More on the Family and Free Markets

I recently wrote a article that explores the issue of the breakdown of communal values in a society that idealizes individualism and the free market. It's entitled Empire of Personal Desire: American Law and the Destruction of Communal Forms of Meaning. You can take a look at it by clicking on my name in the right hand column and going to my webpage.

I use the recent campaign to end forced heirship in Louisiana as an example of how American law and culture reject the implications of a strong notion of the communal identity of the family in the law, particulalry if such an identity limits individual control of property. Forced heirship prevents an individual from disinheriting his or her children, except in extremely limited circumstances, and it is a legal principle grounded in the recognition of a cultural norm of the indissoluability of the relationship between parent and child. Louisiana is the only state in the United States that followed this prinicple, which is common in civil law systems. Few legal systems on earth give parents the freedom to disinherit children that is found in American law. Of course, few cultures on earth grant individual autonomy and economic freedom the kind of blind obeisance that American culture does.

One of the reasons that Louisiana retained forced heirship is that it's legal system is still linked to portions of the French and Spanish civil code traditions. What I think makes this case interesting for Catholics is that it is also a state that, at least until recently, was not culturally Anglo-American. Indeed, the elites in particular were much more Catholic and Latin in their cultural outlook. These same elites have resisted the complete takeover of the common law in Louisiana, but their influence is fading. The base of support for the retention of forced heirship was traditionally in Catholic South Louisiana, where the idea of the family community resonates most strongly. As the state has become more "American" there has been intense pressure to "modernize" the law in order to give individuals more "freedom" to do "what they wish with their own."

The Catholic notion of a communally situated individual has ramifications for how we understand ourselves as members of couples, families, and communities; how we understand our roles as parents, children, and spouses; and how we understand our obligations to those around us. Permanent bonds to others often are not economically efficient or wealth maximizing. For many Americans, however (and certainly most American elites), economic freedom and wealth maximization are inseparable from unfettered individual freedom. More and more, becoming as rich as one can and being able to do whatever one wants are the foundational values of American civilization. But, as John Gray and others have noted, most socieities recongnize that there are tremendous human and social costs to this kind of liberalism.

This is one reason why more and more people around the world hate the United States and what it stands for. They see Americans as willing to sacrifice almost anything in service of the marketplance and our culture as embodying values that, if allowed to proliferate unchecked, will destroy the communal goods and institutions for which liberal free markets have no patience. Catholic social teaching takes these concerns seriously and therefore understands the market in a way that supports and strengthens the common good, as well as those institutions (such as the family) that nurture community. The economy is supposed to serve people, not the other way round.

Vince