Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Occupy Wall Street v. Tea Party: Should Catholic Identity Shape Our Preference?
Frank Pasquale has an interesting post on the moral authority of Occupy Wall Street. An excerpt:
In many chilling ways, old social contracts are being broken, with nothing provided in their place. Old models of cooperation between the state and the market are breaking down, as incidents ranging from prescription drug shortages to food safety failures show. The global financial system teeters on the brink of meltdown thanks to a potential "Lehman style event" that regulators still have not managed to adequately monitor, let alone circumvent. These are urgent problems that an entrenched business-government elite has addressed listlessly, if at all. (This is not meant to criticize many well-intentioned front-line personnel, just to note that revolving door dynamics for political appointees and woefully inadequate funding often render their work a mere pantomime of effective enforcement action.) Occupy Wall Street has moral authority because it is addressing these problems. Its critics ought to be joining that process.
As with many other issues, I can't help but wonder about the extent to which being Catholic should inform my view of this movement. Put differently, should my identity as a Catholic lead me to distinguish in any meaningful sense between the moral authority of the Occupy Wall Street movement versus that of the Tea Party movement? Or are my views on this more accurately captured by my choice between Fox News and MSNBC than by my embrace of Catholic social teaching? At a minimum, does CST provide us with a set of questions by which to evaluate the two movements that are not otherwise being asked?
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-v-tea-party-should-catholic-identity-shape-our-preference.html
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Speaking as an economist and professional commodity speculator, I have to say that I find very little interplay between political events like the tea party and the Wall Street party and Catholic Social Theory. If CST is to mean anything substantive it has to consist of deep, durable principles of social life. The right to the secret ballot for example is bedrock. Various partisan movements like these have little bearing on principles.
My personal judgement of the tea party is that it is a relatively spontaneous, populist movement, and to that extent is an legitimate example of democracy in action. This judgement is no doubt colored by my personal enthusiasm for the tea party program.
The Occupy Wall Street atreet party is evidently pure political theater, as the abundance of entertainment personalities in the crowd suggests. I have no idea what it goals are except to permit Democrats to run against the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, both of which they control. Being a Democrat seems to mean and endless quest for the moral high ground. But I know I am being unfair in this.
The less CST involves itself in the back room reality of partisan politics, the better.
Posted by: Joel Clarke Gibbons | Oct 12, 2011 7:45:42 AM
The Occupy Wall Street movement expresses--directly or by implication--identification with if not commitment to most if not all of the core principles of Catholic social thought. I understand those principles to be clearly outlined and further elaborated upon on at this site: http://www.osjspm.org/major_themes.aspx
Posted by: Patrick S. O'Donnell | Oct 12, 2011 8:23:18 AM
You may want to begin by considering the definition of the word occupy.
Posted by: Nancy D. | Oct 12, 2011 8:26:33 AM
On the use of public space for democratic political will formation, expression, and protest, see Timothy Zick's Speech Out of Doors: Preserving First Amendment Liberties in Public Places (2009).
On the historical role of such protests, there's an ever-growing literature on "social movements," but for a book that is able to summarize the salient points in the course of a larger argument, please see Richard Flacks' Making History: The Radical Tradition in American Life (1988).
For an earlier, exemplary instance of a similar "occupation," see Robert Cohen and Reginald E. Zelnik, eds., The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s (2002).
For the hazards associated with relying on television media for news reporting of such events, see Todd Gitlin's classic study, The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left (2nd ed., 2003).
On civil resistance and nonviolent protest, see Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash, eds., Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Nonviolent Action from Gandhi to the Present (2009), and Erica Chanoweth and Maria J. Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (2011).
Other studies and works that form a background of relevant history and knowledge (or 'propaedeutic' if you will) whereby one might attain a broader if not more sensitive understanding (i.e., beyond the predictable and stereotypical dismissive generalizations and caricatures) of the OWS movement include:
Breines, Wini. Community and Organization in the New Left, 1962-1968: The Great Refusal (1989).
Cohen, Joshua and Joel Rogers. On Democracy (1983).
Cooney, Robert and Helen Michalowski, eds. The Power of the People: Active Nonviolence in the United States (1987).
Coover, Virginia, et al. Resource Manual for a Living Revolution (1978).
Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (1987).
Miller, James. “Democracy is in the Streets:” From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago (1987).
