Economic Autarchy

Economic autarchy (“autarchy” is just philosopher-speak for “self-sufficiency”) has a long pedigree in Thomistic (the most prominent strain of Catholic) philosophy. It goes back, indeed, at the very least to the man St. Thomas called simply “the Philosopher,” Aristotle, and continued unabated through St. Thomas himself, who elaborated on it in some detail. While it goes very strongly against globalization, of which most moderns from Austrian-school economists to Keynesians are unreconstructed fanboys, there is great reasoning behind it, which ought to be carefully considered by anyone thinking about the foundations of society.

Aristotle based his argument in favor of economic autarchy (and, indeed, autarchy in general) upon the nature of the state itself. Human society is made up not merely of the state, but of many levels of human community. (This discussion is from Book I, Chapter 2 of the Politics.) There is, of course, first and foremost the marriage, the unit of society which is ordered primarily toward procreation. (Unfortunately, Aristotle’s errors justifying slavery confuse this issue somewhat, but once those errors have been purged, that’s the bottom line.) From marriage arises the family, the community which is ordered to supplying day-to-day wants. Then comes the “village,” which St. Thomas called the vicus, made up of several families for the purpose of providing for those material needs which the family cannot fulfill. Finally, when villages unite into a complete community, we have the state, which exists for the purpose of the good life (which is, remember, the end of the men who are its members).

This state is a complete community, which contains everything that is necessary for the flourishing of its members. However, its members cannot flourish without fulfilling their material needs. Thus, the means for providing for the material necessities of its members must exist within the state. This is economic autarchy: the state must be self-sufficient in this way. Insofar as the state lacks what is necessary for human flourishing, it is defective. So goes Aristotle’s argument.

St. Thomas Aquinas naturally expands upon and perfects Aristotle’s argument, while accepting that argument on its own terms, as well. In the De Regno, St. Thomas goes on for some time about the self-sufficiency that is appropriate for the state (which he calls the kingdom) in the context of the production of food. St. Thomas begins by observing that a city (which is the political unit of the state, a topic which is more complex than this simple article will tolerate) may acquire its necessary food by one of two means: either by producing it itself, or by importing it. St. Thomas states unequivocally that it is much better to produce it than to import it.

Adopting Aristotle’s argument without even fully explicating it, St. Thomas agrees that the city which is more self-sufficient is better than the one which is less self-sufficient. Thus, since it’s important to be as good as possible, the city should endeavor to produce as much of its own food as it can, if possible all of it (at least the necessary foodstuffs).

However, St. Thomas adds further to Aristotle’s arguments. He notes that self-sufficiency is safer, because import routes are easily disrupted by war and by natural disaster, thus imperiling what the city needs to survive. He further notes that it’s bad for a city to have too many foreigners about (another argument taken from Aristotle), and that importing large quantities of goods increases the presence of foreigners. And he notes that tradesmen, not being engaged in physical activity, make poorer soldiers, should defense of the city be necessary, and that therefore having more tradesmen in the city would be a detriment. He further observes that having everyone packed closer together within the city proper, which is more likely when there is too much importation of goods, is more productive of civil unrest than having people more spread out, as will be the case when many of the people are engaged in food production.

His strongest argument, however, is that importation tends to produce vice in the city, and thus one should avoid it as much as possible. He states, “Since the foremost tendency of tradesmen is to make money, greed is awakened in the hearts of the citizens through the pursuit of trade.” One can find extensive justifications of this general thesis in other writings of St. Thomas, such as the Summa Theologica IIa-IIae Q. 77 Art. 4, with some illuminating discussing in Ia-IIae Q. 2, Art. 1. Aristotle also spoke on the same theme; for example, in the Politics Book I Chapters 7 and 8, concerning the unlimited nature of getting money with money. St. Thomas argues very forcefully that this is disastrous:

The result is that everything in the city will become venal; good faith will be destroyed and the way opened to all kinds of trickery; each one will work only for his own profit, despising the public good; the cultivation of virtue will fail since honour, virtue’s reward, will be bestowed upon the rich. Thus, in such a city, civic life will necessarily be corrupted.

All in all, these are forceful arguments in favor of economic autarchy.

We might add in our own day to St. Thomas’s justifications, that self-production allows full quality controls to be imposed. Recent difficulties with Chinese-made products in the United States come immediately to mind.

Now, St. Thomas did not argue that all trade was bad; indeed, such a proposition would be foolish. St. Thomas noted that “trade must not be entirely kept out of a city, since one cannot easily find any place so overflowing with the necessaries of life as not to need some commodities from other parts.” He concludes that “the perfect city will make a moderate use of merchants.” However, he provides very powerful arguments that the good state should seek the greatest possible degree of self-sufficiency.

These are good considerations for anyone forming his own opinions about political economy.

Gloria in Excelsis Deo!

Long ago, over two millenia in the past, Jesus Christ was born on Christmas day. As the great song says, “Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till He appeared.” As a Gentile, this applies to me even more than it does to those of our brethren who can trace their blood back to Israel. Not a drop of Jacob’s blood flows in my veins. And yet, not only does Christ accept me, but he comes looking for me. O holy night!

