Annett’s Mid-Century "Mis-Vision"

"Cathonomics," by Tony Annett, is not a Catholic account of economics.

While Cathonomics by Anthony (“Tony”) Annett purports to be a definitive, Catholic account of economics, it ends up doing no such thing. Instead, Annett provides a number of neo-Keynesian economic proposals under the guise of Catholic Social Teaching (CST), suggesting to his reader that his prudential economic views represent church dogma. In his re-capitulation of (slightly dated and anachronistic) economic views, Annett gives an overly simplistic account of economics, completely avoiding discussion of monetary policy, all the while giving an overly favorable portrait of the 1950s that would make even the most ardent boomer-conservative commentator blush.

At the same time, on the theological front, Annett’s accurate account of Church teaching about greed and wealth is hampered in his attempts to engage with the Magisterium by his seeming love of liberal, non-Catholic authors. There are positives to Annett’s book, for instance, his critique of the Enlightenment and “classical” economics. Yet, his book is fatally crippled by itself and Annett seems to be his own worst enemy. At its best, Annett’s book, while not providing anything near a Catholic view on economics, could serve as the basis for a left-wing platform healthier than the atheistic, Jacobin, and materialistic left of contemporary modernity.

Annett’s book begins with a discussion of historical Catholic doctrine on wealth, greed, and property, which he calls the “Old Stuff” and distinguishes it from modern CST. This section states many obvious truths, such as greed being sinful, worship of mammon being idolatrous, and the wealthy as having an obligation to care for the poor. At the same time, this chapter brings to the fore many red flags that Annett must be critiqued on, as they reveal the book to be shallow in its attempt to present a uniquely Catholic lens on economics.

The first red flag is discussing the Pauline Epistles not with the other parts of scripture, but instead with Patristics. This separation of Paul from scripture is also common among liberal Protestants. Annett also chooses to use very odd sources, for example, citing the Eastern Orthodox David Bentley Hart to analyze Pater Noster, relying on Amy Jill-Levine (a non-Christian feminist and LGBT-affirming New Testament “scholar”) to analyze the teachings of Christ, and quoting Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty (a pro-LGBT female pastor) on the same subject.

It would be uncharitable to suggest that Annett is in dissent from the Magisterium, and I do not mean to imply that he is, but one would expect that a book that claims to present a uniquely Catholic understanding of economics would instead use Catholic scholars or theologians to analyze scripture. Even the Catholic scholars that Annett does use seem to be selected from only the past fifty years of church history, and include Fr. James Martin, an infamously heterodox priest. Again, to his credit, Annett justly condemns greed, oppression of the poor, and idolatrous worship of mammon. However, for a purportedly Catholic book on economics, Annett does not begin with a strong start.

Following his introduction, Annett recounts a history of CST since Rerum Novarum in a liberal account of the subject. Annett describes how the Church opposes both classical economics, as well as economic liberalism and socialism. Annett does not make the connection between political liberalism and economic liberalism, instead elsewhere praising “democracy” and “human rights,” even though those concepts share the same philosophical origin.

Annett also ignores some of the best Catholic critiques of classical economics, which tend to come from counter-revolutionary authors such as Louis de Bonald or René de la Tour du Pin, who also critiqued political liberalism (Christopher Blum’s Critics of the Enlightenment is by far the best collection of Catholic authors writing against both classical economics and liberalism).

Unlike Juan Donoso-Cortes, Annett does not see that socialism and classical economics have the same philosophical origins or that socialism and communism ultimately derive from the same spirit as Adam Smith. After all, Marx was a scholar of Smith. For this reason, if I were to write an account of Papal documents comprising parts of CST, I would begin with Bl. Pius IX and Quanta Cura, rather than Leo XIII and Rerum Novarum, though I can understand why Annett chose the latter.

Though Annett does not include various anti-Enlightenment authors as the origins of CST, Annett spends a chapter attacking both the Enlightenment and its economists such as Mandeville and Adam Smith. Annett describes how the Enlightenment replaced Natural Law with utilitarianism, led to disregard towards the poor, and led to the destruction of the environment.

Annett excoriates Bentham and utilitarianism for replacing the classical notion of eudaimonia with hedonia and likewise attacks Bentham for stating that government should promote overall “happiness” for the greatest number rather than virtue. The greatest weakness of this critique is that Annett still does not connect this critique of economic liberalism to one of political liberalism, nor does he connect economic liberalism to egalitarianism. Thus, Annett’s attack on the Enlightenment lacks the force that it should have, as he is unwilling to think further about political ramifications or question his own ideological precommitment to liberalism.

Annett also spends a chapter on inequality in the present day, which is a very real issue. Yet, Annett incorrectly conflates CST’s calls for the participation and welfare of all within the economic life of a nation with egalitarianism. Regardless of what one thinks of a justly ordered (and hierarchical) society in theory, it is undeniable that modern economic inequality is detrimental to the common good and pernicious to social harmony.

