|
Socialism, Free Enterprise, and the Common Good
Written by Rev.
Robert A. Sirico
Thursday, 31 May
2007
In chapter 21 of St.
Matthew�s Gospel, Jesus proposes a moral dilemma in
the form of a parable: A man asks his two sons to go
to work for him in his vineyard. The first son
declines, but later ends up going. The second son
tells his father he will go, but never does. �Who,�
Jesus asks, �did the will of his father?� Although I
am loath to argue that Jesus�s point in this parable
was an economic one, we may nonetheless derive from
it a moral lesson with which to evaluate economic
systems in terms of achieving the common good.
Modern history presents us with two divergent models
of economic arrangement: socialism and capitalism.
One of these appears preoccupied with the common
good and social betterment, the other with profits
and production. But let us keep the parable in mind
as we take a brief tour of economic history.
The
idea of socialism, of course, dates back to the
ancient world, but here I will focus on its modern
incarnation. And if we look to socialism�s modern
beginnings, we find it optimistic and
well-intentioned. In contrast to contemporary
varieties that tend to bemoan prosperity,
romanticize poverty, and promote the idea that civil
rights are of secondary concern, at least some of
the early socialists sought the fullest possible
flourishing of humanity�which is to say, the common
good.
A
half-century before Karl Marx published the
Communist Manifesto, there was Gracchus Babeuf�s
Plebeian Manifesto (later revised by Sylvain
Marechal and renamed the Manifesto of the Equals).
Babeuf was an early communist who lived from 1760 to
1797 and wrote during the revolutionary period in
France. Although he was jailed and eventually
executed, his ideas would later have an enormous
impact. And his explicit political goal had nothing
to do with impeding prosperity. To the contrary, he
wrote:
The French Revolution was nothing but a precursor of
another revolution, one that will be bigger, more
solemn, and which will be the last� We reach for
something more sublime and more just: the common
good or the community of goods! No more individual
property in land: the land belongs to no one. We
demand, we want, the common enjoyment of the fruits
of the land: the fruits belong to all.
We
see in Babeuf�s writings two themes that would
remain dominant in socialist theory until the
twentieth century: an aspiration to prosperity
through ownership by all and an equation of the
common good with the commonality of goods. Indeed,
Marx took more from Babeuf than Marx himself would
ever acknowledge.
In
our own time, we think of socialists as opposing
capitalist excess, disparaging the mass availability
of goods and services, and seeking to restrict the
freedom to produce and enjoy wealth. Consider, for
instance, the wrath that modern socialists feel
towards fast food, large discount stores, and
specialty financial services for the poor. They
accuse the mass consumer market of
institutionalizing false needs, commodifying the
commons, glorifying the banal, homogenizing
culture�all at the expense of the environment and of
equality of condition, the highest socialist goal.
Improving the standard of living in society is far
down the list of modern socialist priorities.
But
to repeat, it was not always so. Early socialists
believed that socialism would bring about an advance
of civilization and an increase in wealth. Babeuf,
for example, predicted that socialism would �[have]
us eat four good meals a day, [dress] us most
elegantly, and also [provide] those of us who are
fathers of families with charming houses worth a
thousand louis each.� In short, socialism would
distribute prosperity across the entire population.
A particularly poetic rendering of this vision was
offered by none other than Oscar Wilde:
Under Socialism�there will be no people living in
fetid dens and fetid rags, and bringing up
unhealthy, hunger-pinched children in the midst of
impossible and absolutely repulsive
surroundings�Each member of the society will share
in the general prosperity and happiness of the
society, and if a frost comes no one will
practically be anything the worse�
The
core of the old socialist hope was a mass prosperity
that would free all people from the burden of
laboring for others and place them in a position to
pursue higher ends, such as art and philosophy, in a
conflict-free society. But there was a practical
problem: The Marxist prediction of a revolution that
would bring about this good society rested on the
assumption that the condition of the working classes
would grow ever worse under capitalism. But by the
early twentieth century it was clear that this
assumption was completely wrong. Indeed, the reverse
was occurring: As wealth grew through capitalist
means, the standard of living of all was improving.
Lifting All Boats
Historians now realize that even in the early years
of the Industrial Revolution, workers were becoming
better off. Prices were falling, incomes rising,
health and sanitation improving, diets becoming more
varied, and working conditions constantly improving.
