Monday, November 28, 2005
Are the Catholic Justices "Economic Libertarians"?
Rick asks a fair question in response to my post on the SCOTUS Catholics: where's my data re whether they in fact follow the Novak line on the relationship of Catholicism to the market? Well, neither Kennedy, Thomas or Scalia have quoted either Novak or Fr. Neuhaus (far as I know), and their attitudes toward government regulation probably have as much to do with their (secular) conservatism as their religious beliefs. And we don't know much yet about Roberts and Alito, although it does seem that Robert's approach may reflect the pro-business philosophy of Republicans who have spent much of their career in large law firms. Does that make them "economic libertarians" as Foer describes them? Thomas seems close to that description, Scalia seems mostly preoccupied with originalism rather than economic theory, Kennedy has always struck me as a kind of country-club Republican,and we don't know enough yet aboutt Roberts and Alito. That being said, if I had to predict how they will behave as judges, I would predict that they would cleave much closer to the Novak line than to the mainstream Catholic tradition of profound ambivalence about the virtues of the market.
--Mark
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2005/11/are_the_catholi.html