Basil and Chrysostom on the Crime of Private Property

So it turns out that I had even less time on my travels than I expected, and there is no barrage of prefab blog posts about to be unleashed.  But I did read an article on Aquinas’s view of property rights, which, although rubbish in itself, contained some remarkable quotes from the Church Fathers on the subject of charity and property rights.  Very shocking stuff, and I can’t help but ask, with a bit of a sense of betrayal--why, all those times when I learned about the Church Fathers, was none of this mentioned?  

Here are two representative passages:

“Are you not greedy?  Are you not acting like robbers?  Are you not usurping that which you have received merely in trust?  He who steals some one else’s garment is called a thief.  But he who fails to clothe the naked even if he were able to do so, does he not by chance deserve to be called by a different name?  The bread which you hold back actually belongs to the hungry; the garment which you lock in your chest belongs to the naked; the shoes which rot in your store house belong to the bare-footed; and the money which you are hiding...belongs to the needy.  Thus you do a great injustice to all those whom you could succor.... ‘Whom do I injure’, says the greedy, ‘if I merely keep what is mine?’  But then, tell me, what is really thine?  Wherefrom did you take it?  And how did it get into thy life?  Is the greedy person not like the man who, after having taken his seat in the theater, restrains all latecomers from attending the show, thus acting like one who considers his own that which actually is meant for the common use of all?  Are not the rich of this type?  For after having taken care of themselves by crude usurpation, they declare that everything they have gained by this usurpation is theirs forever.  But if any man would claim only what he really requires in order to satisfy his true needs, and would leave to the needy what exceeds his own immediate needs, then no one would be rich, and no one poor.” [St. Basil, from a Homily on the Gospel According to Luke]

“Is wealth therefore good? By no means. At the same time it is not bad, he says, if its possessor be not covetous; it is not bad, if it be distributed to the poor, otherwise it is bad, it is ensnaring. ‘But if he does not evil, though he does no good, it is not bad,’ he argues. True. But is not this an evil, that you alone should have the Lord's property, that you alone should enjoy what is common? Is not ‘the earth God's, and the fullness thereof’? If then our possessions belong to one common Lord, they belong also to our fellow-servants. The possessions of one Lord are all common. Do we not see this the settled rule in great houses? To all is given an equal portion of provisions, for it proceeds from the treasures of their Lord. And the house of the master is opened to all. The king's possessions are all common, as cities, market-places, and public walks. We all share them equally.

Mark the wise dispensation of God. That He might put mankind to shame, He has made certain things common, as the sun, air, earth, and water, the heaven, the sea, the light, the stars; whose benefits are dispensed equally to all as brethren. We are all formed with the same eyes, the same body, the same soul, the same structure in all respects, all things from the earth, all men from one man, and all in the same habitation.... Yet those greater things He has opened freely to all, that we might thence be instructed to have these inferior things in common. Yet for all this, we are not instructed.

But as I said, how can he, who is rich, be a good man? When he distributes his riches, he is good, so that he is good when he has ceased to have it, when he gives it to others; but while he keeps it himself, he is not good. How then is that a good which being retained renders men evil, being parted with makes them good? Not therefore to have wealth, but to have it not, makes one appear to be good. Wealth therefore is not a good. But if, when you can receive it, you receive it not, again you are good.

If then we are good, when having it, we distribute it to others; or when offered to us we refuse it, and if we are not good, when we receive or gain it, how can it be a good thing in itself? Call it not therefore a good. You possess it not, because you think it a good, because you are anxious to possess it. Cleanse your mind, and rectify your judgment, and then you will be good. Learn what are really goods. What are they? Virtue and benevolence. These and not that, are truly good. According to this rule, the more charitable you are, the more good you will be considered. But if you are rich, you are no longer good. Let us therefore become thus good, that we may be really good, and may obtain the good things to come in Jesus Christ.” (St. Chrysostom, from the Twelfth Homily on 1 Timothy)

