Magisterial Orthodox Social Teaching
Part 6: Dangers overlooked
Let me leave aside the economics of this section since this isn’t really my area of expertise. But does highlight one weakness in at least some, contemporary OST.
The FLW’s early concern about the tendency of the State to usurp the Church for its own immoral ends seems not to apply to the call here for an expansion of economic regulation or the provision of universal healthcare at public expense. In the latter case, they go so far as to say that
A Church that strives to proclaim [God’s] love to all nations, and to demand of every society the justice that God requires of all human beings, must insist that every government seek, by whatever powers and resources it has at its disposal, to provide universal healthcare, of as high a quality as possible, for all its citizens.
Concluding “those who cannot procure such care for themselves should be given access to it, by public policy and at the public expense (#40).
At the risk of psychologizing the moral arguments of the Basis and FLW, the authors of both documents overlook the dangers of the State usurping economic freedom because they seem to me to conflate their own policy preferences with the tradition. Moreover, they appear to assume that what Tradition allows, it demands.
This leads to situations like FLW’s section economics or the Basis arguing that donations to the Church be exempt from the ordinary oversight applicable to other economic transactions. In both cases, this is simply special pleading, of those speaking on behalf of the Church ignoring evidence unfavorable to their position.
Moreover, the tendency to equate our desired outcomes with the Tradition demands rather than (at most) merely allows, undermines what both documents say should be the hallmark of Orthodox social witness: that is, its self-emptying character.