Free market libertarianism is the conclusion of Catholic social teaching.

Walter Block

If Catholic theologians and laymen were true to their principles, they would embrace private property rights and the free enterprise system. That is, laissez-faire capitalism. This must be sharply distinguished from crony capitalism, mercantilism or corporate state monopoly “capitalism.” In the former case, every dollar earned is based upon mutual benefit, at least in the ex-ante sense of anticipations, and almost always, too, in terms of ex-post satisfaction after the fact. Whenever anyone buys a burger from Ray Kroc for $2, he values it at $2.01 or more, otherwise he would not have purchased it. McDonald’s too, gains, as they valued it at less than that amount, otherwise they would not have sold this delicacy.

The Marxists and liberation theologians would characterize this as mutual exploitation, but this was mutual aid; each earned a profit from the exchange. This is the pattern for each and every act of buying, selling, lending, borrowing, renting, speculating, price gouging, which together comprise the free market. Unfortunately, Pope Francis inveighs against the top one percent. But if they earned their wealth honestly, they enriched everyone they dealt with. That is to say, the pope fails to distinguish between these two very different types of “capitalism.”

Let us consider one principle of Catholic social teaching, the preferential option for the poor. If the rich fall into relatively hard times, they fall into the middle class. If the latter are balked in their economic activity, they become poor. But if the already impoverished are further reduced, their plight is much worse. Thus, every public policy must be looked at through the prism of the poor. How will it affect them? If badly, such a policy is to be eschewed.

How has the free enterprise system treated the poor, compared to other options? To ask this is to answer it: very well indeed. The people at the lower end of the income scale in relatively economically free countries are the envy of the rest of the world in terms of access to modern conveniences. Elsewhere, even those in the middle of the income distribution are much worse off. People such as Bill Gates, Ray Kroc, the Koch brothers, the Wal-Mart family are responsible for vastly enriching all sectors of the economy, certainly including the least well off. How do we know this? It is because they are very wealthy, and the only way this can be achieved in the free market setting is by enriching not only themselves, but everyone else who deals with them. And, yet, they are reviled by those who misunderstand Catholic social teaching.

In contrast, how has the welfare system treated the poor? Very shabbily. This might seem paradoxical, in that they are given money as a result of this initiative, and does that not necessarily make them better off? Not so fast. For the way welfare functions is to break up the family. In effect, the state marries the pregnant woman, and this is tempting to her since it makes her a better financial offer than the husband of her child. Some 70% of children in the disproportionately impoverished black community are brought up in non-intact families. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the problem of poverty is entirely one of lack of family formation; only a single digit percentage of black people from intact families are poor. Nor is this a black issue. A similar situation has occurred in the virtually all-white Swedish welfare state.

Another policy beloved of those who misconstrue Catholic social teaching and its preferential option for the poor is the minimum wage law. Before its implementation the unemployment rates of the old and the young, whites and blacks were roughly comparable. But now, after many decades of this vicious depraved law, the unemployment rates of the young are twice that of the old, and of blacks, twice as high as whites. The rate of joblessness for young black people is quadruple that of middle aged members of the white community. Why is this? It is because this is an unemployment law. It is not a floor which pushes up wages. Rather, it is a hurdle over which prospective employees must jump if they are to become employed in the first place, and the higher it is, the harder it is to scale over. At a minimum wage of $7.25, it would be foolish to hire a worker whose contribution to the bottom line is $5.00. The firm would lose $2.25 per hour. How does this help such a person to be unemployed at this higher wage, rather than employed at the lower one? If the minimum wage law were scrapped, he could become employed, and his productivity, and hence wages, would increase because of on-the-job training.

Block’s libertarianism inconsistent with Catholic social teaching.

Edward Vacek, S.J.

Dr. Block has often told me that I don’t understand his type of libertarianism, and that may be the case since I find his views so implausible.  The bold title of one of his many books expresses my view: Defending the Undefendable.  I do, however, have a very positive regard for his academic zeal.  Still, I don’t think he understands Catholic social teaching. I find myself amused when Professor Block joins the many critics who say that Pope Francis does not know Catholic teaching.  Once upon a time, what the pope said was thought to define Catholic teaching.