Piven, Frances Fox and Richard A. Coward. The Breaking of the American Social Compact (1997).
I've left out analytical Marxist writings germane to analyzing the contemporary incarnation of capitalism and its relevance to understanding the mess we're in, a "mess" that is not, in the main, peculiar to our country.
Posted by: Patrick S. O'Donnell | Oct 12, 2011 9:04:57 AM
Frank says that "Occupy Wall Street has moral authority because it is addressing these problems. Its critics ought to be joining that process." I'm not sure that it actually is (meaningfully) "addressing" these problems, though others are certainly using the occasion of the OWS events to address them (and also, of course, to cynically promote their own political interests). I do not detect the moral seriousness in these movements that Frank (or Patrick or, it seems, Rob) does: I see self-interest ("I don't want to pay my student loans!"), striking ignorance, and, well, party-fun dressed up as a critique -- a critique that, to be clear, has some force (though its force is as strong against those politicians who are embracing OWS as it is against those who are criticizing it). But, put these impressions of mine aside. Surely those at "Tea Party" events see themselves as "addressing" these same problems, and others; do they therefore have "moral authority", too? And, to the extent some say the moral authority of the Tea Party is dragged down by its marginal or less attractive elements, the same has to be said of OWS events, which have included more than a few unsavory aspects.
Posted by: Rick Garnett | Oct 12, 2011 9:25:17 AM
Perhaps, then, given what we've seen in the comments, it is less productive to ask some kind of either/or question comparing the Tea Party and OWS (both of which I have my problems with apart from substantive commitments, but then I am not a populist, so no surprise there; in any event, I think it is possible to see both movements as having both spontaneous and non-spontaneous elements). Perhaps it is better to ask what someone with CST commitments ought to bring to his or her own political action in whatever context. Of course I can understand a view that someone with a CST commitment might ask, should I join the Tea Party, OWS, or neither. But since it is at least possible, as the comments suggest, for someone to think that either of these "movements" can be consistent with CST, perhaps it would be more fruitful to think about how someone who identifies with CST should live out his or her involvement with either of them -- both in terms of conduct and in terms of substance, eg. using involvement in the Tea Party to talk about duties to others or involvement in OWS to talk about the sacredness of life.
Posted by: Paul Horwitz | Oct 12, 2011 10:31:10 AM
Perhaps, then, given what we've seen in the comments, it is less productive to ask some kind of either/or question comparing the Tea Party and OWS (both of which I have my problems with apart from substantive commitments, but then I am not a populist, so no surprise there; in any event, I think it is possible to see both movements as having both spontaneous and non-spontaneous elements). Perhaps it is better to ask what someone with CST commitments ought to bring to his or her own political action in whatever context. Of course I can understand a view that someone with a CST commitment might ask, should I join the Tea Party, OWS, or neither. But since it is at least possible, as the comments suggest, for someone to think that either of these "movements" can be consistent with CST, perhaps it would be more fruitful to think about how someone who identifies with CST should live out his or her involvement with either of them -- both in terms of conduct and in terms of substance, eg. using involvement in the Tea Party to talk about duties to others or involvement in OWS to talk about the sacredness of life.
Posted by: Paul Horwitz | Oct 12, 2011 10:31:15 AM
I confess that my inclination is to dismiss much of what I see in both OWS and TP protests as naive posturing by folks who could best spend their time on more productive endeavors. And I do mean "confess," for I think it's easy for me to overlook the moral seriousness of the underlying concerns behind each movement. (If I had to guess, I probably would have had been shaking my head disapprovingly with a crew cut and a tie on during most of the 1960s.) When I stop and contemplate each movement, I can get behind parts of each, though both, not surprisingly, so wildly overstate and oversimplify what ails America that they lose me fairly quickly. In terms of CST, I do think a rich conception of solidarity would caution Tea Partiers about too readily embracing a "just leave me alone" / anti-government theme. And while I continue to think that vast and growing wealth disparity is -- even apart from the question of poverty itself -- a moral problem within the ambit of CST, OWS does need to be careful not to elevate a sense of class/individual entitlement above a robust, mutually dependent web of rights and responsibilities.
Posted by: rob vischer | Oct 12, 2011 10:37:22 AM
I think that if, from the stage, you mentioned Pope Benedict XVI and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, you would hear cheers from one rally and boos from the other; but if you read aloud the text of Caritas in Veritate, assuming you could get folks at either to listen that long, you would get the exact opposite result.
