Definitely Not the Dems (or the Reps)

I was perhaps so enchanted by my own indignation and flights of rhetoric that I was more obscure than I should have been in my last post, which Rick and Rob replied to so cogently. Let me offer some clarifications and explanations -- and maybe a manifesto for the SGP will begin to emerge (at least as a thought experiment, if not a political reality.)

1. By way of clarification: I definitely did not want to suggest that all Catholics needed was the grafting of a pro-life plank onto the Democratic platform. While I am drawn more to them for obvious reasons, they do not offer a coherent political philosophy or series of positions from an SGP perspective. Philosophically, the party is amost reflexively secularist and antireligious. More specifically, their position on important issues as school choice are unacceptable to me. To that extent, I agree with Rick. I'm not sure, however, that he woulld agree with my other reservations about the Dems. What really bothers me about them is that the current party is almost as bad (tho definitely not as bad) as the Republicans on fundamental economic issues.

2. By way of explanation: I share a commitment to open, capitalist economies. I'm all for entrepreneurship. I even spent nine years running a law & entrepreneurship program representing technology entrepreneurs, and currently serve on the board of a mutual fund with $6 billion in assets. I'm definitely no socialist. I'm also a realist about capitalism as it is practiced in the US. That is why I react negatively to conservative phobia about "statism." Here are my concerns
First, to limit the discussion to politics for a moment. Republicans are often very statist. They love to use the resources of the state to solve their competitive problems by turning state resources to their own advantage (ie, Halliburton.) I love rock-ribbed Republican businessman waxing poetic about the free market while suckling on the public teat (what an image!). There are a variety of approaches to state intervention in the economy that need to be considered on their own merits, and without reflexive condemnation as statist.
Second, and more broadly, my position is that Catholics need an approach to economic policy that not only releases entrepreneurial energies, but which attempts (as a priority) to address the savage inequalities that our economic system has created in the US (not to mention the rest of the world). There is obviously a problem of distributive justice that cannot be addressed simply by asserting that a rising tide lifts all boats. I certainly believe that democratic capitalism is the best possible system we know, but also believe that it can have many forms, and some forms are more unjust (and non Catholic than others.) The indicia of inequality suggest that our system is becoming more unjust, rather than less. Catholic social teaching's preferential option for the poor cannot be addressed simply by assuming that the market will take care of these profound distributional problems. It obviously hasn't. The response will be that I can't assume anything else will do better, but American democratic capitalism has in fact done better in addressing inequality in the past.
Third, the fundamental sickness at the heart of democratic capitalism doesn't have anything to do with whether it is more or less statist. The sickness is its materialism, its idolatry of wealth and consumerism, and its obsession with rights rather than reciprocity and solidarity. Both the Republicans' obsession with economic liberty and the Dems obsession with rights talk compound rather than solve that problem. The SGP will be free (and obligated) to address the need for spritual renewal of the human person.

3. So what I am proposing for purposes of discussion is a genuine third party that is animated by Catholic social teaching (which includes the seamless garment image) , not a pro life Democratic party.

-Mark