Charity and Justice--A Catholic Conundrum

March 11, 2010

One of the most fundamental problems in the political and economic theology is the relationship between charity and justice..  This is not just some academic quibble over terms, but has potentially huge practical significance.  Traditionally, justice has been designated as the responsibility of the state, and charity of the Church.  But if we’re going to divide things up so neatly, we’d better have a clear idea of the distinction.  On this issue of giving, the theft vs. stinginess issue I touched on in a recent post, the distinction looms very large.  For, if stinginess is always a failure of charity only, not of justice, then it is outside the reach of the law; states have no business taxing people in order to give their money to others, or penalizing people for greed, or any of that.  But if it's a failure of justice, then presumably (assuming we've rightly assigned the task of the "state," and assuming we've rightly figured out what the "state" is--ha!) we're permitting grave injustice when we don't have laws regulating the acquisition and distribution of wealth.  Unfortunately, the tradition does not give us as clear an answer as we would like on this crucial question.

The typical distinctions between duties of justice and duties of charity rest on one of two shaky foundations.  The first is the claim that whereas duties of justice are obligatory, duties of charity are voluntary and optional.  To use an example from my recent post, you have an obligation not to steal from someone, but the charitable action of giving to someone cannot be made so obligatory.  The second route is to say that while in either case you have an obligation to act in a certain way, in one case the obligation is met by an answering right or claim in the other party, while in the other case it is not.  So, for example, I may have an obligation to give to both the needy stranger and to repay the friend who lent me $10,000 last year.  But in the first case, the friend has a right to expect the money, a claim upon me; in the latter, the needy stranger does not.  If we act like the needy stranger does, then we have all the evils of the modern welfare system, where the poor treat their stipends as “entitlements” and lose any sense of gratitude.  

The first foundation for the distinction I think we can safely dispense with.  Duties of charity are duties, not suggestions.  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” and all that it entails, is about as obligatory as you can get.  I do not recall encountering any moral theologian that argues otherwise.  However, charity is “voluntary” in the sense that it is not compelled by physical coercion, at least on the basis of the standard division between charity as the province of the Church and justice of the State.  If the State does not enforce charity, then by definition it is voluntary in that sense.  But, having then ascertained that it is “voluntary,” we sometimes have a tendency to get fuzzy with definitions, and act as if that means, “entirely up to my choice,” which it is not, ethically speaking.  We also see a desire to emphasize Christian liberty over against legalism coming in here.  To talk about obligations, we are afraid, steers us into the realm of legalism.  Much better to talk about privileges--we have the privilege to give, not the obligation.  Perhaps something is gained by this way of speaking, but I fear that more is lost.

The second foundation has a venerable pedigree in moral theology, and it seems to make neat and perfect sense, but I spot a problem that makes it all very hazy for me.  What is this language of rights?  Many theologians have been leery of the language of rights, and recently, the O’Donovans have been the most notorious opponents of the idea, insisting that the language of rights has a troubled and checkered history, spotted with many theological ambiguities, and we would do much better to go back to the language of obligations based on objective Right, rather than subjective rights.  But what does this mean for the charity/justice distinction?  If there’s no such thing as rights, but only obligations, then we can’t distinguish justice by saying that in the case of justice, there’s an answering right that is absent in the case of charity.  Don’t the two now start to slide together?  (I had best mention, also, that much of my ambiguity regarding this distinction stems from the fact that it seems almost invisible in Old Testament law and ethics, at least, the parts I have been studying.)

Now, presumably there’s another foundation for the distinction of duties of charity and duties of justice, because it goes back to before the advent of rights language, and is clearly present in Aquinas.  Yet, major ambiguities are present there, particularly on this issue of theft and generosity.  Aquinas, as I mentioned in a recent post, acknowledges that withholding charity from another in need is tantamount to theft, a violation of justice.   The duty to give, in the case of one who is in great need, is a duty of justice, it seems clearly in this passage.  However, when you go to look for the treatment of the duties of giving, it is found in his section on charity.  Yet within this section, Aquinas seems still to be designating the duty of giving to one in great need, and the duty of giving all of your superflua (anything you have that exceeds the full extent of your reasonable needs), as one of strict justice (at least, such is the reading of John Finnis, who offers one of the most thorough and authoritative analyses of this section).  Of course, there is still a kind of giving (e.g., giving to another in need when you yourself are also in need) that is supererogatory, and thus voluntary and a matter of charity.  But here we see that charity suddenly crops up again as the voluntary, rather than the obligatory.  