My people is the prodigal son. For generations they lived and died with no regard, no sacrifice, no praise for the one true God. In the misery and error of paganism we labored for countless centuries, ignorant and sinful, with no knowledge of the God Who made heaven and earth. Created in the image and likeness of God, through long dark ages we squandered our inheritance, until finally we could fall no lower. And then, only then, did we begin to struggle back to the Father Who had given us life and hope. And wonder of wonders, when we returned to our Father’s house, not only did He accept us with open arms, but He was actively looking for us to return. And He held the greatest of all feasts in our honor, slaughtering the fattened calf for our sake, though our older brother felt slighted by it. And not only my people, but I myself am the prodigal son. How many hours, days, and years have I wasted in ignorance, error, and sin, failing to give God what is His, failing to give myself what is mine, bent only on what lasts for but a moment? And yet, when I sought Him, He was there; when I sought Him, He received me with open arms, and held a great feast in my honor, though I had slighted Him and gave him not a thought.

My people is the lost sheep, which, though our good Shepherd still had the ninety-nine, left them feeding in the desert to retrieve us. And when He had found us, He went to His neighbors and asked them to rejoice with Him, for though He already had the ninety-nine, He had found the one which had wandered away. And not only my people, but I am the lost sheep. I have wandered far from Him, neglecting Him, seeking Him and wanting Him not, desirous only of what I could see over the next horizon. And yet, when I wandered, He left all that He had to find me; and when He had found me, He rejoiced over me, and called out all His family and friends to rejoice with Him, that He had found me, though He already had the ninety-nine.

On this great day, on Christmas day, God our Father did all these things. Though I, the prodigal son, had slighted Him, insulted Him, and squandered the inheritance which He had given me, He did not rest until I had returned to Him, and despite my wrongs, rejoiced exceedingly upon my return, and gave me the greatest honor. Though I, the lost sheep, had wandered away, and though He still had the ninety-nine, He rested not until He had found me, and rejoiced exceedingly upon bringing me back to His fold.

For on this day, God sent His only Son, True God from True God, the Only-Begotten, through Whom all things were made, into this world that I and those like me had spared no effort in destroying. Jesus Christ, though truly the Creator, humbled Himself to become a mere creature; never ceasing to be the Creator, He truly became a creature, like me in all ways but my sin. O holy night, on which God Himself was born to woman, on which the Creator took a mother! O night divine, when the King of all made Himself a subject, when the highest of the high became one of the lowly here below!

O Jesus Christ, my Savior, Who has spared no effort to save me, Who was born a helpless child subject to fallen men for the sake of those who hated and despised Thee, late have I loved Thee; let me never cease to love Thee again; though there was no room for Thee in the inn, let there always be room for Thee in my heart; let me never forget the great deeds that Thou hast done for me, nor that Thou hast never rested until I rested in Thee; and may all men see Thee, the child in the manger, as the everlasting King and Savior of mankind, and return to Thee, Who hast spared no effort in welcoming them back into Thine arms.

Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. Laudamus te; benedicimus te; adoramus te; glorificamus te; gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam. Domine Deus, Rex caelestis, Deus Pater Omnipotens. Domine Fili Unigenite, Jesu Christe; Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris; qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis; qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram; qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, miserere nobis. Quoniam tu solus sanctus; tu solus Dominus; tu solus altissimus, Jesu Christe. Cum Sancto Spiritu in gloria Dei Patris. Amen.*

Praise be to Christ the King!

* The proper translation of this great prayer is somewhat different than that prevalent at English-language Masses. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will. We praise Thee; we bless Thee; we adore Thee; we glorify Thee; we give Thee thanks for Thy great glory. Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty. O Lord, only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ; Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father; Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us; Who takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer; Who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us. For Thou alone art holy; Thou alone art the Lord; Thou alone art the Most High, Jesus Christ. With the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. Amen.”

Joyous Christmas and Ebeneezer Scrooge

It’s finally happened. The libertarians are seriously, with a straight face and their usual sarcastic smugness, defending Ebeneezer Scrooge as a humanitarian hero. And not after the ghosts of Christmas visit him, either.

Don’t get me wrong; the libertarians and I do have some common ground. Some. But this sort of position just underlines the absurdity of some of their central tenets. And oh, yeah: if you disagree with this pro-Scrooge thesis, you’re a communist.

The article I’m referring to is The Case for Ebeneezer by Butler Shaffer. Now, anyone who’s talked to a libertarian will recognize some of this rhetoric; by being rich, Scrooge was funneling money with his investments to people who need it most, and so on. But this guy goes way over the edge. He’s not just praising investment, which is fine and good as far as it goes; he’s praising greed, explicitly.

The first little gem of the article proper (the part that’s not in italics) is as follows:

His case comes down to just two points: [1] my client has managed to become very rich, and, [2] he insists on keeping his money for himself.

One wonders if Mr. Shaffer has ever actually read A Christmas Carol. Wasn’t Scrooge’s vice not that he was rich, or even that he wanted to remain rich, but rather that he underpaid his assistant to the point of inhumanity and had no concern for the sufferings of his fellow men? That he’d happily let the entirety of the English poor starve to death in order to decrease the surplus population?

The next brilliant argument brought by Shaffer in favor of Scrooge is that Dickens was rather cruel to give him such an unpleasant name. It’s Scrooge, after all. Doesn’t that just drip greed and villainy? Yes, it’s truly insightful. I’m not sure that any kind of response could be brought to such an argument. Never mind that choosing descriptive names for characters is a common literary tactic, and Dickens can hardly be criticized for doing so in his own work. Next Shaffer will become very incensed at Nathaniel Hawthorne for naming the villainous medicine man “Chillingsworth.”