The new wealth generated by capitalism dramatically
lengthened life spans and decreased child mortality
rates. The new jobs being created in industry paid
more than most people could make in agriculture.
Housing conditions improved. The new heroes of
society came from the middle class as business
owners and industrialists displaced the nobility and
gentry in the cultural hierarchy.
Much has been made about the rise of child labor and
too little about the fact that, for the first time,
there was remunerative work available for people of
all ages. As economist W. H. Hutt has shown, work in
the factories for young people was far less grueling
than it had been on the farm, which is one reason
parents favored the factory. As for working hours,
it is documented that when factories would reduce
hours, the employees would leave to go to work for
factories that made it possible for them to work
longer hours and earn additional wages. The main
effect of legislation that limited working hours for
minors was to drive employment to smaller workshops
that could more easily evade the law.
In
the midst of all this change, many people seemed
only to observe an increase in the number of the
poor. In a paradoxical way, this too was a sign of
social progress, since so many of these unfortunate
people might have been dead in past ages. But the
deaths of the past were unseen and forgotten,
whereas current poverty was omnipresent. Meanwhile,
as economic development expanded in the nineteenth
century, there was a dramatic growth of a middle
class that now had access to consumer goods once
available only to kings�not to mention plenty of new
goods being created by the engine of capitalism.
These economic advances continued throughout the
period of the rise of socialist ideology. The poor
didn�t get poorer because the rich were getting
richer (a familiar socialist refrain even today) as
the socialists had predicted. Instead, the
underlying reality was that capitalism had created
the first societies in history in which living
standards were rising in all sectors of society. In
a sense, free market capitalism was coming closest
to realizing what Marx himself had imagined: �the
all round development of individuals� in which �the
productive forces will also have increased� and �the
springs of social wealth will flow more freely.�
There was one Marxist in England who seemed to
understand what was happening. Eduard Bernstein, who
lived from 1850 to 1932, is hardly known today. His
writings are not studied, except by specialists. But
he was the leading Marxist after Marx and Engels.
Engels considered him their successor, and even
asked him to finish editing Marx�s fourth volume of
Capital.
In
the 1890s, Bernstein began to observe the positive
effects of capitalism on living standards. �What
characterizes the modern mode of production above
all,� he wrote, �is the great increase in the
productive power of labour. The result is a no less
increase of production�the production of masses of
commodities.� This empirical fact struck at the very
heart of the Marxist case. Bernstein also observed
that the numbers of businesses and of people who
were well-off were rising along with incomes. As he
put it, �The increase of social wealth is not
accompanied by a diminishing number of capitalist
magnates, but by an increasing number of capitalists
of all degrees.� In fact, in the 50 years after the
publication of the Communist Manifesto, incomes in
England and Germany doubled�precisely the opposite
of what Marx had predicted. To quote Bernstein
again, from 1899:
If the collapse of modern society depends on the
disappearance of the middle ranks between the apex
and the base of the social pyramid, if it is
dependent upon the absorption of these middle
classes by the extremes above and below them, then
its realisation is no nearer in England, France, and
Germany today than at any earlier time in the
nineteenth century.
The
basis of Marxist doctrine had been the idea that
society under capitalism consisted of two
classes�one small and rich, the other vast and
increasingly impoverished. The reality, however, was
that the numbers of the rich were growing more
rapidly than those of the poor, while the vast
majority was falling into a category that socialism
didn�t anticipate: the middle class. Doctrinaire
Marxists were of course furious with Bernstein for
noticing these developments. Rosa Luxemburg, for
one, wrote a famous essay in 1890 attacking him.
One
might assume, then, that Bernstein changed
sides�abandoning socialism upon seeing its false
premises �and took up instead the classical liberal
cause of free enterprise. I�m sorry to report that
this is not the case. What Bernstein changed instead
were his tactics. He still favored the expropriation
of the English capitalists, but now through a
different method�not through revolution, but through
the use of political mechanisms. And indeed, the
political success of socialism during the twentieth
century would bring England to the brink of
catastrophe more than once.
Ideology vs. Reality
If
one becomes aware that the older moral argument for
socialism is wrong�that capitalism is actually
benefiting people and serving the common good�why
would one hold on to the ideology rather than
abandon it? Clearly, it is difficult to abandon a
lifelong ideology, especially if one considers the
only available alternative to be tainted with evil.
Thus socialism was, for Bernstein�s generation of
socialists and for many that followed, simply an
entrenched dogma. It was possible for them to argue
the finer points, but not to abandon it.