Posted by: Dave Cochran | Oct 12, 2011 11:19:02 AM
Dave, I think if you read C in V, you would get cheers and boos from both camps (just at different parts), with neither camp really "getting" (or endorsing, if they get) the Pope's underlying vision, commitments, and and moral anthropology.
Posted by: Rick Garnett | Oct 12, 2011 11:35:31 AM
Rick, you write you're not sure OWS is meaningfully addressing problems. I agree. The thought that came to my mind when shown some youtube clips of them: "they seem to be protesting life itself."
Rob, you say it's easy to overlook the moral seriousness of each movement. I agree. I think both movements articulate something real: folks feel that things are no longer fair.
Joel talks of the deep, durable principles of social life. I believe both movements show that folks think those deep, durable principles are not being honored any more, by whomever.
Life is hard, and can be incredibly unfair. We can handle the hardness and unfairness of outcome if we believe we're all playing by the same set of fundamental, and fundamentally fair, rules. I think both camps are questioning that these days.
Posted by: A reader | Oct 12, 2011 12:34:15 PM
I haven't been able to follow much of the OWS protests due to work and family commitments (plus the Tigers being in the ALCS). But I do think, (contra Professor Garnett) that there is more substance to the reasning behind the OWS protests than the Tea Party protests.
I am someone who works in international trade and logistics and I have a 401K and I watch Nightly Buisness Report with my toddler son (he likes the graphics). I want Wall Street to do again what it was meant to do, which is to provide the financing to help both American and international business thrive. I would argue that Wall Street has left that fundamental mission in the last couple of decades, bottoming out with the derivatives schemes that, while I don't understand them, I doubt that even your most seasoned Wall Streeter understood what was going on. And, to answer Professor Vischer as to how this realtes to CST, I think that this movement is highlighting the very real problem of income inequality and the resultant threat it poses to the social order. This is something that both Popes JPII and Benedict have spoken on.
As for the Tea Party, I could have taken them far more seriously if their movement had started back when we were paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions solely on credit. Or if they had protested when the billion dollar Medicare Part D plan was enacted. Or if they had protested against long-time agricultural subsidies. These folks picking 2009 to start protesting our debt is analogous to have not protested ethical weaknesses in the Nixon Administration until 1978. And if you think these folks are truly concerned about liberty, go ask one of them what they think of a gay person's right to marry the partner of their choice. Or what they think of drug prohibitions. You probably won't find an answer that is consistent with liberty.
One more thing, Professor Garnett, I realize that we willingly go into debt on student loans. However, don't you think that the debt of schooling these days is as much an economic impedement as high tax rates, especially for young people starting out? And as a law professor, aren't you concerned about the impact in would have on ND Law's future enrollments?
Posted by: Edward Dougherty | Oct 12, 2011 12:56:32 PM
Ed, of *course* I worry about the impact that large debt loads have on my students. (I care about them more than I care about "enrollments".) But the popular suggestion swirling around the OWS gatherings that we "abolish" student-loan debts is, I think, foolish (as is much of what I see going on at these gatherings). As for your point about how you would take the Tea Party more seriously if the movement had started earlier . . . sure, maybe. But crippling debt, passed on to our children and grandchildren, is sub-optimal for the social order and the common good no less than are "derivatives schemes" (schemes that I suspect were not really on the OWS crowd's don't-like list when these schemes were funding the election of President Obama in 2008). As I see it, the OWS is as much about union astroturfing and street-theater / performance art as it is about a serious critique of contemporary finance.
Posted by: Rick Garnett | Oct 12, 2011 3:53:36 PM
Professor Garnett, I would agree with you that we should not absolve folks from legally incalculated debts. My point is that these debts, along with the whole mechanism of funding higher education and its accessibility are badly broken and we need it to be somehow fixed if we are going to continue to eudcate our people to compete in this new economic world. But if it takes OWS to raise awareness of this problem, then I applaud them.
As for the Tea Party, part of my point is that I don't think that movement really cares about debt, but rather taxes. If you offered the majority of these folks consistent tax cuts, they'd take them regardless of what it did to the debt. Look at how none of the GOP candidates couple of weeks ago would agree to $1.00 in tax increases for $10.00 in spending cuts during one of their debates and this is coming when revenues from taxes are at some of their lowest levels to GDP in decades.