There follows another enlightening argument:

The case against Ebeneezer Scrooge is nothing more than a well-orchestrated, vicious conspiracy to extort from my client as much of his money as can be acquired through terror, threats of his death, and other appeals to fear.

Yes! Marley warning Scrooge that his greed and callous inhumanity, his total disregard for the well being of the poor and even of his own employee’s family, may lead to punishment in Hell is clearly a “vicious conspiracy to extort” Scrooge’s money. It’s certainly not an attempt to help Scrooge overcome his greed and avoid the punishments that Marley himself suffers in the world to come. Nothing like that.

More brilliance follows. Bob Cratchett, for example, is just a big whiny loser, a “groveling, ergophobic, humanoid sponge”:

Cratchett has worked for an allegedly substandard level of pay – whatever that may mean – for my client for many years. Why? Why did he not quit? Why didn’t he go to work for some other employer[?]

It apparently never occurs to Shaffer that there might not have been any other employers who could offer a higher wage, and that Cratchett was therefore forced to accept Scrooge’s abuse and low wages for years lest he thrust himself and his family into the uncertainty of unemployment—which was, let us remember, even more uncertain in those times than it is in ours. Shaffer’s response to this argument is simply to assert the contrary: no, there must have been other things for Cratchett to do, and since he didn’t, he must have been getting exactly the wages that he deserved, even if those wages were insufficient to support his family in anything but borderline poverty. He even says that Cratchett should have gone to school and gotten some training to make himself worth more money! Yes! After he works his twelve-hour day in Scrooge’s office, he should go find a school that’s still open at seven o’clock in the evening in Victorian England and train for another job, and still perform well enough for Scrooge during the day that he doesn’t get fired! And if he doesn’t, it’s not because he prudently decided he couldn’t do it and would like to see his family for what precious little time he can each day, it’s because he’s lazy and incompetent!

This is typical libertarian denial; the poor are poor because they deserve it, not because things are set up the way they are, and this is universally true with no exceptions. If you deny it, they just say that their rectitude is perfectly obvious “[t]o anyone with even the most rudimentary understanding of economics.” Since you disagree, you don’t have even the most rudimentary understanding of economics. See? Libertarianism can’t be defeated!

We begin to understand where libertarians generally go wrong when Shaffer identifies what Dickens (and the entirety of the sensible part of Western tradition) identifies as the source of greed:

Dickens expresses the dreary sentiment of “original sin” – an idea central to all collectivist thinking – which presumes individual self-interest to be a source of social misery rather than the fount of human well-being.

The notion of original sin, and that it causes men to care more for themselves than for others, is clearly a communist idea with no basis in reality. Truly, original sin should just be called “self-interest.” Every sensible person cares for himself before anyone else; this isn’t greed, it’s just “self-interest,” and it, rather than the salvation offered by Christ, is “the fount of human well-being.” So saith Shaffer, keeper of divine revelation.

There’s more to this insipid little article, but it all amounts to this: greed isn’t a vice, it’s good and should be called “self-interest.” Now, no one would deny that a man must take care of himself and see to it that he procures the necessities for himself, Christians last of all. But Christians also identify, correctly, that “the desire of money is the root of all evils; which some coveting have erred from the faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows” (I Tim. 6:10).* This desire to acquire more and more for oneself is a vice according to the Christian tradition, and must be fought, not honored. Yet this article praises the desire to constantly increase one’s own wealth, and even at least condones the desire not to give any of it away, ever, without the expectation of significant returns. This may be (and is) excellent libertarianism; unfortunately, it is very poor Christianity.

The lesson of A Christmas Carol is that the rich should give freely of themselves, just as the poor should; that constantly accumulating more and more money is not the route to happiness; and that greed must give way to charity if one can hope of happiness in this world or the next. Libertarians may not like it, but Christ does, and that’s what He taught.

Christians must, by their religion, love the post-ghost Scrooge and heartily condemn the pre-ghost one. Dickens was right; Scrooge may have had a lot of money, but he was a poor man. The sooner libertarians learn such things, the happier they and the rest of the planet will be.

Praise be to Christ the King!

* Yes, that translation is (mostly) correct. The Clementine Vulgate (available at The Clementine Vulgate Project), guaranteed by the Council of Trent to contain no error, renders the passage as follows: “Radix enim omnium malorum est cupiditas : quam quidam appetentes erraverunt a fide, et inseruerunt se doloribus multis.” This translates literally to “For the root of all evils is desire; how much indeed do those desiring wander from the faith, and plant for themselves many pains.” Even more than the desire for money, then, desire itself is the root of all evils.

Errors in the Dominican Translation of the Summa Theologica

On the whole, the Dominican Fathers’ translation of St. Thomas Aquinas’s monumental Summa Theologica is quite good. As though wishing to underline the importance of reading in the original, however, they did make the occasional error. I’ve decided to record these here as I come across them, so that others will be made aware of them, as well.

