In a previous post we saw how Concordian economics offers a paradigm through which we can, not only talk of the importance of the Principle of Subsidiarity, but even automatically implement the important recommendations advocated by this principle.
Here we will see how Concordian economics automatically implements the content of two more principles that are an important outgrowth of Subsidiarity: Solidarity and Sustainability.
Somism, Concordianism, and Relationalism
The specific intellectual tools that emerge during the implementation of Concordian economics are Somism, Concordianism, and Relationalism.
The implementation of the four economic rights and responsibilities of Concordian economics allows us to escape the strictures of Individualism vs Collectivism. It lets us move toward the world of Somism, the world of social men and women who naturally operate within their social context. Concordian economics also allows us to escape the strictures of Capitalism vs Socialism. It lets us move toward the world of Concordianism, a world in search of concord, rather than being weighed down by a world of discord. Concordian economics ultimately allows us to escape the strictures of Rationalism, a world in which Reason rules unbridled no matter the damage it causes. It allows us to move toward the world of Relationalism, a world in which everyone and everything is naturally set in relation to everyone and everything.
Subsidiarity
Not the least reason for the importance of the Principle of Subsidiarity is that its application, in its complex physical-psychological reality identified by Pope Francis, allows us to “hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (Laudato Si, # 49).
The Principle of Subsidiarity is the solid rock on which we can build organizations of our social and economic life that automatically bring us to an environment in which Solidarity and Sustainability prevail.
Solidarity is an intellectual and moral necessity. As Pope Francis says:
“If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs.” (Laudato Si, # 11)
Solidarity
Solidarity is the ultimate purpose of Concordian economics. The economic process can be made to work for the benefit of everyone. The centralizing process in so many aspects of our lives that has been allowed to prevail during the last four to five hundred years can be reversed. In a syncretic way, we can say that the current “winner-take-all” development pattern has allowed the literati to dream of the windmills, the technologists to build the windmills, and the oligopolists to gain control of the windmills.
Technocratic Paradigm –> Concordian Paradigm
This has been the result of the Technocratic Paradigm. This paradigm has not been designed by anyone. It has grown helter-skelter. We can now build a paradigm that works for the benefit of everyone. Let us call it the Concordian Paradigm—or, more appropriately, the Jesus Paradigm.
The Jesus paradigm, as pointed out elsewhere, manifests itself in three stages: Jesus of the past (yet to come); Jesus of the present (on the Cross); Jesus of the future (in our hearts).
Toward an Integration of Economic, Ecological, and Human Interdependence
So far, we have seen some of the technical details that we need to fuse together in order to reach the goal of Solidarity and Sustainability. Let us now enlarge our focus to encompass society as a whole. Here the task is to recognize and unify the needs of three forms of interdependence: Economic, Ecological, and Human Interdependence.
Why is the message of the Ecological Movement, powerful and urgent as it is, not fervently and universally heeded?
Perhaps, the answer is simpler (or more complex?) than it might appear at first sight. The answer is that we are proceeding along three, at times, antagonistic routes, while we ought to march along one coordinated route: we must unify the efforts of (reasonable) economists, ecologists, and humanists. (Where are the humanists, are they still around?)
Concordian economics can help along all three fronts.
Bridges
Concordian economics builds bridges to unify the work of physicists, ecologists, and economists. Economists study only, or primarily, money; physicists and ecologists study only, or primarily, real wealth. The Revised Keynes’ Model fuses these two approaches and then unifies them through the process of distribution of ownership of wealth (which as we have previously seen is translated into existence via four Concordian economic rights and responsibilities). These relationships are better seen through the following figure:
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Figure 1 – The Economic Process
Click the image to enlarge
The easiest way to describe (some aspects of) the economic process is to relate it to the purchase of a chocolate bar. The chocolate bar—real wealth—is exchanged for money; the third invisible item is the exchange of property rights: property rights over money are exchanged for property rights over real wealth. This invisible element of the economic process is made visible in Figure 1, and it is made tangible by the sales slip. To exit a store without a sales slip, one is exposed to the risk and peril of going to jail. Physicists, ecologists, economists, lawyers, and political scientists now have a common framework of analysis to study some key aspects of our lives, including what is the best use of the earth’s resources. Notice also that the distribution of ownership occurs while wealth is being produced, not by some benevolent or malevolent force outside the economic process.
Bridges with Ecologists
Concordian economics builds direct bridges with ecologists. To name only one powerful effect of the implementation of Concordian economic policies, workers who are owners of the corporation in which they work will have not only the desire but the power to implement safe and sound ecological policies—as called for by two encyclicals of Pope Francis: Laudate Si and Fratelli Tutti.
Bridges with Sociological, Political, and Cultural Fronts
A broader concern still. Everyone knows that an integral ecological movement will not arise without full encouragement from a united sociological, political, and cultural front. It is the Popes, starting with Pope Leo XIII with his Rerum Novarum Encyclical, who have analyzed this situation in detail. They have much insisted on the need for Solidarity, both as a means and as a goal. Needless to say, they have equally emphasized that the need is for long-term stability or Sustainability. The response has been varied because the encyclicals lack the designation of specific tools to achieve the goals of Solidarity and Sustainability. Pope Saint John Paul II admitted this much. In Centesimus Annus he wrote:
“The Church has no models to present…” (# 43).