As for union astroturfing, I'm not a big fan of unions either but whose jobs do you think have been moved out of this country (partly but not wholly) because of continuous pressure from Wall Street to manufactuers on the bottom line. Why would you be surprised that they're present?
As for serious critiques of issues, most demonstations don't meet that standard.
Posted by: Edward Dougherty | Oct 12, 2011 4:23:04 PM
Edward, you write: "the whole mechanism of funding higher education and its accessibility are badly broken and we need it to be somehow fixed if we are going to continue to eudcate our people to compete in this new economic world." That sort of assumes higher education as presently constituted (or more law degrees) helps folks compete in the new economic world. Not necessarily so. David Mamet's new book skewers the silliness and impracticality of much of liberal arts higher education. I might include certain legal education, as well. We shouldn't necessarily be finding ways to better fund it; rather, folks should be looking for other, more useful things to study/learn/do to participate in the economy.
Posted by: A reader | Oct 12, 2011 5:40:23 PM
Reader,
First of all, I couldn't help but notice I misspelled "educate" in my earlier post. That looks good, doesn't it?
I have not read Mr. Marmet's book but it seems to me that many of the jobs of the future are from employers that demand more education, not less. Now, maybe that is silly but if that's what the demands will be, then that's the reality to which we have to adjust.
Posted by: Edward Dougherty | Oct 12, 2011 11:24:12 PM
What ever happened to the tenth commandment?? It seems to me that the popular interpretation of CST dismisses this prohibition. Where are we required to pass judgement on another's wealth instead of working to save his soul?? Shame.
Posted by: joseph juhas | Oct 14, 2011 5:44:05 PM
Whatever happened to Jesus and the "new covenant" as articulated in Gospel parables and sayings?
Posted by: Patrick S. O'Donnell | Oct 14, 2011 8:15:07 PM
I think OWS would agree with these ideas from Caritas in Veritate:
"economic development is exposed as a destructive sham if it relies on the “wonders” of finance in order to sustain unnatural and consumerist growth."
"Economy and finance, as instruments, can be used badly when those at the helm are motivated by purely selfish ends."
"What should be avoided is a speculative use of financial resources that yields to the temptation of seeking only short-term profit, without regard for the long-term sustainability of the enterprise, its benefit to the real economy and attention to the advancement, in suitable and appropriate ways, of further economic initiatives in countries in need of development."
I also spoke to some individuals who heard quite a moving service, before Yom Kippur, on the Old Testament prophets' denunciation of vast and irresponsible wealth, teachings on "gleanings," and jubilees.
Posted by: Frank | Oct 16, 2011 4:27:22 PM
I think OWS would agree with these ideas from Caritas in Veritate:
"economic development is exposed as a destructive sham if it relies on the “wonders” of finance in order to sustain unnatural and consumerist growth."
"Economy and finance, as instruments, can be used badly when those at the helm are motivated by purely selfish ends."
"What should be avoided is a speculative use of financial resources that yields to the temptation of seeking only short-term profit, without regard for the long-term sustainability of the enterprise, its benefit to the real economy and attention to the advancement, in suitable and appropriate ways, of further economic initiatives in countries in need of development."
I also spoke to some individuals who heard quite a moving service, before Yom Kippur, on the Old Testament prophets' denunciation of vast and irresponsible wealth, teachings on "gleanings," and jubilees.
Posted by: Frank | Oct 16, 2011 4:27:23 PM
And now it appears that the Vatican may be in some agreement with protesters:
http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/10/24/351277/the-vatican-calls-for-economic-equality-reform-of-world-financial-system/
"Vincent J. Miller, the Gudorf Chair in Catholic Theology and Culture at the University of Dayton, said in a press release:
“While conservative leaders and several presidential candidates want to eviscerate financial reform, the Vatican has sent a powerful message that prudent regulation of our financial system is a moral priority. I expect Catholic neo-cons who usually present themselves as the defenders of orthodoxy will ignore or scramble to defuse this timely teaching. It’s clear the Vatican stands with the Occupy Wall Street protesters and others struggling to return ethics and good governance to a financial sector grown out of control after 30 years of deregulation.”"
Posted by: Frank | Oct 24, 2011 7:14:12 PM