Anderson on "The Commercial Society"

Greg's post, below, on economics education for religious leaders -- and also the recent posts about the latest CST-fest at Villanova -- remind me that I've been meaning to link to Ryan Anderson's recent review of a new book by Acton Institute director of research Dr. Samuel Gregg called "The Commercial Society:  Foundations and Challenges in a Global Age."  (Here's a link for the book.)  Here's a bit:

Democracies often focus so much on who is making the decisions (the people!) that they don't consider whether the state should be acting in the first place. Pierre Manent explains that "the modern idea of representation leads naturally to a continuous increase in the state's power over society, because it continually erodes the intrasocial powers that ensure the independence and solidity of this society." Citizens become slaves to the state under "the illusion that they are obeying their own will." Combine the politics of redistribution with this soft despotism and you get a government that eliminates the voluntary associations and platoons of civil society that best serve the immediate needs of the poor, while at the same time wrecking the economic institutions that best secure their long-term well-being.

For all his focus on problems posed to commercial societies, Gregg entirely ignores problems they create for human flourishing. Consider the tendency of commercial society to become commercialist society: Gregg entirely ignores the materialism so rampant in the West today, and his discussion of the pitfalls of equality-as-sameness ignores one important truth. While it is certainly the case that the poor in wealthy societies are often better off than the rich in poorer societies, Gregg forgets that much of human fulfillment is social fulfillment. The wide, and widening, gap between rich and poor is cause for concern, and man's absolute well-being (measured in material terms) is insufficient.

These quibbles aside, The Commercial Society is eminently reasonable, particularly for its closing discussion of the possibility of "forced" commercial order. While we shouldn't view humans as passive victims of history, neither should we assume that generations of habits and institutions can be reorganized overnight--or by force. Whether it is European economic and demographic stagnation, Middle Eastern political turmoil, or Latin American and African liberationist policies, culture must be the driving force of economic and legal change. This places a special responsibility on religious leaders, who must understand and communicate social values to their flocks. Many religious leaders still harbor disdain for commercial order, but The Commercial Society could go a long way to educating them in the basics. In fact, this book is important for anyone who seeks to do what Gregg's home institution, the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, advocates: To "connect good intentions to sound economics."