Catholic social doctrine is as old as Pope Leo XIII, and continues to exercise the minds of Catholics everywhere. Pope Francis, as ever, has something to say, and, as always, it has the potential to ruffle feathers and push the boundaries of what Catholics have traditionally believed. What do we make of his recent intervention on taxation and wealth distribution?
Among the latest public statements made by His Holiness, Pope Francis, Vatican News has reported that Pope Francis favoured taxation as a means of the redistribution of wealth. Meeting with a delegation of the Agenzie delle Entrate, Italy’s revenue agency, he reflected on the Biblical roots of taxation and its purpose in society.
[Taxation] must favour the redistribution of wealth, safeguarding the dignity of the poor and the least, who always risk being trodden underfoot by the powerful. The taxman, when he or she is just, promotes the common good.[1] [Emphasis added]
The redistribution of wealth is a socialist political doctrine based on the assumption that the means of production and exchange are owned by the State, and that the State has the authority to redistribute wealth which is unevenly distributed among citizens.
This seems to suggest a sharp change in Church teaching. The Church has long recognised that there are certain goods which are to be held in common by the State, such as access to clean water, power supplies, and primary health care provision. The management of these resources requires funding, and taxation is the means by which the State is able to acquire the funds necessary to promote the common good.
As society became more complex, it became necessary for the State to make greater provision for the poor, creating a safety net for those who have fallen under the heavy blows of circumstances beyond their control.
And in this work of directing, stimulating, co-ordinating, supplying and integrating, its guiding principle must be the "principle of subsidiary function" formulated by Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno. "This is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, unshaken and unchangeable. . . Just as it is wrong to withdraw from the individual and commit to a community what private enterprise and industry can accomplish, so too it is an injustice, a grave evil and a disturbance of right order, for a larger and higher association to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower societies. Of its very nature the true aim of all social activity should be to help members of the social body, but never to destroy or absorb them."[2]
Where taxation is concerned, the spending of public resources “must observe the principles of solidarity, equality and making use of talents. It must also pay greater attention to families, designating an adequate amount of resources for this purpose.”[3] In Catholic teaching, payment of taxes is part of the duty of solidarity.
It grows increasingly true that the obligations of justice and love are fulfilled only if each person, contributing to the common good, according to his own abilities and the needs of others, also promotes and assists the public and private institutions dedicated to bettering the conditions of human life.[4]
Catholic social doctrine is based upon the principle of “the dignity of the human person … which is the foundation of all the other principles and content of the Church’s social doctrine; the common good; subsidiarity; and solidarity”.[5] And the principle of subsidiarity is the recognition that what individuals can accomplish by their own initiative and efforts should not be taken from them by a higher authority. Indeed,
Subsidiarity is among the most constant and characteristic directives of the Church’s social doctrine and has been present since the first great social encyclical (Rerum Novarum).[6]
Overtime, the leftward shift in the Vatican has seen the language of subsidiarity, solidarity and the State making provision for the common good by way of taxation, give way to the language of “redistribution of wealth”. Even within the Compendium of Social Doctrine (see footnote 3) which has collected together authoritative Church statements under various headings, one sees the shift in language. Having described the Church’s teaching on taxation by direct reference to authoritative sources, the editors go on to say, in their own words,
In the redistribution of resources, public spending must observe …[7]
Then when we come to Pope Francis, he says, “[Taxation] must favour the redistribution of wealth”.
Who gets to decide the reach and scope of wealth redistribution? The State? Does it include the nationalisation of the means of production and exchange? Does taxation become no more than State theft of private property (which includes money) for the advancement of the State over the individual? On what principles should this wealth distribution be carried out, and who decides what those principles should be?
While there is general agreement in democratic societies such as Australia that the State should make provision for the poor and for the protection of community resources funded in large part by taxation, there is no agreement that the State can use tax as a means of wealth distribution, of levelling out the personal resources of individuals.