To begin, let me say that, contrary to Professor Block’s claim, Catholic theologians do embrace private property rights, and they have done so almost consistently for two thousand years.  As Bernard Brady recently wrote, in contrast to Marxism, private property is “central to Catholic social thought.”

Similarly, Catholic social teaching has a big place for the “free enterprise system.”  What it doesn’t embrace is an economic system that does not have any broad sense of ethical responsibility.  As the Catholic Catechism puts it, if all we have is the “law of the marketplace,” then we will fail in justice.

There is a narrow economic view that supports unfettered free exchange.  If a man sells drugs at a price other people are willing to pay, that’s rational economics.  The fact that the drugs might kill is not part of the question.  Governments should not try to prevent such free exchanges.  Professor Block likely will respond that, after a number of needless deaths, rich people will buy only certified drugs while poor people will, as they do now, take their chances.  That’s the worrisome law of the marketplace.

My friend, Walter Block, blames the minimum wage law for the fact that the unemployment rate for young black people is twice that of young white people.  Since, in principle, the minimum wage applies equally to both groups, the argument seems fallacious.  A much more plausible explanation is racism.  Because of our American cultural history, many more                                                     African-Americans than Caucasians begin the race for jobs with lead weights on their legs.  As a consequence, it is not surprising that many of them don’t reach the job market as fast as others.  Happily, many of our African American students at Loyola are cutting loose the lead weights.

Pope Francis rails against an economic system that says it is fine if, say, Walmart could get desperate people, who would have no safety net other than death, to accept $20 for working 100 hours a week.  To be sure, the pope would think differently if Walmart simply could not pay more.  But the reality is that Walmart instead pays a huge part of its surplus to the Walton families, many of whom do little work for Walmart. Thus while some people barely survive, Professor Block leads the Waltons in a chorus of Laissez les bon temps rouler.

It is time for the two of us to go out for another cheap dinner.  Perhaps this time I can get him to sing the right tune.

Social justice is the conclusion of Catholic social teaching.

Edward Vacek, S.J.

Professor Walter Block and I have gone out to dinner many times. We usually eat at cheap places, which is quite suitable since we tend to ruin one another’s supper. We argue throughout the meal. That’s okay, since vigorous disagreement is what occasions our meeting.

I tell him that his libertarian theories are completely cock-eyed, and he says the same about my Catholic social justice theories. Indigestion, yes. But sweet intellectual dessert!

Dr. Block speaks on behalf of a position that has powerfully captured the minds of many Americans, including Loyola students. Dr. Block is a very colorful, imaginative speaker, and I sometimes follow his style by using simple cases to smoke out the libertarian students in my classes.

For example. Imagine that you are on St. Charles Ave. A woman, riding on her bicycle, is hit by a speeding car that drives rapidly away. She is bleeding, lying by the side of the road. You have plans to meet with some friends for a few beers in the French Quarter, and the streetcar is now arriving from the Tulane stop. Do you have any obligation to
help her?

When I try a case like this with most of my students, they stare at me with startled eyes. Their shaking heads make clear that the obligation to help is so obvious that they are shocked that anyone could
think otherwise.

Not so with some of my students who have drunk deeply from at least one libertarian brewery. These students raise a hand and announce “No!” For them, we have no obligation to help others. Put in philosophical terms, there are no positive rights, that is, a right to be helped. Thus there are no positive duties to help others in need.

They acknowledge negative rights, rights not to be physically harmed. The woman on the bicycle had a right not to be hit by the reckless driver. But it is fine if the rest of us just catch the streetcar. And once we have paid our fare, it would be wrong for the driver to stop to help. By paying, we have created a contract that the driver should fulfill.

An astute reader will have seen how these two views have different implications. Consider the terrible ongoing crisis in Syria. People are being killed, robbed and raped by this and that rogue band. My libertarian students, like many Americans, would say we in the USA have no obligation to help. Nations, including this country, are free to close their borders against refugees despite their need. With our borders closed, then, like people in the French Quarter who have cast off all care for the outside world, we can sing laissez les bon temps rouler.