The first is a pretty significant error, in the first article on unbelief. In this passage, St. Thomas notes that there are two types of unbelief, unbelief by simple negation and unbelief by active hostility. Unbelief by simple negation, as in the unbeliever who has never heard of the faith, is not itself a sin; however, unbelief by active hostility to the faith is a sin. The translation error comes in the question of whether an unbeliever by simple negation is saved. The Latin text, taken from the excellent Corpus Thomisticum, is as follows:

Respondeo dicendum quod infidelitas dupliciter accipi potest. Uno modo, secundum puram negationem, ut dicatur infidelis ex hoc solo quod non habet fidem. Alio modo potest intelligi infidelitas secundum contrarietatem ad fidem, quia scilicet aliquis repugnat auditui fidei, vel etiam contemnit ipsam, secundum illud Isaiae LIII, quis credidit auditui nostro? Et in hoc proprie perficitur ratio infidelitatis. Et secundum hoc infidelitas est peccatum. Si autem accipiatur infidelitas secundum negationem puram, sicut in illis qui nihil audierunt de fide, non habet rationem peccati, sed magis poenae, quia talis ignorantia divinorum ex peccato primi parentis est consecuta. Qui autem sic sunt infideles damnantur quidem propter alia peccata, quae sine fide remitti non possunt, non autem damnantur propter infidelitatis peccatum. Unde dominus dicit, Ioan. XV, si non venissem, et locutus eis non fuissem, peccatum non haberent, quod exponens Augustinus dicit quod loquitur de illo peccato quo non crediderunt in Christum.

This is rendered, in the Dominican translation (taken from New Advent), as follows:

I answer that, Unbelief may be taken in two ways: first, by way of pure negation, so that a man be called an unbeliever, merely because he has not the faith. Secondly, unbelief may be taken by way of opposition to the faith; in which sense a man refuses to hear the faith, or despises it, according to Isaiah 53:1: “Who hath believed our report?” It is this that completes the notion of unbelief, and it is in this sense that unbelief is a sin. If, however, we take it by way of pure negation, as we find it in those who have heard nothing about the faith, it bears the character, not of sin, but of punishment, because such like ignorance of Divine things is a result of the sin of our first parent. If such like unbelievers are damned, it is on account of other sins, which cannot be taken away without faith, but not on account of their sin of unbelief. Hence Our Lord said (John 15:22) “If I had not come, and spoken to them, they would not have sin”; which Augustine expounds (Tract. lxxxix in Joan.) as “referring to the sin whereby they believed not in Christ.”

All in all, this is a passable translation (and I don’t mean anything negative by “passable”; accurate translation is quite literally impossible, so when a translation is passable the translator has done an excellent job). However, the problem comes with the following phrase:

If such like unbelievers are damned, it is on account of other sins, which cannot be taken away without faith, but not on account of their sin of unbelief.

This is how the Dominican Fathers rendered the Latin passage which proceeds as follows:

Qui autem sic sunt infideles damnantur quidem propter alia peccata, quae sine fide remitti non possunt, non autem damnantur propter infidelitatis peccatum.

Anyone who knows Latin will immediately see the problem. However, for those who do not, the problem is this: the Dominican Fathers phrased their translation as a conditional, with “if,” rather than as St. Thomas himself phrased it, as a definite. In other words, the Dominican translation makes it seem as though such unbelievers might be saved, whereas St. Thomas’s words indicate that such unbelievers are not saved. A more accurate Englishing of the passage is as follows:

But they who are thus unbelievers [that is, by ignorance of the faith] are damned indeed because of other sins, which without faith cannot be remitted, but they are not damned because of the sin of unbelief. [emphasis added]

There is no “if” in St. Thomas’s phrasing.

For more on the topic of original sin, salvation, baptism, and so on in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, please read St. Thomas himself; failing that, however, feel free to peruse Thomistic Salvation: A Layman’s Guide. Until next time, folks, remember: St. Thomas Aquinas is the guide for all Catholic theology and philosophy, and he can only really accurately be read in the original. God bless you all.

Praise be to Christ the King!

Guns and Self-Defense

So we know I don’t like war, even though occasionally I’d support one. Does this mean that I’m an inveterate anti-violence junky, hating boxing, American football, and guns?

No. I like guns. Guns are great. I’ve got two guns of my own; I’d have more if I had more money, but when it comes down to guns or food, I really have to pick food. (Silly me.) My weapons of choice are two, because there are two main needs for them: one, a defense for my home; and two, a defense for my person when I’m away from my home.

For defending my home, I have a beautiful Remington 870 Express 12-gauge pump shotgun. It’s got the standard four-round magazine, plus one round in the chamber, though I’ve still got the hunter’s plug in it. (For non-gun folks: it’s illegal to hunt with a shotgun with more than three rounds in the weapon in many states. The plug fills up two spots in the magazine so that only two rounds can go into it, plus the third round in the chamber.) This is an excellent home defense weapon for a number of reasons.

1. The mere fact of putting a round in the chamber is nothing short of terrifying. If you’re sneaking around through a dark house at night, and you hear the rack of a Remington pump, you’ll not only run for the hills, but you’ll need a clean pair of shorts by the time you do. The sound spells death, and quick death. Best to get as far from it as you can manage.
2. It’s a shotgun. This means that it doesn’t fire single, high-velocity bullets, but lots of small pellets. These pellets spread after they leave the weapon (I’ve got a choke in my barrel that keeps them relatively well-grouped, but they still spread some). That means that, at the ranges you’re likely to be dealing with in a home or small property, you’re much less likely to miss. Furthermore, these pellets are much less likely to go through a wall and hit somebody you weren’t intending to shoot. They can, obviously, but it’s not as likely.
3. The 12-gauge shotgun is probably the deadliest small arm in existence at its effective range. Hitting someone with a full shot is devastating. This means that, in the horrible event that you’re forced to use the weapon, one shot will be all you need. This increases the chances of a good outcome for you and your family.

