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Why the Church Rejects Both Collectivism & Individualism [Commonweal Magazine, 02/19/15]
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<p>&nbsp;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&mdash;trustee of the Catholic University of America&mdash;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 &ldquo;collectivist&rdquo; 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&mdash;the &ldquo;twin rocks of shipwreck,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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: &ldquo;The right ordering of economic life cannot be left to a free competition of forces,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;For from this source, as from a poisoned spring, have originated and spread all the errors of individualist economic teaching.&rdquo;</p>
<p><a href="https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/papal-economics">MORE&gt;&gt;</a></p>