Social Justice Isn't What You Think It Is by Michael Novak

Author:Michael Novak
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781594038280
Publisher: Encounter Books
Published: 2015-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

On Terminological Consistency

Often one finds persons in different parts of the world today attaching widely different meanings to such terms as “socialism,” “social democracy,” “liberalism,” “neoliberalism,” “capitalism,” and even “mercantilism.”

Consider the many different meanings attached to the word “capitalism,” based on very different experiences in many different parts of the world. In many Latin countries, today’s corporate leaders are often the grandsons of the great landholders of the past. Some of these sons are men of vision, invention, and personal initiative who have built up whole new firms—or have at least formed alliances overseas to bring European, North American, or Asian brands into Latin America. Still, they are perceived as part of a rich-versus-poor culture that stretches back to the 1500s.

I learned in Italy in the 1950s that “capitalism” there meant a sharply two-tiered division of classes. Some owners of great companies were members of the old landed aristocracy, with their old fortunes now invested in automobiles, rubber tires, petroleum, chemicals, radio and television sets, fine wines, and large manufacturers of all sorts. The difference was not only rich versus poor, but also between those very few who could get into worldwide businesses and those who had no opportunity. Opportunity seemed open only to a few.

True, there were in the 1950s plenty of shopkeepers and small businesses of generations’ standing: producers of fine stationery, milliners, fine tailoring shops, and many others. But there were not many entrepreneurs, inventors, creative builders of new businesses, or founders of whole new lines of products. In Italy, “capitalism” was still used as a fairly nasty term, linked to privilege, inheritance, and the old stability. On the other hand, a new type of critic such as Aminatore Fanfani disagreed strongly with the British liberal writers of the nineteenth century, such as Bentham, Mill, and others. He thought of them as “Protestants,” outside the old humanistic consensus. He thought of them as giving their blessing to an irrational and destructive lust for unlimited acquisition.

But this is only one description of capitalism in the European context. As Hayek describes in The Counterrevolution of Science, the Continental model of capitalism is quite different from the Anglo-American model.3 The former was strongly influenced by the well-known socialist theorist Henri de Saint-Simon. A disciple of Saint-Simon was Napoleon III, who followed Saint-Simon’s theories in his policy for the industrialization of France. Similar models were deployed elsewhere in Europe, including Germany and Italy. Saint-Simon’s influence (and that of his disciple Auguste Comte) was also felt strongly in Latin America. Briefly put, their model assigns the state a commanding economic role. It parcels out rights to incorporate new businesses and demands long lists of regulations and requirements. It levies very high taxes, usually to pay for a large air/rail/auto transportation system and an expensive military.

Under such a model, the state daily awards large contracts to “capitalists” (typically friends of politicians or dummy corporations owned by politicians), who set up their industries with the benefit of large investments from major banks, with whom they are given “connections.

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