At elections, citizens choose who they wish to govern them based upon election manifestos. Which might well explain why the Australian Labor Party is not often chosen to govern the Commonwealth given its attachment to wealth redistribution, described as “economic redistribution” or higher taxes.[8]
The Church, though, is not there to favour one political system over another. It does not endorse either capitalism (however defined) or socialism (however defined). Of communism Saint Pope John Paul II said:
Marxism criticised capitalist bourgeois societies, blaming them for the commercialisation and alienation of human existence. This rebuke is of course based on a mistaken and inadequate idea of alienation, derived solely from the sphere of relationships of production and ownership, that is, giving them a materialistic foundation and moreover denying the legitimacy and positive value of market relationships even in their own sphere. Marxism thus ends up by affirming that only in a collective society can alienation be eliminated. However, the historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it, adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency.[9] [Emphasis added]
After the fall of communism in eastern Europe, Saint John Paul II asked whether "capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society?" This was his answer:
The answer is obviously complex. If by capitalism is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a business economy, market economy, or simply free economy. But if by capitalism is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.[10] [Emphasis added]
Pope John Paul II matched this balanced consideration about what capitalism might mean with a devastating critique of Marxism which had, at the time of his writing his Encyclical, recently been overthrown by peaceful means in Eastern Europe.
Among the many factors involved in the fall of oppressive regimes, some deserve special mention. Certainly, the decisive factor which gave rise to the changes was the violation of the rights of workers.[11]
Moreover,
Marxism criticised capitalist bourgeois societies, blaming them for the commercialisation and alienation of human existence. This rebuke is of course based on a mistaken and inadequate idea of alienation, derived solely from the sphere of relationships of production and ownership, that is, giving them a materialistic foundation and moreover denying the legitimacy and positive value of market relationships even in their own sphere. Marxism thus ends up by affirming that only in a collective society can alienation be eliminated. However, the historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it, adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency.[12]
So, what then does Pope Francis mean when he says that “[Taxation] must favour the redistribution of wealth”? It is difficult to say with certainty as he says so many contradictory things about so many subjects. But where capitalism is concerned, the positive good in a market economy as described by Saint John Paul II [see Pope John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, n. 35 as cited above] seems to have been contradicted by Pope Francis.
In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralised workings of the prevailing economic system.[13] [Emphasis added]
Perhaps Pope Francis is to be understood as more socialist than free marketer, and more centrist and corporatist than what the doctrine of subsidiarity would require. What does that imply about the drift from Catholic orthodox social doctrine, and in particular the doctrine of subsidiarity, what Pope John XXIII called this “fundamental principle of social philosophy, unshaken and unchangeable?
Pope Francis rightly refers to the teaching of the Church that everyone has a natural right to the common use of goods. Those deprived of sufficient goods for their full development must have returned to them what they need. This is not “redistribution of wealth” so much as honouring the natural right of the human being to have sufficient, from the goods common to all, “so that each person must have access to the level of well-being necessary for his full development”.[14] But the usurpation by the State and by international corporatist bodies such as the United Nations of the obligations of individuals to share what they have cannot offer integral human fulfilment to individuals. It simply leads to that suffocating sense of alienation which socialist and collectivists systems generate.
The Catholic Church continues to teach that:
The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to all forms of collectivism. It sets limits for state intervention. It aims at harmonizing the relationships between individuals and societies. It tends toward the establishment of true international order.[15]
[1] Devin Watkins, “Pope: Taxation should favour wealth redistribution for public services” https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2022-01/pope-francis-italy-tax-authority-agenzie-entrate.html
[2] Encyclical of Pope John XXIII on Christianity and Social Progress, Mater et Magister, 1961, n. 53
[3] Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2004, n. 355
[4] Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (1965), n. 30
[5] Compendium, op. cit., n.160
[6] Compendium, n. 185
[7] Compendium, op. cit. at page 201
[8] ALP National Platform as adopted at the 2021 Special Platform Conference, Chapter 1: Building Australia’s Prosperity, paragraph 16
[9] Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus (1991), n. 41
[10] Ibid., n. 35
[11] Ibid., n. 23
[12] Ibid., n. 41
[13] Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, (2013), n. 54
[14] Compendium, op. cit, n. 172
[15] Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1885
