Benedict's soulcraft as statecraft

And what, exactly, is the GOP alternative to what Obama is doing?"

Your challenge implies that government "must" do something, which was the great conceit of the last century. But is it entirely orthodox conservatism? Certainly we of all people should know that ill-conceived meddling is worse than doing nothing, never mind how good the intentions are.

Anyone who thinks that economic policy will be influenced by a Papal encyclical is living in a very strange world. It sort of reminds me of back in the 1980s after the US Bishops had made some sort of similar statement and a Catholic theologian was being interviewed on the radio and those, a professor at the University of Chicago, asked if the theologian's daughter would give money to the poor or buy designer jeans.

His answer was a quiet, "She'll buy the jeans."

No one who matters cares what the Pope thinks about anything.

Rod kudos on your closing comments. You are correct: while Obama may be a problem, The GOP, especially after Bush, most definitely is NOT the solution.

"Rod kudos on your closing comments. You are correct: while Obama may be a problem, The GOP, especially after Bush, most definitely is NOT the solution."

Amazing how a post on the Papal encylical turns into Bush bashing

The fact is we know that Bush and the Vatican disagreed on the Iraq war. But from Pro Life causes to UN votes on life matters to the need to fight sex trafficking to even this

"All this talk about a "new approach" to food aid for Africa — instead of deliveries of food, money is to be spent helping countries develop their own agriculture industries — brings to mind a provision in the 2008 farm bill (which Obama voted for):

But perhaps the most egregious item in the new farm bill relates to international food aid. A longstanding provision governing U.S. food aid to foreign countries requires that all the food America sends abroad be purchased from American farmers. This means that, however much we allocate toward international food aid, a chunk of the money goes toward transporting food from the U.S. to its final destination. In light of an increasing food-scarcity problem in less-developed countries, the Bush administration asked Congress to help cut down on transportation costs by allowing the food-aid program to purchase 25 percent of the food it distributes overseas from local farmers in destination countries. This would have allowed the U.S. to provide more food for starving people for same amount of money. Bowing to the American farm lobby, Congress refused.

Seems to me that the best way to help African countries to develop their own agriculture industries would be to stop flooding them with subsidized food grown here.

07/10 06:00 PMShare "

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmI5ZjQ1NDBhNzg5YTFkM2ZjOGMzNDAyNDk3ZDBkYzc=

A very Crunchy Con view. I could on. Immigration plicy was another. Bush had his problems but it needs to be recalled when we are looking at the Papal DOcument Bush (which is the intent of this post that being looking at the challenges of the this document) was in the forefront on a lot of things

I'm unsure if Ross (or the four wiseones from Rod's earlier post on a Boston paper's "notables" list) are able to discriminate their inculcated assumptions re: the resilience of the American project from the actuality of global developments. Consider Maurizio Orlanda

"However, if those who are responsible for this crisis, the current financial and political oligarchies that rule much of the world, do not pay a price, precious little of what has emerged from modernity and post-modernity in the past three or four centuries will survive. Some people might not have realised this yet, but this crisis is not like other crises; it is one of those that come at least every 300 or 400 years."

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=15715&geo=&theme=&size=A

not necessarily as cataclysmic as the scope of a natural disaster, but as sundering of deeply-cherished assumptions of "convention" as the protests of the Reformers were to the domestic tranquility enjoyed by the impoverished under noblesse oblige. The difference in tone alone between the Pope from the Kennedy era (Popularum Progressio heralded the instrument of foreign aid as paternalistic political "incentives" from the rich free world via the IMF and the World Bank) and the Pope from the Obama era (Caritas in Veritatis assumes no such thing, rather catalogs 'fundamentalist' pathologies that have eviscerated the financial advantages of 40 years ago, rendering public or private incentives increasingly impotent thru penury and indebtedness) gives pause for thought: attachment to worldly goods is not sufficient as heritage to bequeath to the next generation. Relative American prosperity is evaporating as we type. How we live and flourish in a world in which we can no longer 'bribe' compliance to our values is the issue Ross needs to articulate as the most pressing political aspect of the American project for me and my family. That's why Papa Benedetto realizes we need a stronger UN, one committed not merely to rights, but to our DUTY to protect integral human development, adjudicating overweening temporal powers of a military nature (where a duty to protect a domiciled population is exercised at the expense of a distant one), a mercantile nature (where rendering commutative justice is exercised at the expense of distributive justice), and a moral nature (where a physical deprivation of persons is eliminated at the expense of metaphysical privation). I would like to see the "sages" of the age wrestle with the inadequacy of politically-favored terms such as "American values" or "American interests" and rediscover the modest human virtues of the civic realm. The vitriol exuding from the partisan-religion protagonists is corroding the social fabric. Spain fell to the Moors because the Visigoths were devout pelagian Arians. Are we doomed to repeat history? Is China going to buy up our children's inheritence because we were too pre-occupied with "extending freedom vua democracy" to balance the books?

jh wrote: "Amazing how a post on the Papal encylical turns into Bush bashing"

Rod started it. And it's properly Republican-bashing, not Bush bashing.

