The presidency of Donald Trump should bring a renewed focus on the dangers of unbridled capitalism. The Catholic Church has a rich trove of teachings on the subject that have been missing in action for the past 30 years and need to be rediscovered, fast.
Pope John Paul II had no time for Communism, which is unsurprising since he had to live under it before becoming pope. He was firmly determined that theologians not naively enable or endorse Communist politics, which was made clear in a 1984 Vatican directive penned by then-Cardinal Ratzinger (today Pope Emeritus Benedict) forbidding elements of allegedly Communist-influenced Liberation Theology.
In the same year President Reagan, who was carried to office with the support of the religious Right, established diplomatic relations with the Vatican for the first time ever. An alliance between the Church hierarchy and right-wing US politics was established which had no reason to outlive the Cold War but somehow remained firmly in place for three decades.
The Church's tacit support for the Republican agenda is likely to vanish under Trump with the US bishops having already challenged him on migration and refugees. That should not be the only point of difference.
What's been forgotten or at least soft-pedalled in those 30 years is that John Paul II's writings, like those of his predecessors and successors, are just as critical of unbridled capitalism as they are of socialism. The Church has warned us for well over 100 years to steer a path between the excesses of both.
"People spend a similar amount of time at work as they do with their families yet the level of engagement with work and business-related moral questions in the English-speaking church is woeful."
Now is the time for a well-articulated Christian challenge to the problems of capitalism which seem likely to get worse before they get better. The United States is already more unequal today than it ever has been in history, even worse than it was in the days of the robber barons.
Where is the voice of the local churches on widening wealth inequality fuelled by stagnant wage growth and on the privatisation of public services? Or on financialisation of the economy, which fuels both of those trends? Or on tax justice?
This silence is unique to the English-speaking world. In other countries, Catholics are on the front foot about the problems of capitalism and stand with the marginalised, particularly in Pope Francis's native Latin America. In his book Finance Catholique Frenchman Antoine Cuny de la Verryère proposes the following list of 11 'financial sins'. Have you heard a sermon about any of them?
- Price volatility due to speculation
- Wage inequality
- Excessive use of leverage
- Commodification of workers
- Short-termism
- Losing sight of non-economic values such as scarcity and productivity
- Failure to share the profits from an enterprise
- Anonymity and disempowerment of investors
- Tax havens and tax avoidance generally
- Adverse effects on the environment
- Lack of transparency
People spend a similar amount of time at work as they do with their families yet the level of engagement with work and business-related moral questions in the English-speaking church is woeful. We have a panoply of conferences, theology courses and institutes about Church teaching on marriage and family. I struggle to recall even one about Church teaching on the dignity and rights of workers.
Exacerbating the problem, Catholic institutions that are uncritical of or even boosters of capitalism tend to attract funding from wealthy donors and thus have the means to fill the vacuum. Consider the Michigan-based Acton Institute which propagates a syncretic blend of Christianity and free-market liberalism and is funded by oil company Exxon and the billionaire Koch brothers among others. They frequently intervene in public debates, muddying the waters on Catholic Church teaching such as the right of workers to form unions. Their view ends up carrying the day simply by filling the void left open by the official Church.
The Republicans' electoral alliance with the Church may already be doomed by their overreach on immigration. That the Church has drawn a line on this issue is praiseworthy but it is at least as urgent to reassert the Catholic position on the human cost of our economic system.
Michael Walker is a union official and PhD candidate at the University of Technology Sydney. He tweets at @labouratmargins