This ambiguity continued to vex the Catholic moral tradition.  In his Philosophy of Politics, Anthony Rosmini draws the distinction between justice and charity in this sphere as tightly as possible, in good libertarian language, 

“We know that charity and beneficence can be commanded by God, but we contradict the proper notion of the duties of humanity and charity if we have the right to demand the practice of beneficence and to regulate it by law as we please.  Such action would result in endless disputes and squabbles and even cause terrible wars which could end only in the destruction of the system of humanity.  If individuals themselves cannot require from their equals, as a right of justice, what pertains to beneficence, much less can a government, which is principally instituted to defend and preserve the right of all the individuals that compose the society.  If I am harmed by someone attempting to force a benefit from me, my right is violated, and the government must help me against those who violently attack me in this way.  Clearly, a government which protects unjust and violent people is forcefully obliging me to do what in fact depends totally on my will and on the extent of my inclination to be beneficent.  Not even civil society as a whole can change the natural duties of charity into duties of justice, nor all the members united together require one person to give, out of justice, what he is obliged (I am presuming he is obliged) to give out of affection.  Otherwise, love would not be love, and beneficence, not beneficence.”

In Leo XIII’s encyclical, Rerum Novarum, the same issue crops up:

“But if the question be asked: How ought man to use his possessions? the Church replies without hesitation: ‘As to this point, man ought not regard external goods as his own, but as common so that, in fact, a person should readily share them when he sees others in need....’  [W]hen the demands of necessity and propriety have been met, it is a duty to give to the poor out of that which remains. ‘Give that which remains as alms.’ These are duties not of justice, except in cases of extreme need, but of Christian charity, which obviously cannot be enforced by legal action. But the laws and judgments of men yield precedence to the law and judgment of Christ the Lord, Who in many ways urges the practice of almsgiving: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive,’ and Who will judge a kindness done or denied to the poor as done or denied to himself.”

Notice that Leo leaves an exception--in “cases of extreme need,” in which case, we presume, these duties of charity are transformed into duties of justice, and are thereby enforceable by legal action.  Or is that not what he means?  (It is worth pointing out, for those interested in such niceties, that Leo’s exception is much smaller than St. Thomas’s.  For Thomas, after “the demands of necessity and propriety have been met,” we are talking about one’s superflua, all of which must be given to the poor as a matter of justice.  For Thomas, “cases of extreme need” transform duties of charity into duties of justice even when the giver’s needs “of propriety” have not been met [e.g., if I “need” to buy a bus ticket to get to work, and I meet someone in desperate need of food, I have a duty of justice to sacrifice my bus ticket for their food].  Needless to say, I tend to be more sympathetic to Thomas than Leo on this question.)  I have been told (though I have not yet read this myself) that the way Leo handled this question was not considered entirely satisfactory in the Catholic Social Teaching tradition, and was reversed by John Paul II in Laborem Exercens, where he claimed that the withholding of property that ought to be given to another was "an offense before God and man." (An offense before man is presumably a matter for the justice system.)

If any of you were hoping for a solution of the dilemma at this point, I’m afraid I must disappoint you.  Like much else on this blog, this is merely an exploration of the problem.  Perhaps a solution will come to me in a vision this evening as I smoke my pipe, something I haven’t done in much too long.  (I also note that while I have analyzed the Catholic tradition on this issue, I have said nothing about how Protestants handle these matters.  If anyone wants to jump in and add that to the discussion, that’d be splendid.)

