Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Wednesday, August 9, 2006

The "conservative caricature"

By Rick Garnett

Rob links to what he characterizes as Stephen Webb's "bright-line definition of liberals":  "You know you are a liberal if you think that the poor need money more than they need moral discipline."  And, he suggests that this statement is "astounding" for what it reveals about conservatives.

It seems to me, reading Webb's entire post, that the line about "moral discipline" is not at all offered as a "bright-line definition" of liberals, but is instead a throw-away in a long-ish post about what Webb regards as an interesting phenomenon, namely, that because of the lingering view among academics and professionals that liberalism, unlike conservativism, is "cool," many academics and professionals with views that Webb thinks are "conservative" -- and he focuses not on views about the poor, but on views about academic politics and abortion -- nonetheless recoil in horror from the suggestion that they might be, or might be talking like, "conservatives."

Here is the paragraph from which the "moral discipline" bit is taken:

. . . I came of age in the sixties, since most of the sixties happened in the seventies. The earnest rejection of institutional authority in the sixties became, when mainstreamed, a cultural and moral mess in the seventies. It is one thing for a few alienated college students to read Norman O. Brown, but it is another thing for the middle class to embrace the liberating promise of promiscuity. In the nineties, the middle class recovered its senses, but the poor, who are always more vulnerable to the ravages of immorality, paid the price for the seventies slide into recklessness. You know you are a liberal if you think that the poor need money more than they need moral discipline.

Now, should we regard as "astounding" the claim that "the poor . . . are always more vulnerable to the ravages of immorality"?  I guess I don't think it is so bizarre to note that those who are materially well-off are able, through wealth and connections, to protect themselves from many of the bad consequences of those those behaviors that Webb associates with Norman Brown and the seventies.  Strictly speaking, Webb does not say that "liberals believe that poor people need money more than they need moral discipline," but that "if you believe that poor people need money more than liberal discipline, you are a liberal."  Liberals and conservatives alike can agree -- as do Rob and I -- that the poor need money, and that we all need moral discipline.  I am happy to join Rob in rejecting the "conservative" view -- the scare-quotes reflect my skepticism that Webb, or indeed many conservatives at all, actually hold this view -- that the poor are poor because they lack moral discipline and that this discipline is sufficient to escape or avoid poverty.  (Though, again, it hardly seems strange to suggest that "moral discipline" -- along with functioning schools, a good job, affordable health care, etc. -- might be useful to someone struggling to escape poverty.) 

I do not mean to be pedantic, but I do not think it is fair to frame Webb's claim as -- in one commenter's words -- "get a job, hippie!", or to say that it is the "sentiment of all conservatives towards those struggling just to survive" that "if you are poor, it's because you are lazy."  Let's stipulate, for the sake of discussion, that the contemporary "conservative" political program emphasizes excessively the need of poor people for "moral discipline", at the expense of their need for money.  Is it fair to say -- not as part of a "definition", but simply as an observation -- that the contemporary "liberal" political program makes the flip-side mistake?

Conservative v. Liberal

By Rob Vischer

Grant Gallicho points out that, over at the First Things blog, Stephen Webb (a conservative) has offered a bright-line definition of liberals.  I find the definition astounding, not because of what it says about liberals, but because of what it implies about conservatives.  He writes:  "You know you are a liberal if you think that the poor need money more than they need moral discipline."

If Mr. Webb is making an empirical statement that poor people lack moral discipline more than they lack money, that's not far from coming right out and asserting a causal relationship: poor people are poor because they lack moral discipline.  If he is making the less astounding claim that, within the subset of poor people who lack both moral discipline and money, it is wrong to focus on the latter to the exclusion of the former, I can go along with that (without, of course, conceding that the definition is more than a caricature of liberals).

Rob

Dems' "religion problem" continues

By Rob Vischer

Commonweal weighs in on philosopher (and former Clinton aide) William Galston's critique of the Democratic Party:

Are Democratic Party leaders listening to Galston and others who warn about the Democrats’ deep-seated “religion problem”? So far the signs are not promising. When fifty-five Catholic Democrats in the House released a “Statement of Principles” last February, the careful parsing of their position on abortion was particularly disappointing. Galston reports that his own efforts to moderate his party’s abortion-on-demand policy have been met with vociferous resistance. Still, prolife Democratic candidates have received the party’s backing in important Senate and gubernatorial races for this fall. One thing is certain, the voters the Democrats need are waiting for the party to prove it is as open-minded and liberal about religion as it prides itself in being on other issues.

