christ in order to live and act as new creatures in the love of neighbor and in the effective search for justice, self-control, and the exercise of virtue.9

  In other words, it is persons who must do penance, reform their conduct, and straighten out their lives. The structures that most impede personal responsibility and reform are those of the bloated state, whose sheer size crowds out the liberties and sources of creativity inherent in every able-bodied human person. Too enlarged a state sucks the oxygen out of personal responsibility.

  Although it is clear that class structures, laws, or environment can have a significant influence on human behavior, it is not at all clear that they can be called “sins.”10 Here we can take a hint from John Paul II, who takes up the language of “structures of sin” in his Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliation and Penance. While he allows that some structures can institutionalize injustice, even promote further injustice, the pope clearly affirms that structures themselves, although they can abet it, are never the cause of social evil. In Reconciliation and Penance, John Paul II traces social evil back to its source, the sin or sins of individuals. There is always a human will behind the actions, and that human will is responsible for the evil: “A situation—or likewise an institution, a structure, society itself—is not in itself the subject of moral acts. Hence a situation cannot in itself be good or bad. . . . At the heart of every situation of sin are always to be found sinful peo
ple.”11

  John Paul II carefully separates the three senses in which “structures of sin” can be understood. First, every sin, no matter how personal, always spreads its effects and leads to societal evil: “To speak of social sin means in the first place to recognize that, by virtue of human solidarity which is as mysterious and intangible as it is real and concrete, each individual’s sin in some way affects others.”12 The effect of one individual’s personal sin can be so pervasive and strong that it damages the entire community.

  The second sense of structural sin that John Paul II refers to those sins which are particularly against one’s neighbor, and therefore always have an immediate and obvious impact on the community members:

  They are an offense against God because they are offenses against one’s neighbor. These sins are usually called social sins, and this is the second meaning of the term. In this sense, social sin is an offence against love of one’s neighbor, and in the law of Christ it is all the more serious in that it involves the Second Commandment, which is “like unto the first.”13

  These sins are always an infringement on the freedom of other individuals, and so not only harm them, but also take away the freedom which was given by God.

  The third sense of social sin regards the relationship among the various human communities, and is a structure of sin only by analogy. The leaders who make decisions set processes in motion, without knowing in advance the total results. Small decisions can inadvertently lead to massive social structures, which become a force of their own: “The term social can be applied to sins of commission or omission on the part of political, economic or trade union leaders, who though in a position to do so, do not work diligently and wisely for the improvement and transformation of society according to the requirements and potential of the given historic moment.”14