"This Slanderous Reprehension of Laws"

March 9, 2010

I have huge problems with Melanchthon’s treatment of Romans 13, from which this passage is excerpted, but nevertheless, there may well be some interesting points of intersection with how I used Romans 13 in my recent post “The Power of Civil Obedience.”  I am increasingly wondering how constructive much of our obsession with griping against the government really is--I mean, I obviously think it’s important that we should understand the truth about the evils that we are facing in modern states, and confront these evils, but the obligations of charity and love of enemy don’t disappear.  Just something worth chewing on:

 “Furthermore, Christians attribute to the magistrates wisdom and justice, that is, they do not prefer their private judgements, before the laws and decrees of the magistrate, but obey them.  They quarrel not with them, they do not disanull the laws; and this honor is most necessary to the public peace, not to use cavillation against the laws, nor enviously to interpret them.  Moreover, hereto it belongeth to cover, to excuse, and to mitigate, the oversights of the laws and of the magistrates.  This courteous interpretation, as it is necessary in our private conversation, so much more is it necessary in public society towards the magistrate, as it is written: “Love beareth all things, and love is the bond of perfection, to prevent all dissolutions of the commonwealth.” Again, “Love covereth the multitude of sins.”  Again, “Obey your magistrates, though they be rigorous.”  Rude and unskillful men, are diligently to be admonished in this, that they quarrel not, nor change the laws and public institutions.  Father Noah did curse his son Ham, for that he uncovered him and scorned him; and even so let them be assured which deprave the laws, they which maliciously make the worst of the magistrate’s oversights, that they be cursed of God, and shall be punished for this offence, for that they give not due honor to the laws and magistrates, and this slanderous reprehension of laws, ought the rather to be eschewed, because it bringeth forth horrible commotions in the commonwealth.”

Lack of Charity=Theft?

March 8, 2010

It is axiomatic among Christian conservatives today that theft and stinginess are fundamentally different sins.  One way of describing the distinction is to say that theft is a sin against justice, while stinginess is a sin against charity (this justice/charity distinction will be the subject of a forthcoming post); another is to say that theft is a crime, prosecutable by civil authority, while stinginess is a sin, prosecutable only by God alone.  In the second case, the distinction may serve the purpose of trying to guard against government involvement in things like welfare programs, which, as it were, compel giving to the poor.  This concern may be a legitimate one, though in such cases, I’m more inclined to blame the people who only do their duty when compelled, than the government that has to come along and compel them--”for rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil.” (Rom. 13:3)  

In either case, the distinction also serves the purpose of establishing that theft is a much worse sin than stinginess; indeed, some might even tend to think that giving is something of a work of supererogatory merit, and so the failure to give is perhaps not a sin at all.  Private property is conceived of as a sacred right, and so theft, by violating it, is a grave sin, whereas the failure to use one’s property (over which one has the freedom to do what one wants, after all) to help another is a fairly venial sin.  

I had been uncomfortable with the rigidity of this distinction before and had even pointed out that Aquinas relativized theft and property by saying that someone in extreme need is morally and legally justified in stealing another’s property to meet that need.  But when I read Aquinas more thoroughly last week, it made me uncomfortable with a lot more than the rigidity of that distinction.  

In II-II, Question 66, he quotes Ambrose approvingly as saying, “Let no man call his own that which is common,” (meaning by this all external things), and adds: “He who spends too much is a robber.”  A little later he quotes Ambrose again, “It is no less a crime to refuse to help the needy when you are able and prosperous than it is to take away someone else’s property,” and summarizes “Therefore just as theft consists in taking something from another, so also does it consist in withholding it.”  But this is just Ambrose’s opinion, right?  We all know he was something of a radical.  We’re expecting something a bit more toned down from Aquinas, the defender of private property against the Franciscans, the proto-capitalist (if you listen to Rodney Stark).  But no.  When Aquinas comes to give his own opinion on Ambrose’s quote, he states bluntly “To withhold what is due to another inflicts the same kind of harm as taking something unjustly; and so unjust taking should be understood to include unjust withholding.”  

Thus both of the distinctions with which we reassure ourselves are undercut.  

Now if that ain’t scary, I don’t know what is.

PS: You should know, of course, that Aquinas, as always, takes the time in another place to flesh out just when and how much you are obliged to give to the needy, and how to balance it with providing for your own needs.  I expect I’ll post those details sometime soon; but suffice to say here that his qualifications and specifications offer little comfort to the troubled middle-class conscience.  