Rob

Tuesday, August 8, 2006

Tax Policy, Progressivity, and Catholic Social Thought (Part Three): Prudential Consideration of Other Principles and Secondary Effects

By Greg Sisk

In my first two posts (here and here), I suggested general guidelines for and initial steps of analysis in evaluating a tax regime in light of Catholic Social Thought principles. I conclude that outline in this post, turning today to the secondary economic and social effects of taxation as a crucial but often neglected element. As part of the prudential judgment dimension of Catholic Social Doctrine, the law of unintended consequences cannot be ignored.

Let me begin with a a real-life illustration (see here and here) that could be a case model for exploring the application of Catholic Social Teaching to tax policy: In 1990, Congress imposed a luxury tax against yachts. Liberals like George Mitchell and Ted Kennedy touted this measure as a progressive means of forcing the rich to pay their faire share of taxes. Then reality dropped in with a resounding thud. The effect of the tax was to devastate the market for yachts, leading to a drop in sales of 77 percent and the loss of jobs for 25,000 people in the boat-building industry. An overwhelming majority of Senators, including George Mitchell and Ted Kennedy, called for the immediate repeal of this tax.

So what should have been the Catholic Social Thought position on the luxury tax on yachts? Surely we ought not endorse this tax based upon some purist view that it was progressive in formulation and was targeted toward the wealthy, blindly ignoring its real-world catastrophic effects? Surely the proper response based upon Catholic Social Teaching would be to preserve tens of thousands of jobs and maintain the health of the maritime sector of the economy, even if this also meant that, yes, some rich people would get to cruise around in big boats?

Accordingly, when developing a wise tax policy for a just society, progressivity in rate and primary application to the wealthy is not a talisman for virtue in revenue collection. In my last post, I pointed out that what appears to be progressive in theory may be anything but proportional to capacity to pay in actual application. In addition, even a tax that is applied in what appears to be an equitable manner nonetheless may so distort economic transactions, suppress economic growth, depress positive incentives, or encourage negative incentives that the tax’s detrimental secondary effects far outweigh any supposed advantage by virtue of its supposed progressivity. To offer but one example, thankfully not reflected in today’s tax policy (although not unprecedented in the history of American taxation), a marginal tax rate of 100 percent (or even 60, 70, 80, or 90 perfect) might appear magnificently progressive, but such confiscatory rates would destroy any incentive for economic production above a certain level and, for that reason, would result in no increased collection of revenue. The luxury tax on yachts discussed above is a more recent example of liberal tax policy colliding with economic reality.

Furthermore, some argue that certain kinds of taxes or taxes against certain items serve worthy public policy goals despite their manifestly regressive nature. Most prominent in this category would be the “sin tax” on cigarettes, a gigantic mark-up in price that falls most heavily on the poor but that nonetheless is justified by its supporters as designed to deter smoking (although we all know the real motivation is to raise revenue in a less controversial way or at least against those least likely to complain to legislators).

As another example, among the most regressive taxes imposed today are the various federal and state taxes on gasoline. While being forced to pay more at the pump causes but little inconvenience to the wealthy (as a person can only fuel and drive one car at a time), the tax gouges those of limited income who need transportation to work, families wishing to take a summer vacation, working class people who make a living in the trucking industry, and everyone who has to pay higher prices on groceries, clothing, and consumer goods as the increased transportation costs are passed along to the consumer.

Yet the same prominent figures on the political left, in Catholic circles and elsewhere, who claim to support progressive taxation tend to be strong supporters of the gasoline tax, justifying it as necessary to discourage use of petroleum fuels, force people to use public transportation, and improve the environment. During the Clinton Administration, Al Gore advocated substantial hikes in all fuel taxes for just these reasons. I am not particularly fond of those arguments and think the regressive effect of the gasoline tax is troubling, but I haven’t heard any calls from the leftward side of the Catholic Social Thought community to bring those tax rates down. My primary point today, however, is not that that the gasoline tax ought to be reduced, but that plausible arguments have been offered to justify even such regressive taxes as advancing other overriding public policies. Thus, the multi-dimensional nature of any evaluation of tax policy is confirmed.