However understandable this might be, it is not
praiseworthy. To hold on to a doctrine that is
demonstrably false is to abandon all pretense of
objectivity. If someone could demonstrate to me that
free markets and private property rights lead to
impoverishment, dictatorship, and the violation of
human rights on a mass scale, I would like to think
that I would have the sense and ability to concede
the point and move on. In any case, socialists like
Bernstein lacked any such intellectual humility.
They clung to their faith�their false religion�as if
their lives were at stake. Many continue to do so
today.
Most intellectuals in the world are aware of what
socialism did to Russia. And yet many still cling to
the socialist ideal. The truth about Mao�s reign of
terror is no longer a secret. And yet it remains
intellectually fashionable to regret the advance of
capitalism in China, even as the increasing freedom
of the Chinese people to engage in commerce has
enhanced their lives. Many Europeans are fully aware
of how damaging democratic socialism has been in
Germany, France, and Spain. And yet they continue to
oppose the liberalization of these economies. Here
in the United States, we�ve seen the failure of mass
programs of redistribution and the fiscal crises to
which they give rise. And yet many continue to
defend and promote them.
There have long been cases where grotesque examples
of the failure of socialism exist alongside glowing
examples of capitalist success, and yet many people
will use every excuse to avoid attributing the
differences to their economic systems. Even a
superficial comparison of North and South Korea,
East and West Germany before the Berlin Wall fell,
Hong Kong and mainland China before reforms, or Cuba
and other countries of Latin America, demonstrates
that free economies are superior at promoting the
common good. And yet the truth has not sunk in.
The
older socialists dreamed of a world in which all
classes the world over would share in the fruits of
production. Today, we see something like this as Wal-Marts�to
cite only the most conspicuous example�spring up
daily in town after town worldwide. Within each of
these stores is a veritable cornucopia of goods
designed to improve human well-being, at prices that
make them affordable for all. Here is a company that
has created many millions of jobs and brought
prosperity to places where it was sorely needed. And
who owns Wal-Mart? Shareholders, people of mostly
moderate incomes who have invested their savings. We
might call them worker-capitalists. Such an
institution was beyond the imaginings of the
socialists of old.
Although the free enterprise system obviously does
not incorporate the old socialists� idea of a
commonality of goods, it does seem to achieve the
common good as they conceived it. What then can we
say of those who today remain attached to socialism
as a political goal? We can say that they do not
know or have not understood the economic history of
the last 300 years. Or perhaps we can say that they
are more attached to socialism as an ideology than
they are to the professed goals of its founders. I�m
particularly struck by the neo-socialist concern for
the well-being of plants, animals, lakes and rivers,
rain forests and deserts�particularly when the
concern for the environment appears far more intense
than the concern for the human family.
The
Good of Freedom
When we speak of the common good, we need also to be
clear-minded about the political and juridical
institutions that are most likely to bring it about.
These happen to be the very institutions that
socialists have worked so hard to discredit. Let me
list them: private property in the means of
production; stable money to serve as a means of
exchange; the freedom of enterprise that allows
people to start businesses; the free association of
workers that permits people to choose where they
would like to work and under what conditions; the
enforcement of contracts that provides institutional
support for the idea that people should keep their
promises; and a vibrant trade within and among
nations to permit the fullest possible flowering of
the division of labor. These institutions must be
supported by a cultural infrastructure that respects
private property, regards the human person as
possessing an inherent dignity, and confers its
first loyalty to transcendent authority over civil
authority. This is the basis of freedom, without
which the common good is unreachable. Thus Pope John
Paul II wrote of economic initiative:
It is a right which is important not only for the
individual but also for the common good. Experience
shows us that the denial of this right, or its
limitation in the name of an alleged �equality� of
everyone in society, diminishes, or in practice
absolutely destroys, the spirit of initiative, that
is to say the creative subjectivity of the citizen.
To
summarize: We are all entitled to call ourselves
socialist, if by the term we mean that we are
devoted to the early socialist goal of the
well-being of all members of society. Reason and
experience make clear that the means to achieve this
is not through central planning by the state, but
through political and economic freedom. Thomas
Aquinas had an axiom: bonum est diffusivum sui. �The
good pours itself out.� The good of freedom has
indeed poured itself out to the benefit of humanity.
In
conclusion, I ask you, �Who did the will of the
Father?�
|
