Joseph Ratzinger, Economic Prophet?

The National Post blog notes that Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti believes Cardinal Ratzinger may be some sort of economic prophet:

“The prediction that an undisciplined economy would collapse by its own rules can be found” in that paper, he said Wednesday at Milan’s Cattolica University.

In “Market Economy and Ethics” the future pope said a decline in ethics “can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse,” Bloomberg reported.

I don't know if the paper, "Market Economy and Ethics," is found in any compilations of Ratzinger's works published by Ignatius Press (it was originally published in English in Communio), but it is available online on the Acton Institute website. An excerpt:

The notion that only Protestantism can bring forth a free economy — whereas Catholicism includes no corresponding education to freedom and to the self-discipline necessary to it, favoring authoritarian systems instead — is doubtless even today still very widespread, and much in recent history seems to speak for it. On the other hand, we can no longer regard so naively the liberal-capitalistic system (even with all the corrections it has since received) as the salvation of the world. We are no longer in the Kennedy-era, with its Peace Corps optimism; the Third World's questions about the system may be partial, but they are not groundless. A self-criticism of the Christian confessions with respect to political and economic ethics is the first requirement.

But this cannot proceed purely as a dialogue within the Church. It will be fruitful only if it is conducted with those Christians who manage the economy \. A long tradition has led them to regard their Christianity as a private concern, while as members of the business community they abide by the laws of the economy.

These realms have come to appear mutually exclusive in the modern context of the separation of the subjective and objective realms. But the whole point is precisely that they should meet, preserving their own integrity and yet inseparable. It is becoming an increasingly obvious fact of economic history that the development of economic systems which concentrate on the common good depends on a determinate ethical system, which in turn can be born and sustained only by strong religious convictions. ⁹ Conversely, it has also become obvious that the decline of such discipline can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse. An economic policy that is ordered not only to the good of the group — indeed, not only to the common good of a determinate state — but to the common good of the family of man demands a maximum of ethical discipline and thus a maximum of religious strength. The political formation of a will that employs the inherent economic laws towards this goal appears, in spite of all humanitarian protestations, almost impossible today. It can only be realized if new ethical powers are completely set free. A morality that believes itself able to dispense with the technical knowledge of economic laws is not morality but moralism. As such it is the antithesis of morality. A scientific approach that believes itself capable of managing without an ethos misunderstands the reality of man. Therefore it is not scientific. Today we need a maximum of specialized economic understanding, but also a maximum of ethos so that specialized economic understanding may enter the service of the right goals. Only in this way will its knowledge be both politically practicable and socially tolerable.

Funny, isn't it, how it all comes back to anthropology and morality. Read the entire article.

For more on Ratzinger's thoughts on politics and related issues:

Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Endeavors in Ecclesiology
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

This work features the most discussed topics of the life of the Church, treated with unique frankness and depth by the Church's spiritual and theological leader. In this collection of essays, theologian Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, tackles three major issues in the Church today--the nature of the Church, the pursuit of Christian unity, and the relationship of Christianity to the secular/political power.

The first part of the book explores Vatican II's teaching on the Church, what it means to call the Church "the People of God", the role of the Pope, and the Synod of Bishops. In part two, Ratzinger frankly assesses the ecumenical movement--its achievements, problems, and principles for authentic progress toward Christian unity. In the third part of the work, Ratzinger discusses both fundamental questions and particular issues concerning the Church, the state and human fulfillment in the Age to come. What does the Bible say about faith and politics? How should the Church work in pluralistics societies? What are the problems with Liberation Theology? How should we understand freedom in the Church and in society? Continue reading...

Comments

[Telemachus]

Well, I've read this speech fairly carefully, and the word "prophetic" may be a little strong. It's prophetic in the sense that saying "Ya know, it can't keep going like this" is prophetic, but not like "I anticipate an economic recession in the late 2000's." Rather, the Pope as Cardinal Ratzinger simply pointed out that economic activity devoid of morals and ethics cannot stand. Perhaps this was original in 1985, but I don't think it is nowadays (at least among people who count).

But of course, I'm glad this speech got unearthed and given attention. As always, B16 has a way of getting straight to the heart of the matter with very little fluff and very much scholarship. Marxism and Capitalism have the same axioms, as well as the same goals: scourge the world of religion and usher in a utopia of Rational Man. Silliness.

In terms of Catholic thought and economics, I'm heartened and disheartened. I read that the American bishop's council recently wrote a letter to Obamarama to let him know that they were ready to help him with solving social problems by pushing for "universal health-care." What are they thinking!? However, in a recent sermon, our local priest was talking about the world-wide economic down-turn and brought up the idea that free-functioning economic systems are not intrisically immoral, but rather that virtue is required in order to make these things work. This was a welcome observation. I'm weary (and wary) of Catholics who seem to think "Catholic social justice" = "Marxist Communism with a twist of Christ."

[LJ]

-I'm weary (and wary) of Catholics who seem to think "Catholic social justice" = "Marxist Communism with a twist of Christ."-

Absolutely. That article didn't give socialists a lot of comfort, although some have jumped on the article with glee because they think it is just an indictment of capitalism, not having read it I suppose.

The confusion and struggle for some Catholics who are trying to think these issues through carefully and prayerfully I think comes from not understanding that an "economic system" is always an imposition upon economic activity. Without governments, religious leaders, philosophies or systems, people will conduct economic activity anyway. They must in order to live, unless they are totally autonomous and can produce or make everything that they and their family need. This is heart of human activity everywhere.

Free markets are not the same thing as capitalism. Capitalism can exist in varying measure in some strange places where markets are far from free. What free market capitalism depends upon, and I think that Cardinal Ratzinger touched on it, is the tendency of human beings to look after their own self interest. That is it's built in efficiency.

If we set that up as the inviolable end in itself, a kind of radical individualism, and set up the predictability of what human beings will do in self-interest as economic laws, and separate that out has a realm free from moral consideration, then we have the determinism that Cardinal Ratzinger is talking about.

However, there is no contradiction between free economic activity and moral economic activity. That is what those Catholics do not understand or want to understand, who think that Catholic Social Doctrine teaches socialism.