Finally, the progressivity of a proposed tax simply is not an argument for loading an additional tax burden upon any given sector of society. When any form of taxation is proposed, we certainly should consider its potential effects on the least advantaged elements of society, as well as the other dynamic effects it may have on the economy, society, liberty, cultural choices, etc. But even if a tax passes muster on such factors, we have merely reached the preliminary conclusion that it is a fair tax and is not an overly disruptive measure if any tax is to be imposed. Whether increasing taxes of any type (either directly or indirectly by allowing tax cuts to expire) is a prudent idea must be a separate stage of analysis. The case for greater governmental spending, with attendant increases in taxes to fund larger government, must be made independently.

Two years ago, Rev. John J. Myers, Archbishop of Newark, explained that Catholic Social Thought is a tool for conscientious evaluation of public policy, in which people of good conscience but motivated by the same goals may come to different places:

The Church’s social teaching is a diverse and rich tradition of moral truths and biblical insights applied to the political, economic, and cultural aspects of our society. All Catholics should form and inform their conscience in accordance with these teachings. But reasonable Catholics can (and do) disagree about how to apply these teachings in various situations.

For example, our preferential option for the poor is a fundamental aspect of this teaching. But, there are legitimate disagreements about the best way or ways truly to help the poor in our society. No Catholic can legitimately say, “I do not care about the poor.” If he or she did so this person would not be objectively in communion with Christ and His Church. But, both those who propose welfare increases and those who propose tax cuts to stimulate the economy may in all sincerity believe that their way is the best method really to help the poor. This is a matter of prudential judgment made by those entrusted with the care of the common good. It is a matter of conscience in the proper sense.


Greg Sisk

The Ave Maria move

By Rick Garnett

Here is a long article from the New York Times, "Our Lady of Discord," about Tom Monaghan and some of the turmoil surrounding the planned Catholic community in Florida.

Spreading the Love of Jesus

By Rob Vischer

If you're looking for a helpful example of how followers of Christ in positions of public leadership can engage the secular legal culture constructively, don't read this.

Rob

Interesting Legal Document Site

By Elizabeth Schiltz

Not that reading about estate taxes doesn't cure my summer doldrums every time, but if anyone else needs something different, take a look at Yale Law School's Avalon Project, which "posts hundreds of documents from the history of law and government, some of them annotated by Law School Faculty."  The documents are organized by centuries and by categories, and they're searchable.  They include potential MOJ-related documents such as a translation of the transcript of the trial of Joan of Arc, documents from the Nuremberg Trials, and the Decree of 1059 Concerning Papal Elections.

Lisa

On the Proposed Repeal of the Estate Tax (and Other Matters)

By Michael Perry

Thought this column, in part about the proposed repeal of the estate tax, might interest MOJ-readers and even help relieve some summer doldrums:]

New York Times
August 6, 2006

Everybody's Business

My Country, Right and Wrong (but Why So Wrong?)

By BEN STEIN

LIKE many people, I am attracted to puzzles. I don’t do crossword puzzles, and I no longer read many mysteries, but I am impressed at the number of conundrums there are in this world.

One of the ones that continues to baffle me is the criticism of oil companies in Congress and in the mainstream media, because oil companies have been very profitable. No one has been able to prove price-fixing. The Federal Trade Commission specifically studied the subject, and found neither price-fixing nor gouging by any major oil company.

I agree the profits are very large in absolute numbers, but in relative terms they are nothing like investment bank profits. Why do we not raise an eyebrow when hedge funds make huge profits by moving around pieces of paper and roiling markets — creating no social good I can see — but raise a ruckus when oil companies make profits while keeping the whole nation going?

I see the hand of an archaic envy here, and it’s a dangerous hand.

A second puzzle, and this is a killer: “Supply side” economists say that by lowering taxes, we create more prosperity and more tax revenue because we stimulate economic activity. One way, supposedly, is that people work harder — that is, more hours a week. With taxes cut, we keep more of what we earn, so we’ll work more.