The Politics of Self-Interest

Some time ago, when I blogged about the problems of US foreign aid, I promised to follow it up with a more theoretical consideration of how capitalism's understanding of generosity underlies the perverse contemporary consensus on foreign policy.  You may have noticed before that I generally try to keep such promises, but am usually very tardy in doing so.  So, here's the payoff on that particular promissory note.

US foreign policy in recent decades displays an odd paradox, which is baffling to internal and external observers alike.  Two recent illustrations got me thinking about this.  First, my father came back from a trip to Israel, and while there, he had talked a lot with his Palestinian guide about the politics of the area.  He learned that the Palestinians' view of the US was not nearly as negative as one might expect--it was in fact rather confused.  For the Palestinians observed that on the one hand the US seemed to support brutal Israeli policy against the Palestinians, making life very difficult for them, and on the other hand, USAID provided a tremendous amount of humanitarian support for the Palestinians, leaving them very grateful.  All in all, it was rather puzzling--with one hand we're beating them, with the other, we're holding out gifts.

The second illustration comes from the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake.  Here we have a country that the US has been raping for decades, leaving it terribly destitute.  But, in the aftermath of the earthquake, the US responds with alacrity, pouring humanitarian resources into Haiti, making all sorts of generous offers, and outdoing any other nation in its willingness to help.  What's the deal here?  If we hated them, why did we help them so much?  If we didn't hate them, why have we been so busy abusing them for so long?  Now, let's steer clear of the most sinister possible answers--that is, that the humanitarian effort was simply an excuse for a fresh military operation.  Let's leave aside (for now) the issues in which America has not been as generous as it purported to be--e.g., continuing to deny Haitians immigration, suspending medical evacuations, etc.

In fact, with both Haiti and Palestine, two more cynical answers suggest themselves.  First, generous foreign aid could simply be a mask, designed to fool other nations into thinking that we're really nice, wonderful people, and distracting them from our much more negative foreign policies.  Still worse, it could be simply another tool of control, giving other countries just enough to make them feel dependent on us and indebted to us, without ever giving them enough to be able to stand on their own two feet without our help.  Both of these are no doubt part of what's going on, and don't really contradict my main point, but I'd like to steer the focus away from these and ask the more difficult question, "Let's have faith that our government really does want to help people, and really is being generous.  How then does that square with the rest of our foreign policy?"

The answer lies, I think, in the capitalist ideal of generosity.  In capitalism, of course, it is maintained that generosity does not operate at the level of ordinary economic exchange--as Smith said, "it is not from the benevolence of the butcher or the baker that we expect to receive our goods, but from their regard to their own interest" (paraphrase from memory).  In our ordinary day-to-day exchanges, we are not expected to be motivated by love of others or any willingness to sacrifice for them, but simply by a desire to advance our own economic interests (within, of course, the bounds of law, though if you can get the law changed, that's always helpful).  But, we are told, this economic system will not undermine generosity, but actually encourage it, for two reasons: 1) since this economic system is more productive than any other, those doing business in this way will have far more resources to spare, and thus will be able to give much more; 2) since charity is necessarily a free, rather than constrained act, an economic system that leaves people free to pursue their own desires, rather than attempting to regulate them, it will encourage people to give much more than they would if they were obligated in some way to generosity.  Of course, there is something to be said for both of these points, to be sure, but I for one am not comfortable with the direction they have led our society.  We have isolated the realms of exchange and charity from one another entirely, so that we are perfectly comfortable being hard-nosed, cutthroat, vicious competitors in the marketplace, even while being benevolent, compassionate, unstinting philanthropists outside of the workplace.  We have accepted as normal the phenomenon of (to pick a very mild example) Pepsi making billions of dollars off of destroying people's health, and meanwhile giving millions to charitable work for disabled people or cancer victims.  Indeed, our whole societies operate on the model of feverishly pursuing wealth, no matter the consequences, and then using some of that wealth to try to mop up the consequences (e.g., the welfare system), rather than putting some controls on the means of wealth acquisition on the front end.  Even most conservative Christians that I know (including myself!) operate on a stingy profit-above-all philosophy in their exchanges, so that they can have a larger income out of which to give their 10% (or perhaps a bit more) to the Church.

