Liberty, Equality and Fraternity

Introduction

The world today stands in need of two virtues, justice, and charity. These two virtues are the only effective cures for two evils, one the accidental evil of capitalism, the other the essential evil of Communism; capitalism, on the one hand, with its abuse of concentrated wealth and privilege and its subjection of millions to the lot of insecure wage-earners; and Communism, on the other hand, with its class-hatred and revolutionary technique of bitterness. Capitalism needs principally the virtue of justice in order that men may have their due; Communism needs principally the virtue of charity in order that men may dwell in unity, peace, and concord.

The Catholic Hierarchy of the United States has pointed out these two extremes. The group which forgets justice or capitalism, they described as those whose selfish interests disregard the social purpose of property with the result that selfish interests or private profit rather than social well-being has succeeded in large measure in controlling the policies of governments, in directing finance and industry, and in subjecting labor policies to its own ends. The group which forgets charity or Communism -- they described as designing agitators or cunning propagandists whose immediate interest is to create turmoil, bitterness, class conflict, and thus hasten a 'revolutionary situation.’

Too often men approach the social problem by saying: I am against Labor, or I am against Capital, or I hate the bankers, or I hate the labor racketeers. A statement of this kind is a prejudice; it assumes that the saints are all on one side, and the devils are all on the other. Social justice does not mean hating the banker, nor hating the union organizer; it means seeking and loving the common good. No one class is always right, whether it be Capital or Labor, because society is not founded upon antagonistic classes, but upon their mutual functioning and correlation for the good of all. A great following could be built up in this country by a vicious attack on labor racketeers, just as a great following could be built up by an equally vicious attack on capitalists. But to do either is wrong, for it is to forget that a few union racketeers do not make unions wrong, any more than a few greedy capitalists make private property wrong. Our country must not be divided into two extreme classes at one another's throats, each seeking the death of the other; it must be built upon a justice and charity in which our individual rights and privileges are conditioned by the service of the common good. The forces of reaction which would continue the evils of capitalism can be just as wrong as the forces of anarchy which would pour out the baby with the bath. Let us not be fooled. There is a golden mean between the reaction of those who would retain the wrongs of an old order and the revolution of those who would totally destroy not only the abuse but even the use of that which is good. Somewhere, thanks to justice and charity, is a golden mean which does not destroy the past with its sacred accumulations of treasured wisdom, nor ignore the necessity of a peaceful change for an improved future existence. For example, one extreme error asserts that the capitalist has an absolute right to property and all its profits; the other extreme is that of Communism which asserts that the capitalist has no right at all to property, for all the rights belong to the workers who are entitled to all profits. In between both is the position of the Church which says that neither Capital nor Labor is entitled to all the profits, but both should share them because both have contributed to their creation.

Take another example: For some capitalists, a wage is just if the worker agrees to accept it, regardless of whether or not it be a living wage; for some labor racketeers, a wage is just if the capitalist agrees to pay it, regardless of whether his industry can bear it or not. In between these two extremes is the Catholic position that a wage is just when it takes into account three things: the condition of the business, the necessities of the workingman and his family, and the economic welfare of all the people.

The golden mean will appeal neither to reactionaries nor revolutionists. It will seem traitorous to those who want capitalism condemned as intrinsically wicked, and it will seem cowardly to those who want to see Labor branded as irresponsible. It will be accused by the rich of being anti-capitalist; it will be accused by the workers as being anti-labor. It will appeal neither to those who hate bankers nor to those who hate labor organizers; but we trust it will appeal to identically the same people as those to whom the birth of Our Lord appealed: viz., to men of good will. In other words, the spirit of our approach will be the Spirit of Justice and Charity, Who was born into our historical order nineteen hundred years ago, Who gave us a Gospel which gives no support to extremists who would exploit Labor nor to extremists who would violently dispossess Capital. Rather He taught us how to be capitalists without being exploiters, and how to be laborers without being Communists. And how did He show it better than at His birth, for incidental to the Incarnation was the union of the rich and the poor in the unity of His Divine Person. We must not make the sentimental mistake of thinking Our Lord was just a poor man; He was not just a laborer, nor a proletarian. He was a rich person who became a poor man. Such is the description of Him given by Saint Paul: For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that being rich He became poor for your sakes; that through His poverty you might be rich. Rich He was in His Divine nature because He was God, and Lord of heaven and earth. And yet despite that richness, He became poor, not only from an economic point of view but poor principally because He became man. That is poverty of the worst kind because it is a limitation. To the eternal confusion of Communists who teach that the rich were made to hate the poor and Labor was made to crush Capital. He came to make both dwell in peace. He Who was born poor in a stable could have been born rich in a palace by the Tiber. Roman legions might have guarded Him at His birth, instead of an ox and an ass. It is this that makes Him the Supreme Reconciler of Capital and Labor, for no one would have expected that He Who made the gold of Caesar's throne would be born on a bed of straw; nor that He Who made the warmth of the sun, would be warmed by the breath of oxen; nor that He Who owned the earth would be homeless on the earth. Children were born in stables before, but never a Child Who might have been born in a palace. That fact alone makes His history unique. It is no wonder then that the world caught His Spirit, and that the first to come to His crib were the representatives of Capital and Labor -- the rich Magi and the poor Shepherds. There is no record that once there, they engaged in class conflict. Rather two things happened to them -- the rich lost their avarice, for they gave their wealth to the poor; the poor lost their envy, for they learned that there is another wealth than that which the rich men gave away. And on that day the world saw the Golden Mean between reaction and revolution.