(Of course, you could also say that if we keep more of what we earn, we won’t need to work as much, so we’ll work less. But no one pays much attention to that, so we won’t either for right now.)

And, in fact, if you think about it, how else could income tax cuts stimulate economic activity except by encouraging Americans to work more or else by having more Americans in the labor force?

Yet, the number of hours Americans work per week has barely budged in the five years since President Bush’s tax cuts, and is very much less than the number of hours worked per week on average in 1959, when tax rates were far, far higher than they are now.

Moreover, the percentage of male Americans in the labor force has fallen by 10 full percentage points from 1959 to now. Overall labor force participation has barely changed since 1989 — almost entirely because of very large growth in the female labor force — and has moved almost not at all since the Bush tax cuts were passed.

If the personal income tax cuts are not working to stimulate the economy through added labor, then just how are they working — or are they working?

A puzzle: we have all heard corporate executives say that American workers are paid too much; that our industries cannot compete with foreign makers because our labor costs are so high that if we used American union labor, we would see profits evaporate.

And yet, hourly wages in this country, adjusted for inflation, are below what they were in 1972 (when my pal, Richard Nixon, was president) by a substantial amount. But to hear corporate leaders tell it, this is still far too high to allow competition with foreign entities.

Now, you would think that if this high-priced American labor were in fact pressing corporate backs to the wall, profits would be stagnant or falling. But in fact, in the last several years — and especially the last few quarters — corporate profits as a percentage of sales were the highest they have been since 1965 — roughly 9.6 percent before tax and roughly 7.4 percent after tax.

In total, profits are by far the highest they have ever been, running at a rate of very roughly $1.38 trillion in the first quarter of 2006. As a percentage of gross domestic product, profits are also the highest they have been since the statistics began being kept in 1959 — roughly 12.7 percent.

Don’t get me wrong. I like profits, a lot. They are what the capitalist society is all about. But why are we outsourcing, why are we moving our work overseas, if our corporations are so profitable? And if our corporate world is so profitable, how come so little of the growth goes to workers’ wages? How come — as an average number — basically none of the growth goes to the ordinary worker’s wages? I am not saying this to encourage strikes. I am genuinely puzzled about it.

Could it be that just the threat of moving jobs overseas (very few have in fact actually been moved as yet) keeps labor cowed? Is the vast labor force of Asia and the Third World in fact something like “the reserve army of the unemployed” that Karl Marx described in his critique of capitalism?

I hate and detest Marx and everything he stands for, but he was a shrewd observer. In any event, what’s going on? How can retail stores keep wages so low? All service jobs that have to be done in person are not going to be shipped to Guangdong or Mumbai. Then why don’t their wages rise?

Next mystery: in a nation with stupendous deficits even at the peak of the business cycle, with forecast deficits of nuclear-disaster status, how can it be important to repeal the estate tax? Isn’t there enough income and wealth inequality in America? Don’t we need the revenue? How on earth can any social good come from making taxes on the rich even lower than they are? How does this bind the nation together in time of war?

Don’t get me wrong about this one, either. My father died in 1999. My sister paid a stunning tax on his estate and I would have preferred to keep the money. But my father was intensely grateful to this country for the opportunities it had afforded him. So are my sister and I. We don’t see any unfairness in paying back to the government that pays the soldiers and marines and pilots and sailors who defend us and allowed our little family to move to the suburbs. (Actually my sister lives in Brooklyn, but that’s another story.)

Why should the very rich not pay their fair share of the burdens of government? I could see a different argument if we were not hundreds of billions in the red, but in the real world, how can repeal or a drastic cut in the estate tax make social, moral or fiscal policy sense?

HERE’S my final puzzle: in a world that is clearly going down the tubes, where the forces of barbarism are on the march and the forces of civilization cannot stop them, why don’t we all spend a large part of every day being grateful we are where we are?

This country, with all of its problems, with all of its inequality and puzzles, is a verdant, lovely garden compared with the shrieking lunacy in so much of the world outside it. Let’s appreciate it enough to keep it.

Every question and criticism I make is within the context of a deep pride and thankfulness for being in America. I wake up in America the way I wake up in my own skin, to paraphrase my new hero, Philip Roth, and it’s an old skin, but it’s mine and I love it.

