The current crisis has underscored the need for a new ethics to guide the world Fr Bruce Duncan says in analysing Pope Benedict’s latest encyclical.
In his new encyclical Pope Benedict has called for a renewed ethical vision of how the world might address the many urgent social issues at this perilous moment in human history.
Addressed to all people of good will, the encyclical appeared just before the meeting in Italy of G8 leaders who were discussing precisely these great global issues, the financial crisis and the global recession, and the threat to world development efforts, particularly the Millennium Development Goals to wind back sharply the extent of hunger and the grossest poverty.
World leaders who visited the Pope at the time, including Australia’s Kevin Rudd and US President Obama, will have much to applaud in the encyclical. Both share with the Pope the conviction that God is passionately concerned about human wellbeing, and expects believers to be so as well, with particular concern for the distressed and most vulnerable.
As Pope Benedict says, this focus on human wellbeing is shared by all people of good will, believers and non-believers alike, and provides the grounds for collaborating in renewed global efforts at sustaining human life in all its dimensions and protecting the environment so that it can support and delight future generations.
Though the Pope does not use the word ‘neoliberalism’, or indeed even ‘capitalism’, his critique of the exaggerated free-market ideology that paved the way for the astonishing collapse of financial markets is unmistakable.
Benedict recognises that the processes of globalisation have positive features as well as negative ones. He criticises the ‘ferocious pace’ of globalisation and its appalling inequalities, but he also sees the current crisis as ‘a great opportunity’ to reshape the global economy to enhance human wellbeing everywhere.
To do this, the ‘economy needs ethics in order to function correctly – not any ethics whatsoever, but an ethics which is people-centred’. He rejects the view of market ‘efficiency’ as inadequate to address social needs, and instead reiterates the need for states and civil society to control market outcomes to ensure social and distributive justice.
Such notions were dismissed as ‘humbug’ by the founding father of neoliberalism, Friedrich von Hayek, but the Pope is drawing from deep wells of Christian and Jewish conviction that the economy must serve everyone, not just the better-off or rich.
Benedict highlights the wasteful consumerism in richer groups and countries which stands in such sharp contrast with the appalling poverty of hundreds of millions of others.
He calls for greater efforts to eliminate hunger and poverty, and for a redistribution of wealth and opportunity. In richer countries he calls for a new ethic of frugality and moderation, with a change of lifestyles to protect the environment and ensure a sustainable future for coming generations.
He encourages the formation of a renewed social conscience and sense of responsibility, lest action merely serve ‘private interests and the logic of power’ (#5).
Benedict notes the corruption in both rich and poorer countries, and that some large multination companies have also caused major problems, along with the failure of many richer countries to honour their pledges to finance efforts to reduce global hunger and poverty.
He calls for renewed efforts to feed everyone in the world adequately, realising that we have the capability of doing so. Indeed, he insists on cultivating a ‘public conscience that considers food and access to water as universal rights of all human beings’ (27).
Much of the fault he sheets home to the extreme free-market ideology of individualism and its effects that include:
• the down-sizing of social security systems in many countries
• the undermining of free associations, particularly trade unions and
• the lack of security in employment for many working people.
He supports reform of the UN and other international institutions, to give a greater voice to poorer countries. He also encourages disarmament negotiations and efforts to resolve migration issues. And he reiterates Church concern to protect the most vulnerable human life and hence its opposition to abortion, coercive birth control programs and euthanasia.
Benedict reiterates that promotion of human wellbeing is an essential part of the Church’s mission, but one shared with all people, and hence his suggestions for action can be seen not as matters of faith obligation, but as contributions to the wider conversation about how to solve current problems.
Somewhat controversially, he advocates a system of international governance with power to help resolve international disputes. Benedict situates his proposal in the context of the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity, insisting on the priority of the common good, and on the need to distribute decision-making as widely as possible. The European Union has tried to embody these principles.
Benedict identifies other important problems, including the exploitation involved with sex tourism and trafficking, as well as the corrosion of ethical standards in much of the media. At the same time, he encourages micro-finance and micro-credit schemes, and land reform in developing countries.
He also suggests new forms of business enterprise, and especially mentions new forms of mutualism, that widen participation and accountability in businesses. The document is somewhat academic in parts, but it provides a focus as we search for deeper ethical foundations on which to build a more equitable world.