As the Magi and the Shepherds left the crib, the Magi realized then, as never before, that the rich need the poor more than the poor need the rich. The destitute need the rich only in order to give them shoes for their feet, clothes for their bodies, a roof over their heads, food for their stomachs, and the necessities of a decent normal existence. But the rich need the destitute in order that they may have understanding in their minds, charity in their hearts, and the blessings of God on their lives. As Bossuet has put it: You rich, make for yourselves friends of the poor; give and you shall receive; cast away your temporal blessings so that you may fill your empty treasure boxes with spiritual wealth... This is the only hope left for you, but there is that hope. You can receive privileges from the hands of the poor, and it is to them that the Holy Ghost sends you that you may obtain the graces bestowed by Heaven.

Just as that Babe called Magi and Shepherds to Himself and made rich and poor kneel in peace beside His crib, so the Church, which that Babe founded, calls both Capital and Labor to its communion rail to make them one because they eat the one Bread. Upon no other basis than that of the justice and charity of religion can enmities be abolished. It is no wonder then that those who most foster class hatred are those who are most opposed to the Babe of Bethlehem. As a Moscow daily puts it: Christian charity which means kindness to all, even to one's enemies, is the greatest enemy of Communism. ¹ Think of it -- Charity -- the enemy of Communism!

This means that the Saviour Who dies for His friends on a cross as a proof of love, is an enemy; that a saint who pours out Christ-like charity for the lepers, is an enemy; that a mother who forgives a hateful and unkind son, is an enemy; that a Stephen, being stoned, who prays: Forgive, lay not this to their charge, is an enemy; that the charity which inspires the noble love of the poor, the defense of the downtrodden, the caring for orphans and widows all because they are children of God, is an enemy! What a system! Charity, kindness, and forgiveness, an enemy! If charity is an enemy, then hatred, class struggle, and violence are virtues. And such is precisely the position of Communism. That is why it is so bent on inciting group against group, class against class, Capital against Labor, Labor against Capital, the poor against the rich, the rich against the poor, so as to keep society in such a state of rebellion, excitement and froth as to make the revolutionary overthrow of government possible, and the establishment in its place of a dictatorship over the proletariat.

We believe that justice is a better remedy than reaction and that charity is a better solvent than revolution. The solution of our problem is to be found in Him Who alone is the model of the rich and the model of the poor, the Exemplar of Capital and the Exemplar of Labor. To neither class does He belong exclusively, for He was neither rich nor poor: He was the rich poor man, and the poor rich man. He was the rich person Who voluntarily became a poor man, and therefore the One Who can call both to His crib and to His Church. As a matter of historical record, He is the only One Who ever walked this earth of ours of Whom both the rich and the poor, the masters and the servants, the employers and the employees, the kings and the carpenters, the capitalists and the laborers can say: "He came from our ranks; He is one of our own."

¹Pravda, March 30, 1934

Contents

Introduction

Chapter I. Liberty

Chapter II. Capitalism

Chapter III. Equality

Chapter IV. Fraternity

Chapter V. Distribution

Chapter VI. The Trojan Horse

Chapter VII. Patriotism

Chapter VIII. Charity

Chapter IX. Two Revolutions

Chapter X. Selected Bibliography on Communism

LIBERTY, EQUALITY

AND FRATERNITY

Chapter I

Liberty

From an economic point of view, the three major programs offered for the ills of the modern world are: Liberalism, Communism and Christianity. In order that the presentation might be reduced to its simplest and clearest terms, we shall discuss them in relation to words so often seen engraved over the public buildings of France since the Revolution: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.

The problem is: With which of the three shall we start to reconstruct a new social order? Liberalism says: Begin with Liberty; Communism says: Begin with Equality; and Christianity says: Begin with Fraternity. In this chapter, we touch on liberalism.

By liberalism, we do not mean broadmindedness or progress, or tolerance. Rather by it is meant that system of thought which grew up in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and which chose as its primary principle that which the word itself indicates, viz., liberty. But liberty for liberalism did not mean what it did traditionally. Liberty, correctly understood, is the right to choose between good things in order to develop the highest reaches of personality. For liberalism, liberty was not something moral, but rather something physical. It meant the right to do, to think or to say whatever one pleased without any regard for society, tradition, objective standards, or authority. This, as can readily be seen, is not liberty, but license. If liberty meant absence of all constraint, as liberalism said it did, then the policeman who refuses to permit me to drive through a red light is interfering with my liberty, which of course is sheer nonsense.

1. How did liberalism arise!

2. What were its principal doctrines?

3. What is the attitude of the Church toward it?

I. How did liberalism arise?

Liberalism arose as a result of individualism. Individualism holds that every man has a right to make his own affirmations and a philosophy of life, without any reference to tradition or social organisms such as the Church or the State. This spirit of individualism had its roots deep in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. About that time the idea arose that religion should be a purely individual affair, that each man should be free to interpret his Bible as he saw fit, without any regard for a supreme court to judge the correctness of the interpretation. This idea, known as private interpretation of the Bible, was manifestly unsound, for a man left to himself is no more capable of drawing up his own religion than he is of drawing up his own astronomy. It was not long until individualism jumped out of the sphere of religion, into the realm of politics and economics. The merchants caught the spirit and said to the new