Ben Stein is a lawyer, writer, actor and economist. E-mail: [email protected].

Monday, August 7, 2006

CLT and the Security Council

By Robert John Araujo, SJ

For a number of days now it has been reported that the Security Council is attempting to reach agreement on a resolution or series of resolutions dealing with the situation in Lebanon and Israel. While progress on the political front including the insertion of an effective peacekeeping force is welcome, the question must be asked if this is all that the Council, the countries involved, or the UN can achieve.

Back in 1947, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 calling for the establishment of two States, one Arab and one Jewish, that would live side by side in peace and harmony. That was not only a noble objective; it was also realistic. Almost sixty years later, only one State has been established and the peace and harmony that was sought by the terms of the Resolution remain elusive.

Does CLT have a response to this ongoing crisis that no one, including the UN, has been able to resolve? I will suggest a tentative answer in the affirmative that is based on certain elements of Catholic thought on the international order that have been developed over the past century.

Most if not all of the valiant laboring for peace in this troubled region does not seem to acknowledge the fact that both contingents involved in the conflict fear each other. Fear—particularly the fear of difference—is a compelling driving force that can lead one people, and their respective government, to consider another people as an object—“the other.” The “other” can then be dehumanized and considered inferior. And with dehumanization, the other people easily become targets of organized military actions or terrorism that are disproportionate and indiscriminate and seemingly free of moral considerations.

Diplomacy will and must play a role in terminating the current bloodshed in Israel and Lebanon, but what will direct this diplomacy? I would humbly suggest diplomatic approaches that strive not for those political solutions that will likely preserve advantages that one side will retain over the other; these will only sustain the sense of difference that fuels the fears underlying the conflict. Rather, the diplomats (guided by the Catholic perspective on the international order) should emphasize what can easily bridge the differences—for example, a common hope in the future that the children of today can look forward to a tomorrow in which the present strife is replaced with cooperation where such things as agricultural and industrial trade, cultural exchange, and regional security become routine. This is possible if each side’s fears of the other are put aside. This course is also demonstrative of the common good, which reveals that the destinies of two peoples are inextricably related. Strife for one will inevitably mean strife for the other; but, peace and prosperity for one will ensure the same for the other.

In the meantime, the focus on differences appears to predominate, but this can change if the merits of the alternative supplied by Catholic thought are not only considered but adopted.     RJA sj

More from Lemmons on Bridegroom Analogy

By Elizabeth Schiltz

Following up on her discussion of male priesthood, UST philosopher Mary Lemmons sent me some speculation (if not anwers) about the questions raised by Eduardo this past March about applying the bridegroom/bride analogy in the context of the requirement that priests be heterosexual.

It's important to realize that the bridegroom/bride analogy as it pertains to Christ and the Church also pertains to Christ and the people of God.  As such, the analogy teaches that every human being is to relate to Christ as to the bridegroom. Moreover, since Christ as the bridegroom signifies sacrificial love on the Cross and the Church as bride signifies responsive love, it is the feminine paradigm that images how every human being is to correctly relate to Christ, i.e., feminine responsiveness is the properly human response to God. Our responsiveness to Christ transforms us, especially through the Eucharist, into His image. Thus, women as well as men are called to image Christ.
Given this, it remains puzzling that the Catholic Church, in all her rites, has decided to restrict priestly ordination to heterosexual men. By so doing, the Church invites us to mediatate on heterosexuality: why is heterosexuality so important? Why did God create the human race as divided into males and females?
John Paul II in his Catechism on Genesis teaches that human beings image God best in moments of heterosexual, spousal union; because then we best image the Trinity. Could it thus be that part of the reason why the Church restricts priestly ordination to heterosexual men is to call attention to heterosexuality and the radical incompleteness of masculinity without femininity as well as the incompleteness of femininity without masculinity? Such radical incompleteness identifies the indispensability of both sexes as well as the need for each sex to relate to the other through equally reciprocated acts of self-giving love.  Could it be that by restricting priestly ordination to heterosexual men, while also identifying ordained priests to be images of Christ,  the Church is seeking to teach men that their masculinity achieves its highest fulfillment in a self-sacrificial love unafraid to embrace the Cross for the good of others?  Could it be that men especially need this message?
Lisa
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