Michael Novak’s The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism is a curiously neglected work these days. While it was published in 1982 and has much that is specific to the debates of that era, the underling argument is curiously relevant to a contemporary debate about the nature of a Good Society.
How important was the book in its day? The Dean of Studies of the History of American Conservatism, George Nash, listed it as one of the 12 most influential books of the 1970s and 1980s. Once upon a time, it was big, really big.
Why? The 1970s were a time when all the Respectable People knew one thing: Christianity and Capitalism were irreconcilable. Within the Roman Catholic Church, for example, Liberation Theology, with its blurring of lines between Christianity and Marxism, was becoming ever more influential. Enter Michael Novak, who argued not simply that it was possible to be a devout Christian and think capitalism was OK, but that Democratic Capitalism was fully in accord with Christian Orthodoxy.
The “Democratic Capitalism” phrase needs to be defined. As Novak rightly noted, the word “capitalism” has no universal definition; it is a vague term that people use to describe all sorts of economic systems. Novak instead wants to point to what he dubbed “Democratic Capitalism,” which is a description of an entire societal order and one that describes, not coincidentally, the American Experiment.
In a Democratic Capitalist society power is deliberately divided into three distinct realms; there is no unitary order, but rather a constant and very messy interaction of three different sets of leaders. First there is a political system, marked by its own internal division of power, composed of leaders who are elected, directly or indirectly, through a democratic process. Second, there is an economic order marked by the existence of competition between firms in free markets. Third, there is a moral-cultural order, composed of religious and cultural leaders establishing the moral underpinnings of our lives. In a well-functioning Democratic Capitalist society, none of these three groups has the ascendancy; instead there is a constant jostling for influence as the realms rub against each other.
Back in 1982, the primary target of Novak’s work was those who believed that the moral cultural system needed to control the economic system via something akin to or exactly like a socialist or Marxist order. Novak argues that the socialist ideas are antithetical to Christian theology because they suppress individuality. In a striking imagine, Novak describes the system as having an empty shrine at the center:
In a genuine pluralistic society, there is no one sacred canopy. By intention, there is not. At its spiritual core, there is an empty shrine. That shrine is left empty in the knowledge that no one word, image, or symbol is worthy of what all seek there. Its emptiness, therefore, represents the transcendence which is approached by free consciences from a virtually infinite number of directions. (Aquinas once wrote that humans are made in the image of God but that since God is infinite He may be mirrored only through a virtually infinite number of humans. No concept of Him is adequate.) Believer and unbeliever, selfless and selfish, frightened and bold, naive and jaded, all participate in an order whose center is not socially imposed.
With no order imposed on people, it leaves individuals free to muddle along, with both good and bad effects. It creates both alienation and loneliness, which then creates the desire and need to create new organic communities. By refraining from imposing an order from above, Democratic Capitalism allows each individual to flourish in a constantly shifting set of communities.
As a description of the idea of American Experiment, Novak’s argument is really good. However as a description of the actual workings of the American Experiment in the last half-century, it runs into a bit of trouble. The Democratic Capitalist ideal hinges on having all three parts of the societal structure being robust. What happens when one of the parts collapses?
Another way of asking the question: Novak describes the center of the three parts of society as being empty with each of the three legs jostling for position around that center. But, what if the empty center at the heart of Democratic Capitalism ends up hollowing out one of the legs? Does the whole thing collapse?
What happens, for example, if the moral cultural order itself get hollowed out? What if there is no longer a robust moral-cultural order because internal debate has removed the ability even to articulate a shared set of values? Can Democratic Capitalism survive, using Richard John Neuhaus’ phrase, a naked public square? The question is not whether there should be debate within the moral-cultural order; for the system to work, the moral-cultural order should have every bit as much competition as the political and the economic orders. The question is whether society can survive if it loses the idea that there should be a robust moral-cultural order of any sort?
This is an intriguing way to describe what has happened in the decades since Novak wrote. In 1982, the problem was an assault on free markets and Novak was trying to convince people that a pluralistic society which respected markets was better than a unitary order which did not. Since then, while the socialist temptation has lingered, it is no longer the most obvious battle line. The battle line has shifted from being between the moral-cultural order and the economic order and into a civil war within the moral cultural order itself.
Christians are now faced with a rather stark choice. One the one hand, they could declare the American Experiment with its pluralistic democratic capitalism to be a failure. There is no lack of people making arguments like this these days. There are plenty of people counseling that the culture war is lost and that the only path forward is a retreat to a Christian enclave.
More surprising perhaps is the increasing number or arguments in favor of an even more vigorous war to build a more perfect society from the wreckage of the American Experiment. The surprising part is that if you replaced “Liberation Theology” with “Integralism,” Novak’s 1982 argument suddenly reads like it was written in 2021. The economic arguments of the 2021 “Common Good Capitalism” sound surprisingly like the 1970s “Liberation Theology” arguments. In both cases, evil corporations run by capitalists are not acting in ways which benefit the poor among us. In both cases, the government should develop policies to construct a more virtuous economic order. It both cases, it is the responsibility of Christians to advocate for these government polices to rid society of the baleful influences of unfettered capitalists. It is not hard to imagine Novak recoiling in horror.
If Novak is right, though, a messy pluralistic society in better than a Theocracy, whether the theocrats align themselves with the left or the right. The challenge is to avoid the counsels of despair. Yes, the moral-cultural order has collapsed; the challenge is finding ways to rebuild it. If Novak is right, it is well worth our time to try to build anew in the naked public square, to find a language to appeal across the divides of society in rediscovering a robust moral-cultural realm which can once again take its place as a robust leg in the Democratic Capitalist system.
I recently had the opportunity to discuss Novak’s book with the interns in the Acton Institute’s Emerging Leaders program. They were a rather impressive set of thoughtful college students and recent graduates. If you want a reason to be optimistic that the moral cultural order can be rebuilt, if you want a reason to avoid the counsels of despair, then you need look no further than these 14 young men and women.
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