Magisterial Orthodox Social Teaching
Part 5: Good intentions, poor execution
While the Basis and FLW address similar themes in their respective discussions of theological anthropology and the relationship of the Church to the political order, they diverge quite dramatically when it comes to questions of economic liberty.
For this reason, this next section is longer than the earlier ones. I don’t want to unduly burden you as the reader but I thought it important to put in one post the ways in which both the Basis and FLW don’t simply diverge but miss the mark when it comes to allowing the Evangelical witness of the Church to guide social teaching.
Re-reading what I just wrote, I realize this is a harsh criticism to make and one which, if I were a Catholic theologian, might open me to charges of dissent. But as we’ll see in our next essay, following the Orthodox Church’s own, ecclesiastical vision, even in its magisterial form OST invites criticism.
As I hope to show in a more formal manner, I think the evangelical character of OST is key to the Church’s social witness in not only in the West but in traditionally Orthodox countries as well. FLW especially can serve not only to foster such a witness but also act as a fruitful meeting place for Eastern and Western Christians. As such, it has the potential to ignite a renewed social witness by both Catholic and Orthodox Christians.
This is possible, however, only if we are clear in some of the theoretical and practical limitations of FLW and the Basis.
Theological sympathy for the free market
While both documents, for example, criticize greed, the Basis adopts what we might call a broadly free-market approach to economics. Yes, the bishops call for a social safety net but they are also very critical of “the demand that the state should guarantee a certain material living standard for the individual and family.” Doing so, they argue corrupts “the freedom of the personality” distorting it instead “into the protection of self-will” expressed in a way that is “outside” the person’s “relations with God” (Basis IV.7).
The bishops are supportive of private property rights and the rule of law. They remind the reader that “wealth cannot make man happy” and go on to say that when it becomes an end in itself, its “pursuit … makes a baneful impact on the spiritual condition of the person and can lead … to complete degradation” of both the person and society.
At the same time, and as the Scriptures testify, wealth is also a blessing. “An owner,” they write, “of a considerable wealth does not sin if he uses it in accordance with the will of God to Whom everything belongs and with the law of love” (VII.2).
Moreover, the Church recognizes that there are different forms of property—corporate, private, and mixed as well as more abstract forms like intellectual or cultural—all of which can be used for good or ill. “Any of its forms can produce both sinful phenomena, such as theft, money-grubbing, unfair distribution of wealth” as well as fostering “the proper and morally justified use of wealth” (VII.3).
Maybe most importantly of all, material and cultural wealth, as well as legally protected property rights, can all serve the freedom of the Church to exercise its ministry in this world.
At the same time, and somewhat worryingly so, they also describe a “donation” to the Church as “a special case of economic and social relations” that “should not be made automatically subject to the laws regulating finances …, in particular, public taxation.” Rather solemnly they conclude: “The Church declares that the income drawn through entrepreneurial activity can be taxed, but any encroachment on the donation of believers is a crime before people and God” (VII.4, emphasis added).
So evidently for Basis, there is a hardline to be drawn that exempts the Church’s finances from public scrutiny. It is hard to avoid seeing this for what it is, a rather naked expression of special pledging on the part of the bishops.
We’ll come back to this later. For now, let’s turn to FLW.
Manichean economics
Let me say upfront, that it is hard for me to know even where to begin.
I am more than sympathetic with the document's criticism of crony capitalism, the excesses and failures of globalization, the need for the free international movement of workers, and their right to organize (#35-36). Likewise, I think the call to protect the environment (#41) and extend health care (#40) to all are also not simply desirably but moral imperatives.
The problem with this section, however, is that in almost 5,000 words, the authors have almost nothing good to say about economic freedom. In fact, they make only one, qualified (and to my ears) begrudging, comment about the benefits of economic freedom:
While it is true that imprudent taxation of the private institutions that create jobs can in some circumstances depress employment and result in greater burdens for the poor, this is a danger rarely if ever realized in industrialized nations (emphasis in original).
They go on to say that it is
…far more common reality is one in which the wealthiest members of the investment class are protected against bearing a tax burden proportionate to the benefits they enjoy from their place in society, while corporate entities are allowed to indulge in practices that create markets for cheap labor at the expense of the welfare of workers. The results of this are both a greater burden placed upon the earnings of the working middle classes and, often enough, inadequate public provision for the poor (#35).
The economic vision sketched out here is simply Manichean. The early praise of human freedom and creativity and our eucharistic vocation is not referenced at all in this section. Additionally, there is no idea that the poor are anything other than the victims of the rapacious economic interests of developed countries or the wealthy.
Progress ignored
As a result, the text seems unaware of not only what economic progress has been made but how it was made. While there is—and always be—more work to do, the free market has helped make significant improvements in the worldwide standard of living. For example, the Cato Institute’s site HumanProgress.org reports the following:
In 1950, the average life expectancy at birth was only 48.5 years. In 2019, it was 72.8 years. That’s an increase of 50 percent.
Out of every 1,000 live births in 1950, 20.6 children died before their fifth birthday. That number was only 2.7 in 2019. That’s a reduction of 87 percent.
Between 1950 and 2018, the average income per person rose from $3,296 to $15,138. That’s an inflation adjusted increase of 359 percent.
Between 1961 and 2013, the average food supply per person per day rose from 2,191 calories to 2,885 calories. That’s an increase of 31.7 percent.
In 1950, the length of schooling that a person could typically expect to receive was 2.59 years. In 2017, it was 8 years. That’s a 209 percent increase.
The world’s democratic score rose from an average of 5.31 out of 10 in 1950 to an average of 7.21 out of 10 in 2017. That’s a 35.8 percent increase.
Dangers overlooked
Likewise, the 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).