Ross’s article is great reading. I think he hits the nail on the head (keeping with our soul craft theme here).

I don’t think Benedict is saying anything as obvious as we need morality among our financial and business owning class. He is constructing something more than that. He suggests that the goal of capitalistic enterprise is profit – and maintaining such a goal – even morally – leads inevitably to exploitation of workers, communities and the environment because the profit motive always seeks the most efficient. The alternative is an economy whose goal is to serve the enrichment of people and their communities. So being moral is not enough. He also is challenging us to abandon the typical binary thinking we engage in – state – corporation, right-left, capitalist-socialist.

It occurred to me when reading Rod’s previous post on the new conservative thinkers how different those remarks by Bennett would be if it were done in Benedict speak. Bennett looks at the ideas of these guys – and in essence says – wow – they could revamp the conservatives and get us back in power. What Benedict says is – wow – these guys might have some good ideas here which will serve to promote human development.

Wilcox speaks about the relationships among marriage, single parenthood and poverty. Great stuff and important. But look at his solution – tax breaks, tax incentives and billboards. All of which are about the state – ya know – that thing conservatives don’t want to have too much power. His notions assume that economics is what motivates people and that dangling an economic carrot in front of people will get them to marry and have kids. He puts the economy first and people second. Benedict says – look at the human and their community first. Consider human spirit. He suggests that low marital rates and even low birth rates are a function of “scant confidence in the future and moral weariness”. He says – how can one feel confidence in the future if one’s experience has been economic instability – the constant cycling through recession/depression /prosperity/inflation etc? For the working class this means times of employment, times of unemployment, times of consistently lower wages, less benefits. Address this instability and you may then see marriage rates improve. Tax incentives mean nothing to a working class that is unemployed. Stability in employment means a lot.

You can’t just support the family – your whole orientation must be to use a society’s achievements for the purpose of supporting human endeavor. The family is part of a community – so one must support the community. The family includes workers so there must be support for the worker if the family is to succeed. Wilcox isn’t addressing this at all. Big differences here.

jh - you misunderstood - obviously cause I wrote it confusedly - my point is he is saying it is not enough to have profit as a motive - but that profit must be used to enrich human development etc - thought that was clear later in the post - and yes - I have read it - and expect -I shall read it a few more times.

"No one who matters cares what the Pope thinks about anything." CC

TR: Some of what you said before this part made sense, but this is a pretty radical exaggeration.

However it's true that in a nation that's 70-80% non-Catholic, and where half of Catholics don't heed the Pope on much of anything, the influence is going to be rather limited. However it might be an influence in the world's Christian Democratic parties, parts of Latin America, and the Philippines.

I must admit though I'm uncertain how I feel about it. I'm not as enamored with wealth redistribution as him, but the radical inequalities in many nations (US included) are a cause for a concern. However the subsidiarity emphasis, and some of its statements on avoiding dependence, do mitigate some how parts of it sounded at first. Still a part of me thinks it's more idealistic than realistic about the global economy. And that concerns me because as a Catholic I suppose I am required to agree with it internally and externally.

....our reliance upon institutions instead of ourselves has not exactly worked out fantastically well.... Our reliance upon institutions, especially ones of a political nature, has resulted in disaster of epic proportions.

PNWCC, here’s the problem. Institutions don’t come out of nowhere; they develop in the first place either to solve a problem or to enable people to do something they couldn’t otherwise do. That’s why their history is coextensive with the history of civilization itself, which is essentially a 5,000-year-long story of the building of institutions. I can’t think of any human communities beyond the hunter-gatherer stage that aren’t heavily dependent on institutional structures of some kind.

So if you’re going to call on people to rely less on institutions, you also need to explain why they should be happy returning to the kinds of situations that prevailed before the institution(s) in question were developed. Ask them if they’d be happy, for instance, giving up the institutions that supply them with electric power, or the system of food distribution that currently frees them from having to spend all their time farming in order to supply their own food. You mention the banking system -- why does that exist, again? Could it be because systems of money and credit are essential to large-scale activity of all kinds? Would you suggest to people that they conduct all their business by carrying around bags of gold?

Where you’d really run into resistance is with medicine. When my father developed a heart infection a few years ago, his life was saved thanks to efforts that depended on innumerable institutions: not just the hospital where he was treated, but the churches and big philanthropies that underwrote the hospital; the medical plans (including Medicare) that financed the treatment; the universities and labs that conducted the research needed to understand what was happening; the medical schools that trained the surgeons and other specialists; the government agencies and foundations that sponsored the fellowships that paid for those specialists’ residencies; the companies that built the complex equipment needed, and the R&D labs that developed it; and on and on. A heart infection is not something you can handle “on your own”; the difference between self-help and relying on institutions, in this case, is the difference between a dead father and live, healthy one (or, if you’re the patient, it’s the difference between death and life). My family's dependence on institutions in that case DID work out "fantastically well," and most families would probably be able to point to a similar benefit they’ve received from living in a world of big, complex institutions.