More importantly, Annett’s analysis omits any reference to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) or its impact on inequality. MMT holds that a nation with a fiat currency need not be constrained in its public expenditures by the requirement to fund spending with taxes or borrowing. Under MMT, while taxes and debt issuance may still serve as public policy tools (to redistribute income or withdraw liquidity from the economy) they are not the primary means of funding government expenditures.

Instead, MMT holds that the government should limitlessly print money to fund itself (presumably thereby also stimulating growth in GDP). This ultimately sacrifices the common good at the altar of an artificially inflated GDP. The money printed through MMT creates a regressive tax through inflation, which devastates the working class, whose savings are less likely to be bound up in stocks or houses, while benefiting the wealthy through the inflated prices of these assets.

As the working classes spend a higher proportion of their income on necessities, they also have less flexibility to adjust their spending and savings patterns to adjust to inflationary pressures. The continued influence of MMT on American monetary policy (having essentially been implemented by both political parties during all three of the most recent presidencies) constitutes “willful oppression of the poor” (recognized by the church as one of the most serious sins).

MMT robs the working class of their savings through inflation while benefiting the wealthy through the rise in values of stocks and other assets. That MMT is never mentioned in Annett’s book, though it is one of the foremost causes of pernicious inequality within our economy, is shocking, and belies a lack of attention paid to monetary policy and a degree of unseriousness within the book.

This leads to a discussion of Annett’s “boogeyman” throughout his book: libertarians. While I am not a libertarian by any means, one cannot deny that on the two issues that they have focused on, foreign policy restraint and the need for a stable currency, libertarians have been “right” for the past two decades. While Annett’s “Keynesian Mainstream” was banging the war drums to bring “human rights” and “democracy” to Iraq, libertarians such as Ron Paul were accurately pointing out that the war was merely corporate welfare for defense contractors and against the vital security interests of the United States.

On monetary policy, since the United States left the gold standard (and it is interesting that Annett’s favorite epoch was that under Bretton-Woods, when the the United States had a gold standard), only libertarians have consistently stood against the cheapening of currency through the printing of huge quantities of money, and the deleterious effects that such printing has on the purchasing power of currency and especially on the working class.

Likewise, on economic policy more broadly, libertarians, for all their eccentricities, have been the only ones to consistently and accurately criticize how the government contributes to inequality through cronyism and corporate welfare. None of this is to defend the philosophical basis of libertarianism, but it is lazy for Annett to try to blame all of society’s ills on a group that has been consistently correct in critiquing the neoliberal consensus.

The final noteworthy part of Annett’s book is his idealization of the 1950s and postwar era. Annett describes the 1950s as being the high point of “social democracy,” wherein Keynesianism reigned supreme and labor unions held significant authority over public life. Annett describes the time as being one of prosperity and one where the Church held significantly more authority in public life than today. He then portrays this as having been ruined by neoliberalism and neoclassical economics in the 1970s and 1980s, which served to create greater inequality.

However, in praising this era, Annett falls into a certain myopia not dissimilar from many conservatives in praising the era. The 1950s, for better or worse, simply had much better social capital than we have today. Merely attempting to “return” through a set of economic policies or laws is quixotic so long as the social capital is lost. And so, this raises serious questions about what kind of political life Annett actually wants to create. Remember, “liberalism leads to Marxism,” and there is no justification for conservatives embracing the left on economics.

In spite of a positive vision of the common good, Annett misuses the time period and Church teaching to justify the ideological and economic proclivities of the left. “Christian democracy” is not our goal. Instead of talking about promoting unions, how about we discuss family policy or reindustrialzation, things notably absent from the book?

Furthermore, Annett’s analysis neglects how government has grown since the 1950s, treating that era as one of big government and our own as one of small government. Indeed, following that period, as documented in Amity Shales’s book on the Great Society, the growth of government often serves to fray social bonds and only worsen social conditions. Furthermore, as Patrick Deneen points out in Why Liberalism Failed, individualism and growth in government have gone together hand-in-hand, as the dissolving of social bonds creates a vacuum into which the government has inadequately stepped into.

Annett’s book contains other things to both critique and praise, though the format of a book review disinclined as deep of a level of engagement with the text as to properly do it justice. Beyond what was mentioned in this review, Annett has a tendency to quote a papal document, only to read into it something that is not there, most notably in his chapter on inequality.

Annett’s other chapters on environmentalism and global disparities likewise fuse papal teaching with subjective opinion and leftist dogma. Moreover, many of the solutions put forward by Annett would only worsen the problems he addresses, for example, his support for inheritance taxes as a solution for inequality, even though such taxes are regressive.

With as much personal respect to the author as possible, Cathonomics is not a distinctly Catholic account of economics, but it may be of some use to Annett as he encourages his own side to abandon neoliberalism and embrace the common good. However, conservatives are ultimately unable to accept his account of economics. Instead, we must push forward with an authentically conservative understanding of the common good, one that emphasizes positive results, including the promotion of families, tariffs, and the reindustrialzation of our country, instead of measuring society based on spreadsheets, graphs, and GDP.

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