Tripod of Generosity to the Poor

There are three ways for society to help the poor: charity, business, and government.

Direct actions of personal charity are the most primal and essential. These are voluntary acts of generosity, sometimes called almsgiving, and have always and will always be a staple of the Christian life. Jesus himself said “The poor you will always have with you.” Pope Benedict instructs us that even the best society will always require such acts. They are spontaneous, extravagant and come with no strings attached. They are intrinsic and essential to the Church as a participation in and expression of God’s generosity.

Business activity and initiative provide the broadest and richest pathway out of poverty into productivity and security. Entrepreneurial initiative, investment, free markets, incentives, limited taxation and regulation, networks of trust, synergistic energies of collaboration and cooperation, rigorous work ethics and moral standards: all of these in the longer term conspire towards a prosperous economy which rewards the industrious and enterprising and all who have the ability and desire to participate at any level.

Last of all we have government assistance including a safety net, reasonable regulation, advocacy for the disadvantaged, unions that defend the worker and countervail the power of capital, welfare for the very needy, and a restrained but activist government able to protect the weakest and correct injustices arising in the business environments.

A healthy society combines all three elements in a harmonious synthesis. Compare it to making pancakes: you will always need flour, milk, and eggs. Without these three you will not have pancakes but something else. The exact proportions we can argue about: some prefer thin, small, “silver dollars;” others like to fill the entire frying pan with a thick, cake-like batter. Economic policy is a constant balancing of state intervention and the market economy. Catholics and others of good conscience will inevitably disagree in prudential judgment about policies and the balance of power between the state and the market in a fascinating, intense, challenging dynamic of competition and collaboration.

Franklin Roosevelt represented an emphasis on state intervention; Ronald Reagan swung the pendulum towards free markets; and Obama, with a clear popular mandate, is swinging back again. Newt Gingrich, free marketer par excellence, who coincidentally is just now joining the Catholic Church, has urged moderate Republicans to align themselves with Obama in a moderate/liberal realignment and thereby cut him off from the liberal extreme that supported him so vigorously through the primaries. This proposal discloses a Catholic appreciation for pragmatism, compromise, moderation and balance. The plan has less than a 50/50 chance of succeeding because ideological extremists dominate both parties in a bipolar politics that leave moderates like me without a home. David Brooks, the conservative voice of the NY Times opinion page, is the most insightful and lucid defender of pragmatic moderation in economics.

My own suspicion is that the American economy is resilient enough to survive the current crisis and the Obama project without collapsing; but it is not powerful enough to fulfill all the expectations aroused by his campaign. Hopefully, the stimulus will help to revive investment and activity; unfortunately, the overreach of his longer term agenda will itself have negative consequences that will in turn provoke a reaction back towards the right.

In the meantime, the business implosion and the worrisome governmental expansion give us all the more incentive to direct our energies into charitable activities at the more local and concrete level of family, neighborhood and city. These micro activities are far more enriching for our minds, souls, bodies, families and communities.