To the contrary, the Catholic social tradition has developed several ideas that insist we do have positive obligations to others, especially those who are most in need. One such term is “solidarity.” It means that we are already always involved in relationships with others. This view is reflected in the Christian metaphors that we are members of Christ’s body, that God is our Father (or Mother), that we are sisters
and brothers.

We are members of our birth families long before we choose to be. We can later reject our family; or, acting ethically, we can choose to fully participate in it. It often happens that families will devote a disproportionate amount of their resources to the handicapped child who needs special treatment. So too Christians have in this sense a preferential option for the poor.

On the other hand, as in a healthy family, each person, including the poor, have a Christian obligation to do all they can to live well their own lives. Some libertarians might not agree, holding that it is OK for people to freely choose to waste their own lives.

Catholic social ethics insists that people have to contribute to the various social groups to which they belong. This is called participation in the “common good.” Some libertarians would not agree. For them there is no obligation to contribute. “Get all you want.” “Taxes are immoral” since they amount to governments stealing from people.

For Catholic teaching, since families, churches, communities and nations are real, these groups have responsibilities. Their obligations to distribute goods fairly and to organize society are practices of “social justice.” Some libertarians disagree. For them, only individuals exist. Indeed, by libertarian standards, no one has a moral obligation to feed their own children.

At a recent lecture-luncheon, generously provided to students by Dr. Block’s supporters, the invited speaker answered a question of mine by saying she was talking economics, not ethics. I agreed with the second half of her comment, but wondered about that split.

To conclude on a light note. By my reckoning, I’ve paid for more of our dinners than Professor Block has. If so, each of us is consistent with our divergent ethical views.

Vacek misunderstands libertarianism

Walter Block

Yes, I agree, Fr. Vacek and I have gone out to dinner many times. Each occasion has been a delight for me. He is one of the sweetest and kindest men I have ever met. I’m sorry he’s had indigestion from any of our meals. I certainly have not, and look forward to a long continuation. He is one of my colleagues at Loyola who makes my employment here a pleasure.

I fear I have not yet communicated to him what libertarianism is all about. It is not at all a theory that deals with all of ethics; rather, with only a small portion of it: just law. This philosophy claims that legitimate law will only punish people for violations of the non-aggression principle (NAP); that is, for violations of negative rights such as murder, rape, trespass, fraud, kidnapping, theft, where the person or property of innocent people are violated.

And that is it! This brief description pretty much sums up the entirety of libertarianism. It is simply not concerned with any other issues.

Now consider that poor woman who lies bleeding on St. Charles Ave. The libertarian asks one and only one type of question about this scenario: would it be illegal for those who wish to avoid helping her, and instead go off to the French Quarter?  Would this be a violation of the NAP? Should those onlookers be sent to prison for their callous behavior toward her? And there is only one answer emanating from this philosophical quarter: No. Since they did not violate her rights, and there are no positive obligations in libertarianism. There are only negative ones: to refrain from violating the NAP.

I, now speaking not as a libertarian hereby proclaim that the action, or, rather, the non-action of these bystanders is despicable. It is horrendous. It is disgraceful. But they have not encroached upon the one libertarian law.

Suppose some physicists, or mathematicians, or musicians, or poets had acted in this coldhearted manner toward this bleeding woman. Would this cast into doubt their professional capacities? No, of course not. They would be immoral, but not necessarily bad physicists, or mathematicians, or musicians, or poets. It is much the same with the narrow focus of libertarianism.

It, too, is not to be called into question just because it does not pronounce on all conceivable issues. The libertarian students who say they have no obligation to help this woman misunderstand this viewpoint as much as does Fr. Vacek. The proper answer is that all people have a moral or ethical obligation to come to her aid, but, as far as libertarianism is concerned, not a legal one. If the latter were in operation, then the entire world’s population should be in jail, since there are people in trouble at all times; refraining from helping them would be criminal. How does Fr. Vacek get out from under that reductio ad absurdum? Perhaps he will tell me at our next meal together.