These are relatively long-term goals. There is an immediate need. We must unify our country, the United States of America. Our country is still “the last best hope of earth.” The recent victory of President Emmanuel Macron in France bodes well. But if our country loses to autocratic forms of government, it might take centuries to restart on the road to a better life for everyone.
Toward the Unification of Our Country, Any Country
The implementation of Concordian economic policies will unify our country, indeed it will unify any country in the world wherever they are implemented. Concordian economic policies will heal the major wounds suffered by MAGA (Make America Great Again) People, people who are naturally associated with political instability. As identified on another occasion, the affections that hold MAGA People together are the resentments and the afflictions that society inflicts upon them. Their lives are eviscerated by the latifundia. Yes, who knows about the latifundia any longer?
The Evolution of Latifundia
Ever since Constantine converted to Christianity, latifundia have disappeared from polite political imagination. But vast tracts of land—whether in the wilderness, in dilapidated downtowns, or in the undeveloped band of land that strangles the cities—are still controlled by a few people and rich corporations. As a consequence, MAGA people tend to be corralled into crowded lots.
The Modern Feudalism of Debt and Incorporation
MAGA People’s lives are eviscerated when money is lent to people with money on easy terms and the people without money are left to pay outrageous interest.
Furthermore, MAGA People’s lives are eviscerated whenever two mega corporations are glued together. Then the few gain more power and the people within and without both corporations suffer many afflictions.
Looking for Salvation
Finally, MAGA People’s lives are eviscerated by robots that take their jobs, their livelihood, away.
These are the people in many countries of the world who, suffering from intolerable conditions are swing voters. The next administration, they figure, might be their salvation.
It is natural to predict what support they will naturally offer to those politicians who will implement the four economic rights and responsibilities of Concordian economics. It is the absence of these rights and responsibilities that create the afflictions that MAGA People suffer.
The Ultimate Peroration
All the many years I have worked on these issues I have not been forceful enough, perhaps. Let me be as clear as I can now since I have recently discovered that Concordian economic policy is the precise economic content of the Our Father.
To make our daily bread we need all four factors of (modern) production:
- Land (a place to grow wheat and bake bread);
- Labor (flour does not knead itself into dough);
- Money (to rent or buy the land where bread is made, buy flour, and sell the bread); and
- Physical capital (the oven and other tools).
To live in a moral economy requires the systematic cancellation of our debts every seven years.
In the Our Father religious people can find all they need to know to give specific substance to their social and economic aspirations. In the economic content of the Our Father, people will find all the tools they need to have for the implementation of the social encyclicals of the Church. No more excuses.
Can the Churches Tackle Economic Issues?
I have heard it murmured that the Churches cannot legally tackle these issues because they might lose their tax-exempt status. The final answer is given by Pope Francis in Fratelli Tutti:
“It is true that religious ministers must not engage in the party politics that are the proper domain of the laity, but neither can they renounce the political dimension of life itself, which involves a constant attention to the common good and a concern for integral human development” (# 276).
The next two sections give a hint as to how right Pope Francis is.
And, no. These are not only the principles of “Church People”. Every political party worthy of its aspirations has no other promises than those that will result from the application of Concordian economic policies. Hence, a practical question arises.
Who Are the Potential Practitioners of Our Four Economic Rights and Responsibilities?
The practice of our four economic rights and responsibilities creates an automatic new breed of people. This breed of people has been dreamt of from the dawn of civilization, namely a breed of philosopher-kings, full citizens of the polis, the civilized society.
The practice of our four economic rights and responsibilities will transform the mind of every human being. We will become Somists, Concordians, and Relationalists.
- Somists, because we will no longer be self-reliant lone-wolf individuals. But we will operate as men and women contributing to the creation of a freely chosen social context.
- Concordians, because we will be managing a Concordian economic policy.
- Relationalists, because, by integrating all the social science and potentially the hard sciences as well into one humanist vision, we will all relate to each other.
Of these broad relationships, one needs to be ferreted out. It is not natural to live in isolation; isolated, we lose sight of the spectrum of human nature. In reality and as potentiality, we belong to the entire spectrum of life. Like the ancients from Aristotle onward knew well, human beings are social entities. The practice of Somism tries to recapture this essential quality of human life.
The Ultimate Import of Our Four Rights
The ultimate import of our four rights is an automatic denial of three tenets of Modernism, the three cudgels used to deny public space to religious people:
- Respecting Mother Nature we automatically, necessarily acknowledge that we are not the creators, but the creatures of the Universe;
- Assuming our economic responsibilities we acknowledge that our freedom is circumscribed by the needs of others;
- By preserving our right to a fair distribution of the value of the wealth we contribute to create, we do not need to expropriate the right of ownership that other people have in their possessions.
Within the realm of our four economic rights and responsibilities, there is no room and no need for punitive taxation, land expropriation, and nugatory anti-trust action.
Many Encyclicals, from Rerum Novarum to Fratelli Tutti, have been analyzing the moral and spiritual context that will allow human beings to live a full Christian life. Maya Angelou put it succinctly:
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.
Conclusion
Let the Churches inspire the implementation of the four Concordian economic rights and responsibilities, as well as the implementation of a systematic debt jubilee every seven years. Then people will attend to the satisfaction of their physical needs.
The Churches will no longer need to be service providers.
The Church will be a provider of pure spirituality.
Should we say it? Politicians will no longer need to lose their precious spirituality.
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