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Why the Church Rejects Both Collectivism & Individualism [Commonweal Magazine, 02/19/15]
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<p> by Anthony Annett, <a href="https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/">Commonweal Magazine</a></p>
<p>Perhaps prompted by nervousness about the agenda of Pope Francis, recently there has been a flurry of activity pushing the compatibility of Catholicism with capitalism. In a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Tim Busch—trustee of the Catholic University of America—praises the power of free markets to lift people out of poverty. In his view, the free-market system advances the virtues enshrined in Catholic social teaching, and is therefore superior to “collectivist” economic systems in which big government impinges on personal freedom.</p>
<p>Busch presents a false dichotomy. Who does not oppose the collectivism associated with the oppressive Marxist regimes of the twentieth century? Catholic social teaching has always staked out a middle-ground position that opposes the excesses of collectivism on the one hand, and laissez-faire individualism on the other—the “twin rocks of shipwreck,” as Pope Pius XI put it in Quadragesimo anno (1931).</p>
<p>The Catholic Church has always taught that the right to private property is never absolute, and must always be subordinated to common use—making sure that the needs of all are met. And while collectivism can elevate common use at the expense of private ownership, free-market individualism errs in the opposite direction. Writing at the time of the Great Depression, Pius XI was particularly blunt: “The right ordering of economic life cannot be left to a free competition of forces,” he said. “For from this source, as from a poisoned spring, have originated and spread all the errors of individualist economic teaching.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/papal-economics">MORE>></a></p>
<p>Perhaps prompted by nervousness about the agenda of Pope Francis, recently there has been a flurry of activity pushing the compatibility of Catholicism with capitalism. In a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Tim Busch—trustee of the Catholic University of America—praises the power of free markets to lift people out of poverty. In his view, the free-market system advances the virtues enshrined in Catholic social teaching, and is therefore superior to “collectivist” economic systems in which big government impinges on personal freedom.</p>
<p>Busch presents a false dichotomy. Who does not oppose the collectivism associated with the oppressive Marxist regimes of the twentieth century? Catholic social teaching has always staked out a middle-ground position that opposes the excesses of collectivism on the one hand, and laissez-faire individualism on the other—the “twin rocks of shipwreck,” as Pope Pius XI put it in Quadragesimo anno (1931).</p>
<p>The Catholic Church has always taught that the right to private property is never absolute, and must always be subordinated to common use—making sure that the needs of all are met. And while collectivism can elevate common use at the expense of private ownership, free-market individualism errs in the opposite direction. Writing at the time of the Great Depression, Pius XI was particularly blunt: “The right ordering of economic life cannot be left to a free competition of forces,” he said. “For from this source, as from a poisoned spring, have originated and spread all the errors of individualist economic teaching.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/papal-economics">MORE>></a></p>