The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Michael Novak

Free Press, 1993 - Capitalism - 334 pages

Any vision of capitalism's future prospects must take into account the powerful cultural influence Catholicism has exercised throughout the world. The Church had for generations been reluctant to come to terms with capitalism, but, as Michael Novak argues in this important book, a hundred-year-long debate within the Church has yielded a richer and more humane vision of capitalism than that described in Max Weber's classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Novak notes that the influential Catholic intellectuals who, early in this century saw through Weber's eyes an economic system marked by ruthless individualism and cold calculation had misread the reality. For, as history has shown, the lived experience of capitalism has depended to a far greater extent than they had realized on a culture characterized by opportunity, cooperative effort, social initiative, creativity, and invention. Drawing on the major works of modern Papal thought, Novak demonstrates how the Catholic tradition has come to reflect this richer interpretation of capitalist culture. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII condemned socialism as a futile system, but also severely criticized existing market systems. In 1991, John Paul II surprised many by conditionally proposing "a business economy, a market economy, or simply free economy" as a model for Eastern Europe and the Third World. Novak notes that as early as 1963, this future Pope had signaled his commitment to liberty. Later, as Archbishop of Krakow, he stressed the "creative subjectivity" of workers, made by God in His image as co-creators. Now, as Pope, he calls for economic institutions worthy of a creative people, and for political and cultural reformsattuned to a new "human ecology" of family and work. Novak offers an original and penetrating conception of social justice, rescuing it as a personal virtue necessary for social activism. Since Pius XI made this idea canonical in 1931, the term has been rejected by the Right as an oxymoron and misused by the Left as a party platform. Novak applies this newly formulated notion of social justice to the urgent worldwide problems of ethnicity, race, and poverty. His fresh rethinking of the Catholic ethic comes just in time to challenge citizens in those two large and historically Catholic regions, Eastern Europe and Latin America, now taking their first steps as market economies, as well as those of us in the West seeking a realistic moral vision.

What people are saying

THE CATHOLIC ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM

User Review  - Kirkus

Close on the heels of Richard John Neuhaus's Doing Well and Doing Good (p. 970) and George Weigel's The Final Revolution (p. 1247): yet another neoconservative study of Catholic teachings on economic ...

The Catholic ethic and the spirit of capitalism

User Review  - Not Available - Book Verdict

Novak, who holds the Jewett Chair at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., has written a critical historical analysis of the Catholic critique of modern political and economic systems ...

Contents

• MORE THAN THE PROTESTANT ETHIC: 1
• Toward a Catholic Ethic: 11
• Catholics Against Capitalism: 17
• Wealth Is a Means Not an: 29
• Leo XIII: 36
• Workers Yes Capitalism? Maybe: 49
• 1: 59
• Toward the Future: 60
• Conceptual: 67
• A Way: 77
• to 1991: 86
• Two Concepts of Liberty: 93
• Order in the Ancien Régime: 99
• Reconciling Economics and Religion: 106
• The Three Spheres of Liberty: 112
• Outline of Centesimus Annus: 119
• Capitalism: 125
• The Limits of Capitalism: 132
• PART THREE NEXT? POVERTY RACE ETHNICITY: 145
• 197: 153
• Social Invention: 167
• Against the Adversary Culture: 195
• The Popes Challenge to the U S: 210
• Latin America: 230
• 11: 239
• 33: 249
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: 319

About the author

Michael John Novak Jr. was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania on September 9, 1933. At the age of 14, he entered the preparatory seminary at the University of Notre Dame. He received a bachelor's degree in philosophy and English literature in 1956 from Stonehill College and a bachelor's degree in theology in 1958 from Gregorian University in Rome. While in Rome, he wrote for the liberal Catholic magazine Commonweal and the Jesuit weekly America. After studying for a time at Catholic University in Washington, he decided not to become a priest. He wrote a novel entitled The Tiber Was Silver. He received a master's degree in philosophy in 1966 from Harvard University. He taught at several universities including Stanford University, the State University of New York at Old Westbury, and the Catholic University of America. He wrote speeches and position papers for Eugene McCarthy, Robert F. Kennedy and George McGovern. In 1982, he founded the magazine Crisis with Ralph McInerny. He wrote numerous books during his lifetime including Belief and Unbelief: A Philosophy of Self-Knowledge, A Time to Build, A Theology for Radical Politics, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics: Politics and Culture in the Seventies, Choosing Our King: Powerful Symbols in Presidential Politics, Confession of a Catholic, Will It Liberate?: Questions About Liberation Theology, The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers, and Writing from Left to Right: My Journey From Liberal to Conservative. In 1994, he received the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. He died from colon cancer on February 17, 2017 at the age of 83.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
• Author: Michael Novak
• Publisher: Free Press, 1993
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Jul 10, 2009
• ISBN: 002923235X, 9780029232354
• Length: 334 pages