https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/libertarianism-enemy-catholic-social-thought-has-no-place-america
MGB: As my friend, Dr. Carl Milsted, Jr. demonstrates, there are degrees of libertarianism, from social libertarianism (which abuts social liberalism on his prior version of the Nolan Chart) to economic libertarianism to economic liberalism. Above the two libertarianism is the kind of libertarianism found in the Libertarian Party. Everyone but member of the party favor one type of libertarianism or another, rarely both. I personally am on the line between socially liberal and socially libertarian on his quiz. His new book has a newer version of the chart and should be reviewed.
Slade's article is an apologia for the views of the Party, not liberty as a whole. Social libertarians believe that the Sabbath is for man, not man for the Sabbath. Social authoritarians believe that morality serves the interests of God, not man, and we must comply with it to get to Heaven. I am sure we can all think of bishops and cardinals who hold that view, which is opposite to social libertarian, not adjacent to social liberalism. Social liberalism abuts economic authoritarianism - belief in a manged economy although not totalitarian just yet. The Republican Right (as in Unite the Right) are also social authoritarians who would ban sodomy and abortion and fight cannabis legalization tooth and nail. They also believe in the separation of races and oppose "political correctness."
Social libertarians would also believe in communitarianism, where cooperatives with a socialist bent would be the basic unit of society, taking on not only economic life but social services, such as education, as well, rather than resorting to the state to provide them. This is akin to Libertarian Socialism, which is the original form of libertarianism before the Austrian Economics of Hayek and von Mises put its finger on the scale to conflate libertarianism and economic libertarianism, which Corey Robin considers a key part of the The Reactionary Mind (which goes from Burke to Trump) and favor the wealthy as virtuous and deserving of societal support (through low taxes and regulation) so that economic booms and busts happen, demonstrating who is successful and who is fodder for the next cycle.
As I explained yesterday, social libertarianism is where Rousseau and his General Will meet Aquinas and his idea of Free Will extending from the Will seeking the Good as informed by the Intellect - which essentially guarantees free thought. The mixture justifies both democracy and individual rights, where society through legislatures and the courts decide the limits of both and the extent to which police power is required to meet those demands. A war on drugs, contraception or abortion or to impose racial apartheid (whether in the panhandle of Florida or the West Bank and Gaza) require more police or even military support for social authoritarianism, while more individual rights require fewer police (and possibly more social workers).
Social liberalism believes in Catholic social teaching, with systems of public welfare provided by the government to fill the gaps when private charities fail, or more importantly when the free market fails, for example when the goal is an adequate income for families with more than the average number of children. Catholic teaching is that one must not have to regulate family size just because one is not particularly economically valuable, although it has not understood that even Natural Family Planning is a concession to our broken economy. While Catholic social teaching favors unions, even unions are not sensitive to family size issues. Giving everyone a living wage still favors smaller families and penalizes larger ones. Pius XI's Casti Connubii, however, does explicitly favor family sensitive wages, even though his version of family life was quaint by the time it was written.
The solution to both is a combination of social liberalism and social libertarianism - cooperatives with government mandated support for larger families through tax policy. Tax policy could provide a family wage on its own, and the EITC and the Child Tax Credit attempt to do that, but they are not adequate to the task at current levels. Imagine WalMart as a world wide cooperative which included its entire Chinese supply chain and paid a family wage, supported by government tax cuts. It would certainly be more than Chesterton and his Distributism would imagine. It seems that Hollenbach was wrong. Society can solve class warfare, especially when the rich war with their workers and families.
As for why Fr. Malone published the Slade essay, the only way to have a free press is to own one (social libertarianism strikes again).. America likes to be provocative, as does the more consistently left wing NCR. This attracts comments and debate, mostly from the usual suspects, although sometimes the Vatican intrudes - which is never a good idea (social authoritarianism again, if not totalitarianism or despotism). Whether advertisers or contributors are part of America's reasoning, I do not know.
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