McGowan: A New Pope
by Richard McGowan, Ph.D.
In the last 20 years of teaching business ethics, I asked my students to read Pope Leo XIII’s essay, “Rerum Novarum” (On the New Things). If they did the reading, they encountered ideas from John Locke and Adam Smith. Therefore, that the new pope chose to be named Pope Leo XIV bodes well, suggesting he will follow the ideas and reasoning of his namesake.
Pope Leo XIII, reigning from 1878 to 1903, faced a new world order. Socialism was on the rise and industrialization brought changes to living conditions that heretofore had been stable. Prior to his 1891 encyclical, Pope Leo XIII had written, in his 1888 encyclical, Libertas:
“Liberty, the highest of natural endowments, being the portion only of intellectual or rational natures, confers on man this dignity — that he is ‘in the hand of his counsel’ (Sirach 15:14) and has power over his actions.”
This ‘power over his actions’ faced challenges by way of socialism and industrialization. Pope Leo observed that “the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few.” The result is that “that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself.”
People espoused socialism as the solution to the problem, but Pope Leo would have none of it: “To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies.” Were that to happen, Pope Leo stated, “the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.”
As well, “It is surely undeniable that, when a man engages in remunerative labor, the impelling reason and motive of his work is to obtain property, and thereafter to hold it as his very own.” One consequence is that “Socialists, therefore, by endeavoring to transfer the possessions of individuals to the community at large, strike at the interests of every wage earner, since they would deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his wages, and thereby of all hope … and possibility of increasing his resources and of bettering his condition in life.”
What is worse, Pope Leo argued, “is the fact that the remedy they propose is manifestly against justice. For, every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own.” Then Pope Leo paraphrases Locke: “The fact that God has given the earth for the use and enjoyment of the whole human race can in no way be a bar to the owning of private property.” By his labor, “he makes his own that portion of nature’s field which he cultivates, he makes his own that portion of nature’s field which he cultivates … without any one being justified in violating that right.” He observed that “the practice of all ages has consecrated the principle of private ownership, as being pre-eminently in conformity with human nature, and as conducing in the most unmistakable manner to the peace and tranquillity of human existence.”
The socialist contention is “that the civil government should at its option intrude into and exercise intimate control over the family and the household is a great and pernicious error.”
Hence, “it is clear that the main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected …The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property.” Further, “it is impossible to reduce civil society to one dead level” because “There naturally exist among mankind manifold differences of the most important kind; people differ in capacity, skill, health, strength; and unequal fortune is a necessary result of unequal condition.”
Pope Leo, following Adam Smith, apparently valued diversity and saw that inequality may result. But Pope Leo was no fan of Rambo capitalism. That some have more and others less does not mean they must conflict; it is a mistaken “notion that class is naturally hostile to class.” Or, as Adam Smith observed, “In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him.”
Nonetheless, Pope Leo saw the excesses of capitalism: “to misuse men as though they were things in the pursuit of gain, or to value them solely for their physical powers — that is truly shameful and inhuman.”
Indeed, “the first thing of all to secure is to save unfortunate working people from the cruelty of men of greed, who use human beings as mere instruments for money-making.” Adam Smith would likely approve that sort of language. He wrote in “Wealth of Nations,” that “wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even on most occasions be somewhat more.” (57-58) Smith recommended liberality in wages: “The liberal reward of labor … increases the industry of the common people.” (68) The result would be the harmonious relationship between worker and master that Pope Leo desired. Masters, to use Smith’s language, must treat workers virtuously.
If the new pope, Pope Leo XIV, intends to model his reign on the ideas of Pope Leo XIII, he will support Locke’s and his predecessor’s right to property. He will also use his predecessor’s ideas on notions of virtuous ownership. Again, that all bodes well.
Richard McGowan, Ph.D., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, has taught philosophy and ethics cores for more than 40 years, most recently at Butler University. Research citations for Dr. McGowan’s articles are available at www.inpolicy.org.
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