For my personal defense, I carry a nice little tiny Taurus clone of Smith and Wesson’s .357 (if I had to do it again, I’d buy an S&W instead of an import; I still regret that). It’s got a short, two-inch barrel (limiting its effective range to about twenty yards, but that’s all you’re going to need; if you’re farther away than that, you’d best run rather than shoot). It’s a revolver; that’s better for someone like me, who isn’t really a gun nut, because it doesn’t require lots of maintenance, there are comparatively few moving parts to worry about, and it’s impossible to jam. (If one round won’t fire, pull the trigger and you’ve essentially got a whole new gun in the next chamber.) You get fewer rounds than with a semi-automatic, of course (I get five in my cylinder, as opposed to ten or fifteen in many automatics), but once again, if you find yourself in the awful circumstances that would require you to use it, you won’t need more than that. And it’s extremely compact; I have a holster that allows me to carry it on my waist, under a shirt or jacket tail, with no noticeable protrusion. (Yes, I am a lawful holder of an orderly and up-to-date concealed carry permit.)

Guns are great. They’re fun to shoot, though I do precious little shooting for the sake of shooting. But more importantly, they allow me to protect myself and my family from whatever may come at us. I’ve never had to even gesture at my weapon in my own defense, and I pray to God that I never will. Most likely I never will. But should I fall into such a situation that requires deadly force, then my weapon allows me to have such force at hand.

But why not just call the police? I’ll call the police in preference to shooting on my own, but sometimes that option just isn’t available. I want to be ready for those times. I believe that man has an inherent and natural title to defend himself, even by deadly force if necessary. Now, that title isn’t carte blanche for shooting around willy-nilly every time you feel threatened. In fact (and this is why my war posting brought this subject to mind), it’s quite clearly delimited by well-known principles analogous to those delimiting the title to just war. Now, there’s no requirement for a legitimate authority, of course, since any individual would be a legitimate authority. But otherwise, the two follow one another pretty exactly. This makes sense, since war is nothing but self-defense for the state.

1. There must be just cause for using force on another individual.
1. The threat must be sufficiently imminent and severe to justify the use of force that is chosen. In other words, if a man says to me, “One of these days I’m going to kill you,” I am not justified in using force on him, because his threat is not imminent. I am, of course, justified in taking other measures to avoid his stated intention, but not in using force. As for severity, clearly there must be some significant threat against the victim’s life, bodily integrity, property, or some other good. Even honor or chastity may be defended by using force; even more so, in fact, because they are higher goods than those merely of the body. What type of force may be used to defend them, however, differs, as we shall see shortly.
2. One cannot use force as the first resort. If there is an opportunity to avoid the use of force in defense, one must take it. Clearly, often there won’t be time to investigate other options, in which case using force would be justified. But if that opportunity is there, it must be attempted.
3. The use of force must not produce greater evils than it attempts to prevent. This mostly boils down to the principle of proportionality. If someone threatens to throw a paper airplane at me, and I pull out my revolver and shoot him, I’ve failed in this requirement, and thus my use of force is unjustified. On the other hand, if I merely knock the paper airplane out of his hands, that use of force might be justified. (It might not be; if I’m a considerable distance away, and I charge at him in order to knock the airplane out of his hands, he’s likely to feel threatened himself and escalate the encounter, meaning that I’ve produced greater evils than I have prevented.) One can only use deadly force in response to a deadly threat; that is, the threat of death or serious bodily injury. In defense of, say, honor or to avoid a punch in the face, deadly force would be disproportionate. A punch in the face is a much lesser evil than taking a life, and honor can be better defended than by utilizing deadly force. (Usually, I would argue, than by using any force.) Furthermore, there may be laws of the state which limit what force can be used in what situations, and while these may not be morally binding, they are legally binding and should be followed.
2. There must be a right intention. Obviously, if one uses force for the purpose of revenge or simple cruelty, one is morally in the wrong even if a just title for self-defense is present. It is entirely possible to do the right thing for the wrong reason.

The laws of the state should, of course, respect this legitimate title to self-defense in situations which call for it. They should also allow to the citizen the means necessary to exercise that title to self-defense. This is true whether there is a well-funded and honest police force tasked with defending the citizenry or not. Regardless of whether the police are able to defend the citizenry, the citizenry still possesses that natural title to self-defense. It is wrong for the state to deprive, by its laws, the citizen of his title to self-defense no matter how much the state attempts to make that title unnecessary.

Now, it is certainly wise to utilize those social protections that are available. However, it is not always possible to do so, and the state should recognize that.

So, to return to the original thought of this post, I don’t hate guns. I like guns. They have a legitimate purpose which should be respected.

Praise be to Christ the King!

War: The Destroyer of Worlds

I know I’m about to get controversial here, but I’m just going to go ahead and say it: war is bad.

