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August, 2001

Jennifer's Epistle to the Economists

Business people are always curious to know what the economy would "look like" if based on Catholic social doctrine. We won't really know until it happens but it's helpful to get the thoughts of an economist speculating with a Catholic mind. A "Catholic mind"? One might imagine reading the Fathers in Latin. I doubt that the author of this book ever did such a thing, yet the working of a Catholic mind is evident. If I read between the lines correctly, it is a Catholic mind from which the shattered remains of the modern kaleidoscope have been removed shard by shard.

Steeped in the libertarian economics of Adam Smith and Frederick Hayek, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse - economist, wife and mother - noticed that the invisible hand was losing its grip. The mutual exchange of goods relies on the trust and self-restraint of trading partners. Without these, trade must be accompanied by increasingly unproductive costs to compensate for suspicion and predatory behavior which, in extreme cases, can cause a total collapse of trade. I have my own experience of this having done business in eastern Europe for the past nine years.

How are the trust and self-restraint of trading partners built into the system? Where do these civilized market participants come from? Their presence was taken for granted by the authors of free market economics. Only in our own time have we had to pose this question and Dr. Morse finds the answer in, off all things, the baby and particularly in the quality of attachment of the baby with his parents. It is this attachment - gradually growing into love - which develops trust and leads the child from its original self-centeredness to responsible adulthood with a capacity of giving himself to another person and to the community.

This growth in character is best achieved in a family where the biological mother and the biological father are committed to a permanent union among themselves and to the child, ie. a loving family. A free society is not founded on autonomous individuals but on "loving families taking personal care of their own children". The loving family is "the foundation of the moral and cultural leg of a free society, just as property rights and contract law are the foundations of the economic leg and constitutionally limited government and freely elected rulers are the political leg. Loving families are just as essential to a free society as property rights and a constitution."

Dr. Morse sets out to convince her free market colleagues that it is not good economics to regard the family as a cluster of individual consumers at a single address. Any policy which intentionally or unintentionally undermines the unity of the family - through easy divorce, social security, welfare for single mothers, child care, whatever - harms the market participant and becomes an obstacle to a flourishing economy.

We might be uncomfortable that anyone would buy into the civilization of love for its economic benefits - O accursed avarice! Relax. Dr. Morse points out the fruits of living within a loving family are "not only good for society in some grand sense but also for the individuals themselves." The economic benefits of the civilization of love will only be the scraps that fall from the Master's table.

She makes her arguments using the language of economics to explain the language of love. You'll recognize her language of love. You've been reading it in encyclicals and pastoral letters for 23 years.

Since she is talking about love, she is not focused on legislation but a re-education of the common man. "The moral and cultural tools of a free people include persuasion based upon reason and evidence, as well as the cultivation of appropriate 'habits of the heart' from birth to adulthood." Love and family becomes the mantra behind the new economy.

Any friend of the family will be enthused to find this new weapon to fight the culture wars. Yet, Dr. Morse is an accomplished economist and her colleagues are her primary audience. One can only hope she will be successful in converting libertarians from selfishness to solidarity.

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