Abstract
In Catholic Economics: Alternatives to the Jungle, Angus Sibley, a former actuary, now retired in Paris, takes up a consistently present theme within Catholic social teaching, (and also a primary concern of the recent Popes): how to order the economy. Sibley’s conclusion, informed by the teaching of the social encyclical tradition, is to reject any singular solution to economic woes. The reigning economic orthodoxy is committed to ‘unlimited worldwide competitive free trade,’ which for the author ultimately ‘tends to homogenize everything, to force all human societies into the same mold’ (p. 206). The book’s contention is that the Catholic tradition aids the economist, policy-maker, business person or ordinary lay person by offering a subtle method to identify what is good about the current order while rejecting that which is bad. Better still, the collective wisdom of the church can inform viable and realistic alternatives.
The initial move of the book, charted in the opening three chapters, is to deconstruct the idea of individualism. Against negative notions of freedom that interpret it as the absence of limitation, Sibley proposes a view of liberty that is always communal. The ‘I’ finds herself only in the midst of a ‘we.’ Catholic thinking celebrates diversity in the different ways that individuals in community come to live out their lives when they are directed towards the other. When they are directed towards the self, however, we ought to distinguish such lifestyles as incompatible ‘with the basic values of divine order’ (p. 20). Catholic teaching, it is argued, provides the foundational consensus that is required to make such distinctions.
This libertarian conception of freedom is a sustained opponent throughout the book. Figures like Ayn Rand—whose politics are described as ‘an extreme example of hyperindividualist philosophy’ (p. 120)—and Milton Friedman are regularly engaged as an effective means of presenting how radical, rugged individualism is incompatible with Christian understandings of personhood, community and economy. Considering the populist political movements gaining traction across Europe and America that propound libertarian notions, such pellucid exposition from Sibley is welcome.
Chapters four to seven deal with the abuses that have run rampant in the global economy, focusing on how the common worker is most often the chief victim of excessive greed at management and ownership level. Sibley presses the question of labour by asking whether employees should be treated as a mere commodity; ‘unlike coffee or corn, which perish in use, we human beings benefit—and not merely financially—by being well employed’ (p. 92). Whether economic dysfunction expresses itself in vast bonuses for the top 1% of workers or grinding subsistence poverty for the bottom 20%, Sibley advocates a response of strong regulation, whose goal must always be ‘to inhibit misbehaviour without preventing good behaviour’ (p. 52).
Sibley deals directly with various vexing domains in contemporary economics from Chapters eight to eleven. The questions of sustainability, property, contract and distribution are hot topics as Ireland seeks to recover from the crash. The author is to be praised for advocating, in the chapter on sustainability, a responsibly Catholic approach on population growth. Quoting Francis, he reminds us that good Catholics need not ‘be like rabbits’ but are called instead to ‘responsible parenthood’ (p. 117). The chapter on property is perhaps the clearest in the book. Sibley offers a broad overview of various historical approaches to property before zoning in on how the question is handled in the encyclicals, drawing out how often the argument advanced ‘overturns conventional economic thought’ (p. 129). A sample of his accessible writing style can be shown in his treatment of contracts: ‘Rotten jobs are like contagious diseases; they tend to spread’ (p. 131). When it comes to the questions of justice, charity and distribution, Sibley advocates distributive justice as the primary (but not exclusive) means of relieving poverty. He does not flinch from discussing the more economically contentious aspects of the social teaching tradition, repeatedly praising trade unions, asserting the human right to work and the responsibility of the rich ‘to pay more in tax’ (p. 160).
The final chapters turn to those areas of the economy that require political discourse. Chapter 12 deals with the tension between free trade and fair trade. Chapter 13 considers the place of politics in shaping the economy. Chapter 14 promotes an approach to economic planning that more highly values stability. In the final chapter some constructive proposals are humbly presented.
This is a fine book, which is grounded in years of experience in the marketplace and displays a keen familiarity with Catholic teaching and economic theory. It is noteworthy that it draws on sources from across the encyclical tradition, while not overly reliant on the two living Popes’ contributions in this field. Peppered with illuminating analogies, it is written in a manner well-suited to a popular audience but would also be very useful on the bookshelves of clergy and academics. Its great strength is its serious concern for economic justice and deep devotion to Catholic teaching.