Now, I’m no America-hating liberal. My ancestors have been in this country, killing and dying for her, since before she existed on her own. I am the direct male-line descendant of a casualty in the American revolution, and veterans of the Texan revolution (who revolted more or less to get admitted into the union, though it took almost ten years after the war to get in), the civil war, the first world war, the second world war, and the Vietnam war. My great-grandfather swallowed a bit of mustard gas in World War I and died from it many years later, having served his country honorably as a medic in France. My grandfather on my mother’s side was a navigator on a Liberator; he was shot down three times, twice over water, and once was the only man in his crew to be pulled out of the English Channel alive. My other grandfather was a bit too young for World War II, but not too old to serve his country in Vietnam. Indeed, my own father, who was passed over in the draft toward the tail end of Vietnam, was a rarity in many generations in that he did not to serve in the military (and we’ve traced the line back tentatively to the Battle of Hastings, and certainly at least as far as the Battle of Bosworth Field), and in my generation my own brother has already done a tour of duty in Iraq with the Marine Corps.* For myself, I never served, but because I dispute with our government on our current wars, not out of fear of war or hatred of my country. So let’s take that so-called “argument” off the table right now.

Neither am I a pacifist. I’m not even the sort of quasi-pacifist of the sort typified by The Simpsons war episode:

Contrary to what you’ve just seen, war is neither glamorous nor fun. There are no winners; only losers. There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: the American Revolution, World War II, and the Star Wars Trilogy. If you’d like to learn more about war, there’s lots of books in your local library, many of them with cool gory pictures.

In fact, in some limited circumstances I like war, in the same way that in some limited circumstances I like amputation. But as an activity, it’s nasty even in its most necessary and glorious forms; as a habit, it’s nothing short of monstrous.

A nation fighting a war is like a father shooting a home intruder; it’s a horrible necessity, the desperate last resort of a cornered victim. War is appropriate only in extremely limited circumstances, which are delineated by what has traditionally been called the “just war doctrine” by such as still care about these things. The following is taken from St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica IIa-IIae Q. 40 Art. 1; the elaboration on “just cause” is from the Catechism of the Catholic Church para. 2309.

1. The war must be declared by a power with authority to do such. That is, it must be declared by the state. There is no such thing as a paramilitary organization or some such declaring a just war, because such organizations have no such authority.
2. There must be a just cause for the war.
   1. The damage sought to be avoided or redressed by the conflict must be lasting, grave, and certain. That “certain” bit is most controversial today. Essentially it means that the damage may not be speculative. For example, if Greece thinks that Turkey may possibly be building up for an invasion, Greece is not justified in starting a war with Turkey in order to avoid it. If, on the other hand, Turkey declares an intention to invade and starts amassing troops on the border, Greece can certainly take action to defend herself. Most importantly, this “certain” requirement means that so-called “preemptive war” is not justified according to Catholic just war doctrine. I can’t shoot you because I think someday you might shoot me; I have to be morally certain that you’re going to shoot me soon before I can take such drastic action. This is analogous to the requirement of using deadly force in self-defense that the threat one is defending against must be imminent. Given that just war is essentially self-defense for states, this requirement is eminently reasonable and should not be dodged.
   2. All other means of solving the problem must have been proven impractical or ineffective. Naturally. One cannot begin bombing Moscow when one hasn’t even asked that they stop whatever is grieving one.
   3. There must be a serious prospect of success. Once again, an eminently reasonable requirement. Daring but hopeless wars may make for good drama, but they don’t make for good morals.
   4. The war must not produce greater evils than it seeks to avoid or redress. This is another controversial requirement. Just because one is aggrieved doesn’t make a war justified, nor does it make all tactics within a war justified. Particularly given the enormous destructive potential of modern weaponry (as the Catechism itself notes), this is an important consideration that must be contemplated carefully before action. One principle stemming from this requirement that will doubtlessly make Americans squirm a bit uneasily in our seats is that it effectively eliminates the morality of demanding unconditional surrender. While America, in her glorious victories in the second world war, championed unconditional surrender, the Catholic can and must look upon this insistence as a blemish on an often heroic and honorable national effort. Once the wrong had been redressed, and the imminent harms prevented, one is producing overly great evils to insist upon an unconditional surrender. The mere fact that the war was just ab initio does not make all actions taken within it just, as well.
3. There must be a rightful intention on the part of the belligerent nation. That is, the nation must be embarking upon the war with the actual intention of accomplishing some good or preventing some imminent evil, and not using that as a mere pretext for aggression.

This is the traditional—dare I say conservative?—doctrine regarding just war. It is what moderns like to call a “realistic” and “practical” doctrine, recognizing that reality is miserable and that war is sometimes necessary, yet also that war is miserable and that its evils ought to be limited as much as possible. Yet somehow one who questions the myriad wars of the modern era is a liberal, and one who unequivocally supports them is a conservative. Why?

Conservatives have always opposed war in general, accepting it only in the rarest and clearest of cases. It was conservatives who most enthusiastically championed George Washington’s advice to avoid foreign entanglements, which lead to foreign wars. The spread of communism after the second world war is probably responsible for this anomaly; conservatives suddenly found themselves faced with what is quite probably their exact opposite, and many of them determined to accept endless foreign wars as a way of limiting that evil. Yet they didn’t give up then; such conservatives eventually developed into “neoconservatives” (a name they gave themselves), who continue to be the most violent warmongers in our current polity.