This is all very convenient, as avoiding generosity on the front end helps us avoid having to actually make inconveniencing adjustments to our way of life.  As long as we give only out of our surplus, once we're confidently raking in the profits from our self-interested exchanges, then we remain in charge of the situation, completely free to give as much we feel we can; we are not at anyone else's mercy, but they are (quite literally) at our mercy.  As productive as this economic system is, the Bible seems to have a very different view of generosity.  In the Pentateuch's economic laws, it is striking how few of the provisions for the poor are a matter of requiring reactive generosity (e.g., the tithe), and how many are a matter of proactive generosity--regulating the economic mechanisms of society so as to prevent severe privation in the first place (e.g., debt cancellation, usury prohibition, inalienability of land, gleaning laws, etc.).  But I could spend forever talking about this.  Let me hasten on to what was (ostensibly) the main point.

It appears to me that the capitalist model of economic exchange has come to dominate our paradigm for international politics.  Increasingly it seems to be assumed that the responsibility of each nation is to pursue solely its own interest when it engages in diplomacy and enacts foreign policy (not, of course, that this self-interest is always sinister in and of itself, anymore than the butcher or the baker's.)  Granted, it may well be that this has long been the modus operandi of nations, but we seem to have lost most of our shyness in talking this way.  For example, in a recent issue of Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College (ironically enough, when I just went there to double-check my source, I found that their most recent article is on the spirit of generosity that American free enterprise encourages, and repeating the cheery myth that America is the most generous nation on earth), they have an essay by US diplomat John Bolton.  Bolton sets out to criticize Obama's foreign policy for (of all things!) saying that "he believes in American exceptionalism in the same way that the British believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism....that America is not so different from other countries....that America’s interest is no different or better than any other country’s interest."  Basically, Bolton was upset that Obama believes that America's job is to work with other countries in pursuing their common interests, rather than simply pursuing its own interests (and a Christian college was promoting this!).  This willingness to negotiate and work together is unacceptable, in Bolton's mind, and he dubs it, in a dazzling leap of logic, "neoisolationism." (!!)   He goes on to sketch the various ways in which Obama has failed to uphold America's interests and where he needs to withdraw the negotiating hand and replace it with a threatening fist.  Whether or not you agree with the specific policy recommendations (which focus on favorite "Axis of Evil" countries like N. Korea and Iran) the rhetoric used to support them is really quite surprising.  Apparently Bolton (and many other conservatives) take it as axiomatic that our job is to promote our own interests.

This does not mean, in their minds, a destruction of generosity, any more than Adam Smith thought his economics would destroy generosity.  Rather, it simply means separating the the sphere of policy and of generosity completely.  We really do feel that we should be generous and help underprivileged nations, but we feel that the best way for us to do that is from a position of uncompromised strength, freedom, and prosperity.  Once we are in such a position, we will have enormous resources to give, and can give without fear of undermining ourselves.  But, to get in such a position, we have to unswervingly seek our own interest in foreign affairs, and we need to use whatever means we can to ensure that America prospers.  We justify this, of course, by saying that what's good for America is good for the world--if we pursue policies that help us prosper, we will use that prosperity for the rest of the world's benefit.  And thus we make life hell for the Palestinians inasmuch as is necessary for our interests in the Middle East, but then come along later to hand them a cup of cold water and give them a pat on the back.  Or we make use of Haiti for decades, leaving it with no native wealth or infrastructure, since this supports our economic interests, and then when we have a couple billion to spare, we (with genuine motives of generosity) pour it into their country to help them recover from an earthquake.

Instead of leaving the corners of the field for the needy, we harvest every square foot and then, when our granaries are full, and the needy are looking really desperate, we give them all that we have to spare and rejoice that God has made us such a generous people.