Traveling by Catholic Social Thought to . . . France?

If Catholic social thinkers continue to see the road toward a just society as paved with massive transfers of wealth and power to centralized government, with ever-more layers of regulations upon the private sector, and with ever-growing mandates to employers about benefits and arrangements that must be afforded employees, we may look up some day and find that we’ve arrived in . . . France.

This past weekend’s presidential election in France offers a good occasion for rethinking the nature of a healthy and just society and for challenging the too-easy ascription by many to Catholic Social Thought of government-centric political agendas. The nation of France exhibits exactly that kind of expansive social welfare system and all-encompassing set of employee-friendly mandates on business that many Catholics on the left—those who call themselves Social Justice Catholics—appear to envision as the ideal that should be sought in this country. Yet all is not so well in the Parisian Paradise. Even the French electorate has recognized that an adjustment is necessary. The new conservative president, Nicolas Sarkozy, won election by arguing that the French need to work harder, that business needs greater freedom and less regulation to be successful, and that social welfare benefits need to be reduced. To be sure, Sarkozy has promised and commentators anticipate a modest correction that leaves the French social welfare system largely intact (which I predict means that little will change and French decline will not be arrested).

My friend and St. Thomas colleague Rob Vischer may see this as another example of what he recently termed a “periodic stick in the eye of those who want to use the government to help the poor” by conservative Catholics. But I think it vitally important to regularly remind all of us that faithful recognition of our responsibility for the common good, a sincere and sacrificial endorsement of the preferential option for the poor, and a firm commitment to the central role of the family in society should not shade into uncritical support for the secular welfare state nor be confused with a political platform for new government programs, economic controls, and regulations or unfunded mandates to be imposed on employers. France serves well as that reminder.

In France, by government edict, employees certainly do receive comfortable wages, possess generous benefits, and enjoy liberal leave policies. Or at least this is true for those fortunate to find employment. Consider what has accompanied the French welfare state and government mandates:

* A stagnant economy (the American economy grows at three times the rate of France);

* High unemployment (about twice as high as in the United States and persisting at those high levels for more than a decade);

* An entitlement mindset so ingrained in an entire generation that university students riot over the prospect that they might have to undergo a one-year probationary period before receiving government-imposed life tenure in private employment;

* a precipitous decline in entrepreneurship (in the very country in which the word originated);

* a failure to contribute much of anything in the way of creative increases in wealth to the world economy; and

* a troubling tendency to keep the economy afloat by importing and exploiting foreign and immigrant workers (in whose segregated communities within France unemployment reaches 40 percent).

Nor we would want to hold up France as the case model for a just society under precepts of Catholic thought. Healthy and happy attitudes do not flourish across the sea. In its 2002 Global Attitudes Survey, the Pew Research Center found that the French were more unhappy than Americans and much less optimistic about the future. So much for the argument that Americans are more anxious and stressed, lacking the security and comfort of the European social welfare system.

And we could devote a week’s worth of posts and still not say all that can and should be said about the decline of faith and the pervasive spiritual emptiness in France (except perhaps for Muslims in the immigrant communities). A leading French religious publication says that France is no longer a Catholic country and, indeed, only half of those who still call themselves Catholics even believe in God.

I’m sure that my faithful interlocutors on the left side of political spectrum here on the Mirror of Justice would respond that we need not follow this road all the way to France. But I seldom hear words of caution about the growth of government and the decline of freedom being raised from that perspective. And I worry that the farther one travels down the golden-paved road of government benefits and employer mandates , the more difficult it becomes to step off. Indeed, I worry that the train has already left the station on a non-stop trip to France, unless someone pulls the emergency brake switch.

Even in the United States, government programs tend to become entrenched, benefit recipients of all kinds (including corporate welfare beneficiaries) become addicted to the flow of public money and develop an enervating sense of entitlement, and government employee unions grow exponentially with the attendant growth in bureaucracies, thus creating a special interest group that lobbies for still more government. Meanwhile, the poorest of the poor remain at the bottom; quality education—the greatest engine for economic opportunity for the poor—remains elusive as the teacher’s unions control the government-run schools; and social services become increasingly bureaucratic and coldly functional in nature.

Should not the Mirror of Justice devote more attention toward creative alternatives to developing a just society and enhancing opportunities for all, without careening toward the social and spiritual disaster that is modern France?

When Catholic Social Thought is introduced into a debate, too many demonstrate a tendency to leap quickly to the conclusion that the option for the poor and other forms of social justice are best achieved through governmental benefit programs, government regulations, government mandates for business, government taxation, etc. But Catholic Social Thought is bigger than and hardly reducible to any political agenda. As Professor David Hollenbach (who would never be accused of being conservative) has well written, social justice is not chiefly an exercise of distributing things or utilities, but rather of expanding participation in inherently valuable social activities.

A primary value of our exchanges on Mirror of Justice is that we have an opportunity to expand the parameters of analysis within the framework of Catholic Social Thought.

Greg Sisk