But war is horrible. Mars (Ares) was always depicted riding to battle on a chariot pulled by two horses called Timor (Phobos) and Metus (Deimos). What we don’t realize is that this picture is horrifying; terrible War, riding into battle pulled by Fear and Dread. War is not only miserable and terrifying, it is brutal and bloody. Even just wars. Nothing is more destructive of men, of the family, and of society than war.

War pulls men away from their productive and useful work and puts them instead to the tasks of destruction and death. It deprives families of their breadwinners, wives of their supports, and children of their fathers. It puts men, usually young and frightened, far from their families and their homes, leading to all kinds of degeneration and vice. It diverts the useful industries of a nation into destroying rather than creating wealth. It is, indeed, terrible Mars pulled by Fear and Dread. It is the destroyer of worlds.

No man should shrink from war when his honor and his good require it. No man should fail to take up the sword to kill and die for his hearth and home. But neither should a man abandon his family, turn from the useful arts to slaughter and fire, for any cause but one which can clearly and unambiguously be shown just and right.

War is terrible. So let’s avoid it with all our strengths.

Praise be to Christ the King!

* As a footnote, let me mention how much I respect my brother for this. I disagree strongly with him about the war; he thinks it’s just, I think it’s plainly not. But unlike most so-called conservative hawks, he put his money where his mouth was; he saw his country fighting a war which he thought was just, and he put himself on the line, rather than arguing vehemently about putting other people behind the bullets. For this, I respect and honor him, even while I disagree with his judgment.

Why Care about Distributism?

An old friend has been commenting on my post Consumer Confidence or Consumer Recklessness, and he’s led me to an interesting question. He asked me why I bother with this whole distributism thing at all? After all, he observes, it’s exceedingly unlikely that I’d ever live to see distributism put into place; why not focus on making capitalists more virtuous, rather than explaining to them why the system itself is bankrupt?

I can respond in two ways. First, of course, is that while I might not see a distributist system in place in my lifetime, I can certainly see certain distributist principles put into practice. Some of this is happening already, though often under different names. The credit union system, for example, is in a certain way quite distributist (in others not really at all). Another example is the increasing prominence of farm co-ops. The people who form these efforts rarely go by the name “distributist”; however, these efforts are eminently in accord with distributism, and can and should be supported as such by distributists. My advocacy for distributism can therefore forward these and other efforts that I can actually effect, even if an entire distributist system is unlikely in the immediate future.

Second, I advocate for distributism the same way I advocate for Catholicism. While I’m talking to a Protestant, for example, it might be extremely unlikely that I’ll convert him entirely to Catholicism, but pretty easy to convince him that he should venerate Mary. I’ll certainly try to convince him to venerate Mary (as I certainly now try to convince capitalists to be more virtuous); but that doesn’t mean that I give up trying to convince him to adopt Catholicism (as I don’t give up trying to advocate for distributism over capitalism).

Well, this friend replied, you do that because God has commanded you to try to convert people to Catholicism, so it’s different. However, God has commanded us to spread the truth, and distributism’s economic principles are truth, while capitalism’s are falsehood. To spread the truth, then, I must try to spread distributism; I can’t exclude this one part of the truth any more than I could exclude Marian veneration from spreading Catholicism.

The capitalist at this point generally smirks knowingly, as he’s now certain that his interlocutor is not quite straight in the head. Are you seriously claiming, he’ll ask, that distributism is just as important as Catholicism? That’s absolutely absurd. Well, yes and no; is distributism just as important as Catholicism? Obviously not. But is Catholic social teaching just as important as Catholicism? Unquestionably, yes; indeed, it is part and parcel of Catholicism, and one cannot be had without the other.

Is that absurd? If so, I’m afraid you’ll have to tell that not just to me, but also to John Paul II, who said precisely that. Catholic social teachings, he argued, are an integral part of the Gospel and must be spread along with it. Rerum Novarum, for example, the flagship of Catholic social teaching, “is a document of the Magisterium and is fully a part of the Church’s evangelizing mission, together with many other documents of this nature.” Centesimus Annus, no. 54. Think for a moment about how strong a statement that is; the late Pope is saying that Catholic social teaching is part of the message that the Church must spread throughout the world. That’s a pretty high-octane statement if spreading distributism is pointless.

Now, distributism is a name for an economic system that attempts to embody Catholic social teaching; as such, it could be mistaken in some particulars, and can’t be called, by itself, part of Catholicism. But the Catholic social teaching that it seeks to embody unquestionably is such. So I must, when spreading the Gospel, spread Catholic social teaching, including those parts that are fundamentally antithetical to capitalism. Such as:

1. Just wages cannot be set merely by the market, but must be compelled to be at least sufficient to support a worker and his family. Rerum Novarum no. 63; Quadragesimo Anno p. 36; Centesimus Annus no. 15.
2. Women should be legally compelled to avoid certain occupations, no matter to what the market might lead them. Rerum Novarum no. 63.
3. Some industries not only might, but ought to be owned and run by the state. Quadragesimo Anno, p. 55.
4. Onwership of private property is a right, but the use of private property is not, and is subject to just state and community regulation. Rerum Novarum no. 25; Quadragesimo Anno p. 24-25; Centesimus Annus no. 30.
5. Free competition is not the best, or even a good, way to organize economic affairs. Quadragesimo Anno p. 44.
6. Social justice and social charity are just and, in fact, are the “soul” of a just economic order. Quadragesimo Anno p. 45.
7. Income earned by a man which is not necessary for his upkeep according to his state is subject to just regulation and use by the state and community. Quadragesimo Anno p. 26.

