Catholics and the Administered Society | James Kalb | CWR
In order to maximize control, the social justice/social services state must minimize man. What can be done?
Should Catholics today work, as a matter of conscience, toward ever broader bureaucratic responsibility for human well-being in general?
That result seems to follow from current ways of thinking. “Love thy neighbor” implies an ethic of mutual assistance. The democratic view that we act through government, together with the industrial approach to getting things done reliably, which is now thought simply rational, seem to imply the social services state as a necessary consequence.
The point is confirmed by the language of rights that the Church has now adopted: everyone has a right to food, shelter, medical care, employment, and many other things. “Rights” normally mean enforceable individual entitlements. If other institutions don’t deliver, government should step in and make sure what’s needed gets done; otherwise, it’ll be denying basic human rights. So welfare rights recognized by the Church seem to obligate government to guarantee everyone a materially decent standard of living regardless of circumstances.
And then there is the notion of solidarity, which makes everyone our neighbor, and seems to call for an arrangement through which each looks after all. It is also confirmed by considerations of justice and mercy. Some people have practical problems, with no one to help them, through no fault of their own. Others are at fault, but the consequences seem disproportionate, especially when compared with other people who do worse without similar problems. And even when the faults seem great, who knows what really happened or what we would have done in their place?
Above all, Christ emphasized forgiveness and mercy, and tells us not to judge. So it seems the social order should be set up to minimize the results of bad luck and even bad conduct in all cases. Given current ways of thinking and doing things, that means that an ever more comprehensive and global welfare state is part of any minimally adequate response to human misfortune and failure.
Nor should Christians be content with the minimum. Love and mercy know no limits. So in the name of ever greater solidarity, it seems that government should work to overcome every human distinction people may feel as a disadvantage. To avoid invidious distinctions between welfare dependency and self-support, for example, it seems that government should, as a matter of equal citizenship, provide as many basic goods and services as possible gratis to all.
On such a view the Christian social ideal turns out to be a sort of politically correct egalitarian collectivism, a society in which everyone equally supports everyone and no invidious distinctions are permissible or even possible.
Nonetheless, such a result radically opposes the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity. As the Catechism says:
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