The Occupy Wall Street protests have swept around the globe. While it is hard to identify a coherent program in these protests, it is clear that they have touched a nerve in Western society in regard to how the socio-economic system functions in the aftermath of the great financial crisis of 2008.
More extreme reactions can be identified in the Greek riots. The one clear note appears to be resentment at perceived corporate greed.
The Tea Party movement in the US, and its spin-offs around the world, such as the Convoy of No Confidence Rally in Canberra, express a similar anger at the status quo, though for them the growing debt crisis and a perceived culture of entitlement are the targets.
Both give expression to a crisis of confidence in the economic system and in the ability of our political processes to manage it.
Whatever the merits of such protests and the associated issues of free speech and democratic processes, it must be said that the capitalist system has shown itself over the last century as one that has been remarkably flexible and resilient.
It has seen off rival economic and political challenges from the extremes of right and left, and it is far too early to speak of any substantial challenge to its dominance today.
But perhaps there is a real taste for exploring alternatives.
In 1973 economist and philosopher E. F. Schumacher coined the phrase 'small is beautiful' — this was, in fact, the title of his seminal book on economics. In an age that had produced many great 'isms' (communism, fascism, capitalism) Schumacher advocated a more human-scale, decentralised approach to society. The subtitle to Small Is Beautiful was 'economics as if people mattered'.
In more recent times Schumacher has been described as the 'soul of the Green movement'. Satish Kumar, editor of Resurgence, sees in the Greens community and economic policies the influence of Schumacher's belief that 'the environment is not just an empirical, technical, policy matter; it is related to human values, which are a part of natural values.'
It is perhaps ironic that the Greens and other community-focused groups that are critical of the modern capitalist state draw on the ideas of a world-renowned economist, who in turn found inspiration from the social doctrine of the Church.
There is no single Catholic economic theory. The Church, however, can bring to the analysis of economics its understanding of the human condition, the importance it attaches to community, and values that inform the nature of the society we are trying to build. There will of course be substantial disagreements and debates in applying principles to economic practice.
Throughout this last century there have been numerous attempts to apply Catholic social teaching to the social realities of the time, though few today are really aware of them.
On the left, the idea of the social gospel played a significant part in shaping the rise of the labour movement and trade unions. In Australia, Cardinal Moran exercised much influence in this, along with unionists such as William Spence.
Christian Socialism has a long and proud history and has produced a wide range of thinkers and politicians up to contemporary times. Liberation theology has been deeply influential in many Third World countries. The emphasis across most of these groups was the primacy of the common good and a concern for the poor in the modern industrial world.
On the right there have been Christian capitalists and thinkers such as Michael Novak (The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism), as well as right wing critics of capitalism such as the corporatists, who have some influence on expressions of fascism.
The emphasis in these was on the fundamental importance of the family unit, the role of creativity in wealth creation and seeing socialism as detracting from human freedom.
Perhaps the most influential of the faith-based approaches to economic theory is that of distributism. Schumacher was influenced by distributist ideas that tried to explore a middle road between capitalist and socialist economic theory. In the English speaking world Catholic writers such as G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc popularised its early forms.
Schumacher was especially influenced by the principle of subsidiarity that was outlined in Catholic thinking and lay at the core of distributist thought.
Subsidiarity states that power and responsibility should be located as far as possible at the lowest, most local level of a society (though the Church doesn't always reflect this principle!). Thus it is uncomfortable with big government and big business, with aspects of both socialism and capitalism.
It is worth noting too, that often the principles of Catholic social teaching are largely unknown or ignored, even within the Church, and the fruits of sustained reflection on experience across many cultures and times are not explored.
Sometimes too, that treasure is brought to our attention from surprising sources. Andrew Brown, an editor with Britain's Guardian newspaper and an atheist, wrote recently that:
Catholic social teaching, and the attempts to produce an economics centred around the needs of humans, rather than of money, look like the only thought-through alternatives to unbridled market capitalism — and certainly the only ones which have a chance of widespread popular support.
Anglican theologian, philosopher and political thinker Phillip Blond has become a proponent of a form of distributism that has growing influence in British debates.
Blond is an adviser of the British Prime Minister, David Cameron. He argues that both capitalism and government are out of control, echoing ideas from both Occupy and the Tea Party. Blond speaks of an 'oscillation between extreme collectivism and extreme individualism', which for him are connected to a concentration of power both in government and the market.
He goes on to claim that Occupy and the Tea Party are 'essentially different expressions of the same phenomenon' in that they are expressions of resentment at the concentration of power in violation of the principal of subsidiarity, while the remedies they propose will fail because 'they demand salvation from either the gods of the market or government'.
In words Schumacher and the earlier Catholic distributists would have approved of, distributism, Blond argues, 'calls for going smaller and more local in search of solutions (music to the ears of classic conservatives) while leaving the central government to build the infrastructure and guarantee basics like education and health care (ideas that would warm any bleeding heart)'.
Fr Chris Middleton SJ is the Principal of St Aloysius College, Milson's Point, in Sydney. This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared in the college's newsletter.