And these are just specifics; they barely begin to get into the principles of capitalism as opposed to the principles of Catholic social teaching.

So yes, it is important to spread Catholic social teaching, and as such the particular way of embodying it that I support, which is called distributism. To spread Catholicism without it would be omitting an essential part of the Gospel message. Truth is truth; I will try to spread all of it whenever I can.

Enough with the Bailouts

It’s not that I dislike the Big Three. I was raised driving Fords (and the occasional Chrysler), and every car I’ve ever owned has been a Ford, though I got them all used. (Wait; the current euphemism is “previously enjoyed,” right?) Personally, I’d never buy a foreign car; not because there’s anything wrong with being foreign, but because I’d rather support industries and workers in America then industries and workers in some other country when I’ve got the choice. (No, the fact that Toyota and Honda have a few assembly plants on this continent doesn’t change the fact that most of the profit and the benefit for buying from them goes to a faraway place where I know no one, while buying a domestic vehicle passes considerably more benefit onto my countrymen, many of whom I do know, and with whom I have a great deal in common.)

No, I don’t hate the Big Three. (Big Two, really; Toyota, after all, has already pushed Chrysler off the list.) I rather oppose the bailout because we just don’t have the money. Our GDP, according to any Google search, is about 11 trillion dollars. Our total tax revenue is about 2.5 trillion dollars. Yet so far, in bailouts, we have spent 4.5 trillion dollars. Money, of course, that we don’t have.

Let’s compare that to other enormous expenditures of our federal government, shall we?

I think that more or less makes my point.

Incidentally, the hypocrisy of many Republicans really comes to the fore here (Democrats, who have always been quite shameless in their willingness to spend on credit, though often doing less of it than Republicans do, don’t have this particular problem among their legion of them). They yell and holler about spending money on something like NASA, money, they say, which we don’t have. Yet most of them supported these enormous bailouts. The bottom line is that the Republican party doesn’t care about deficits when they’re supporting big businesses, especially big finance. They only care about deficits when it’s supporting other, less important things, like health care and scientific research.

As for me, I don’t like deficit spending at all. In the words of an old friend, “All hail the balanced budget!”

Praise be to Christ the King!

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a strong supporter of FOSS, free and open source software. I’m not going to write an apologia for such software (at least not now); that job has been done much better by many others. (See GNU’s philosophy page for some pretty good ones.) What I do want to do right now, though, is spread around to the world my own small contributions to the FOSS community. They are small, but I believe that, having received so much of use from the community, I ought to give back what I can.

bibsearch: a little Perl program that provides extensive search and work capabilities with the Bible. It’s currently set up to work with the Latin Vulgate (the Clementine version, using the texts from the Clementine text project that formed the basis for the excellent Windows-based Vulsearch utility) and the English version (the Douay-Rheims, the text taken from the same project), but it’s easily extensible to other languages, if only I could find some free text translations of the Bible into those languages. (If you know of any, please let me know.) It allows searching the entire Bible, in either language, with the full power of regular expressions; it also allows saving results to buffers, searching those buffers, and writing those buffers to disk if you want to save them permanently. You can receive search results by book, chapter, and verse, or that information with the actual text. You can also search by book, by testament, or by groups of books (such as the Books of Moses or the writings of St. Paul). Finally, you can also use it simply to read the Bible or to get particular verses. It’s text-based and powerful, with full documentation. God bless you, and I hope you find it useful.

catechis: This is a macro package for the excellent LaTeX document formatting system (which uses the TeX typesetting engine) for typesetting traditional catechisms. For more information on TeX and LaTeX, visit the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network.

liturg: A macro package for LaTeX for typesetting Catholic liturgical texts, particularly those of the traditional Roman liturgy. Special macros are defined particularly for the Missal and the Breviary.

dozenal: A macro package for typesetting documents using the dozenal numbering system. It includes Metafont characters for the numerals ten and eleven, designed along the lines of the Pitman characters (essentially, an inverted two and a reversed three). It also inclues (now) Type 1 versions of the fonts, sadly enough.

GoodClock: A simply clock program in fvwmscript for the fvwm desktop. Uses the system date command to display the time and date. As configurable as fvwm itself.

FOSS logos: Some vi logos and a general FOSS logo, all drawn in the GIMP. Very simple and basic, but I like them.

I hope that some small part of the world finds these programs useful. As always, in the true spirit of FOSS, if you think of any changes or improvements to any of these programs, please contact me, or feel free to change them yourself, in accord with the applicable license. God bless you all.

Praise be to Christ the King!

Dégénération

I’ve since learned that the band singing this song, Mes Aïeux (which in French means “My Forefathers”), is actually pro-abortion, which seems pretty absurd given the content of the song. But I still find the song and video profound in the extreme.

The song is not only beautiful aesthetically, but I found its meaning deep and penetrating. Whatever its authors might have meant by it, this song is traditionalist. Traditionalists should enjoy it, sing it, and use it to further their cause.

Praise be to Christ the King!