Indeed, without institutions, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Banks, private corporations, government agencies, universities, research labs, power companies, and all their affiliated institutions were involved in financing and conducting the research and undertaking the production that gave us computers, silicon chips, fiber-optic cables, etc., and that allow the whole thing to work. Should we do without those too? Since I haven't seen any big rush to join the Amish, I'm guessing most people's answer is no.

Quoting:
PNWCC, here’s the problem. Institutions don’t come out of nowhere; they develop in the first place either to solve a problem or to enable people to do something they couldn’t otherwise do. That’s why their history is coextensive with the history of civilization itself, which is essentially a 5,000-year-long story of the building of institutions. I can’t think of any human communities beyond the hunter-gatherer stage that aren’t heavily dependent on institutional structures of some kind.
+++++++++++

Hmmm... I was right. You can't see it. Or, you absolutely refuse to see it and defend the indefensible for partisan reasons.

Nobody, including me, suggested that we don't need courts, police, a Congress, or schools, or whatever. Let's examine something that made the news yesterday. Some Senator said that "we all agree that what people need is access to health insurance." Well, NO WE DO NOT AGREE on that. Before I need INSURANCE, I need health care. We let an artifact of ill advised policy create a near universal institution... where we shop for health care from insurance companies and our employers pay the bill.

That's like negotiating with Geico or Allstate for your next new car, after your employer picks the company and level of the new car. That would be insane. But nobody questions it when it comes to health care? Why? Our refusal to question "institutions".

Does Congress REALLY need to regulate the number of watts allowed to be consumed by a light fixture? No. But millions of people are applauding Cap and Trade, which does just that. Even forbids you selling your home unless you update it to federal standards. And nobody has a clue what those are, not even the fools who voted for them.

But nowhere here did I suggest we should abolish health care insurance, or do away with the courts, or police, or schools. All I did was point out that we're on a train track at high speed headed for a impenetrable wall called catastrophe because we have turned over EVERY facet and aspect of our lives to institutions. We've come to expect government to spare us from every stupid mistake, or else to alleviate the consequences. For every thing that can hurt you, we're busy creating institutions to "protect" us.

But we've done this to a point where individuals have lost control of their own lives to a huge degree. For every "protection" we lose more than we gain, and we've rushed down this sinkhole madly for a couple generations now.

Is it hard to own a home? Well, we'll just create an institution to lend money for one. In fact, let's make two, and then let's get banks, lenders, brokers, and others in on the deal. Now we've all but destroyed our currency and future economy with the results. We turned over trillions of dollars to the market to play with and create "securities" of uncalculable merit.

And that's just ONE tiny facet of what we've done when it comes to institutionalizing our daily lives.

But, now I'll bet that your response to this is to say that was needed was to have an institution with more power and invasive control from the same people who brought you the first one, to control the first one. And then we need yet another institution to watch the second one to make suer it doesn't get to cozy with the first.

And we're all paying for this folly. Our children, and our children's children, and their children's children will inherit the results of this. And we don't even know what that will be. But we KNOW it will not be good.

Yet, here you are, unwilling to reverse course, attempting to mock the statement of the plainly obvious problem.

The same thinking that I discussed years ago is still plainly evident. What, we let PEOPLE decide things? Or the consequences of their actions determine their welfare? Oh, heck no. Charity isn't real, people's judgement isn't real. Individual wise choice isn't real. No, only institutionalized judgement is real and good.

Thus, we pretend that the parties are to blame for their woefully bad politics, excusing ourselves from having not gotten ourselves in to displace those with bad judgement.

Thus, we pretend that a lack of oversight of Fannie and Freddie was the blame, not the notion of lending to high risk borrowers with foolish rules and bad rates and insufficient reserves. We created two institutions, and then gave them JUST THAT PURPOSE. All, of course, to "benefit" us.

We turned over our choices of health care to insurance companies, and then we blame capitalism for spiraling prices and costs of health care. Say what? That's silly, even at face value, but that's precisely what we did.

And now, we want to make it STAY THAT WAY to ensure that individuals are NEVER again invovled in the choices and judgements about health care, and all the decisions that matter turned over to faceless beaurocrats.

We note with pride that until the end of the 50's and even 60's, our public schools were quite good. Then, they started downhill. And the spiral worsened. So, what did we do? Well, we took away local control more and more. The worse they got, the more we put the states and feds in charge. And the more we did that, the worse they got, and the less power over them the citizens have.

We turned over oversight of the public learning institutions to yet another institution, rather than ourselves.

And then we play word games, pretending that "this is a democracy, ergo, the government is us, and reflects us".

Bleah. What rot. It takes a huge sum of willful blindness to ever believe that. The reality is as obvious as the sun rises in the east.

Well, we can't turn over control of our schools now. Why, the masses, they're "common" and everyone knows that "common" is dumb and ignorant. Just view the Palin debate.

So, now we can't even go back, because everyone "KNOWS" that the elite must govern. That's institutionalized.