Sec. 45 repeats a point discussed earlier, namely that as “the economy, in all its branches, constitutes a sector of human activity”, it is essential that it be structured intrinsically by the logic of caritas:

Efforts are needed — and it is essential to say this — not only to create “ethical” sectors or segments of the economy or the world of finance, but to ensure that the whole economy — the whole of finance — is ethical, not merely by virtue of an external label, but by its respect for requirements intrinsic to its very nature.

This point is further articulated in sec. 46, which spells out in more detail the importance of economic activity that regards profit “as a means of achieving the goal of a more humane market and society” and seems like it would have been better placed alongside the discussion of mutualism in chapter three; similarly, sec. 47 discusses development programs and the phenomenon of international aid, noting that in each case there is a real potential for abuse and bureaucratic waste and, consequently, a need for transparency, for a direct involvement of the people whose interests are at stake with the activities of those aiming to help them, and for a careful responsiveness to the intricacies of concrete situations.

Finally, secs. 48-51 take up the topic of human relationships to the natural environment. Benedict stresses the importance of recognizing the “inbuilt order” of non-human nature: “the natural environment is more than raw material to be manipulated at our pleasure; it is a wondrous work of the Creator containing a ‘grammar’ which sets forth ends and criteria for its wise use, not its reckless exploitation” (sec. 48). The consequent duties have political dimensions as well as individual ones: it is incumbent on technologically advanced societies to reduce domestic energy consumption to allow the distribution of resources to developing countries that lack them; on political authorities to “ensure that the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations” (sec. 50); and on the Church to build up a “human ecology” that will strengthen in turn a proper attitude toward the rest of creation:

The book of nature is one and indivisible: it takes in not only the environment but also life, sexuality, marriage, the family, social relations: in a word, integral human development. Our duties towards the environment are linked to our duties towards the human person, considered in himself and in relation to others. It would be wrong to uphold one set of duties while trampling on the other. Herein lies a grave contradiction in our mentality and practice today: one which demeans the person, disrupts the environment and damages society. (sec. 51)

As its title suggests this chapter is rather wide-ranging, and there is clearly a lot of value in it. What is frustrating, though, is that not much is done to explicate how these issues are supposed to relate to one another, let alone how they tie in to the document’s overarching themes. I’m happy to have someone show that these complaints are misplaced.

P.S. Here is the text of the encyclical, and here are my notes on the earlier chapters. For next Sunday we will read chapters 5-6 as well as the conclusion, because I’m going to be on the road for the week after that.

P.P.S. Maclin Horton has gotten around to posting some thoughts on the encyclical and the surrounding fuss, and they are well worth a read.

An original innocence in a Garden of Eden? Check. The ruination of that paradise by human action? Check. A sinful human nature? A demand to change your life? A looming apocalypse? Check. Check. Check. A redemption?

Well, no, not that: There is no Christ in environmentalism. The heavenly paradise at the green end, like edenic paradise at the green beginning, can have no humans in it. But there’s a reason that environmentalism has clicked with so many. They don’t believe in Christ, but they still feel the Christian narrative of human history, and environmentalism is a moral tale that fits both those facts.

Yes, because there’s just nothing Christian at all about the demand for careful stewardship of non-human nature, is there? Elsewhere, David Schaengold slaps down Erin Manning’s similar claim that environmentalists hope for a human-free future and are quietly in favor of forced abortion and sterilization. And in other news, conservative Christians are secretly plotting to turn America into a theocracy, or hadn’t you heard that already?

P.S. Here is my plea to treat natural landscapes as more than, well, landscapes, and here is Roger Scruton in TAC on what a “righter shade of green” would look like.

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.

All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem.

Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this nation, and it can also be the standard around which we rally. On the battlefield of energy we can win for our nation a new confidence, and we can seize control again of our common destiny.  [Emphasis mine.]

That was Jimmy Carter, thirty years ago. As one who’s spent a little too much of his free time in the last month or two reading Lasch — and, more importantly, someone who’s increasingly troubled by modern society’s decoupling of “limit” and “responsibility” from “freedom” and “liberty” — I’m inclined to agree with Rod Dreher and Sean Scallon in finding that speech prescient (even if I found myself shaking my head at some of the policy recommendations).

His pre-emptory response to those who would criticize him for demanding small “sacrifices” and moving toward a freedom of limits and liberty of responsibility is worth our attention — “It gives us more freedom, more confidence, that much more control over our own lives.”  An unbridled limitlessness doesn’t set one free.  It just pushes us toward a different type of slavery.

On another note, I had a thought when looking at this paragraph of Scallon’s article again:

The new anti-malaise coalition, Left and Right, agreed on a nationalism that regarded an America with any kind of limits as a place that could never be America in any meaningful sense. They believed in the divine American mission and the rhetoric behind it: “leader of the free world,” “the last best hope for man on earth,” “the shining city on a hill.” Carter’s speech, to them, was heresy. Thus Reagan, with help from other former liberals, could transform conservatism from a traditional doctrine of prudence, caution, and sustainability—a tough sell politically—into a highly marketable brand of American exceptionalism.

Anyone who claims that “divine American mission” or some variant thereof — positioning Americans as “chosen” for some sort of special mission — as justification for a limitless America is forgetting that, theologically speaking, chosenness involves subjecting oneself to limits.

Claire McCaskill, for instance, twittered, "I hope we can fix cap and trade so it doesn’t unfairly punish businesses and families in coal dependent states like Missouri." The point of cap-and-trade, as I understand it, is that it fairly disadvantages people and businesses who are dependent on cheap coal and are harming the atmosphere. ~ Ezra Klein

And fairly advantages those lucky enough with sufficient inborn virtue to live and work in regions dependent on something else? I don’t want to belabor this point – I’ve already belabored it at great length here, here, here, here, here, here, and probably also elsewhere, though I’m not going to stand even 80% behind all of that – but it’s simply true that there is something at least prima facie unfair about raising the cost of a range of technologies that are relied on most heavily by those from the lowest rungs of the economic ladder, and who often don’t have at their disposal an especially wide range of alternatives. People like me, Ezra, and Claire McCaskill likely won’t bear a heavy burden if a serious tax on carbon is passed, both because we’ve got a fair amount of financial flexibility and also because we live in regions that provide the resources that make a low-emissions lifestyle possible. But many of the people who live in low-density, coal-dependent parts of the country where serious mass transit options aren’t available don’t live in those places because they chose to; and if they did so choose, then the choice almost certainly had nothing to do with a deep desire to destroy the planet by burning their way through a whole lotta coal. Isn’t designing a tax specifically to single out an externality associated with their lifestyle, even if it’s a lifestyle they have very little choice about, at least a little bit unfair?

Put differently, suppose it turned out that you were considerably more likely to do things that harm the atmosphere if you were a woman, or a minority, or a homosexual, or an obese person, or someone with a medical condition that sort of snuck up on you but you really could have avoided. (Hell, suppose it turned out that there were significant externalities associated with the sport of cheerleading.) In those situations, would it be fair to impose a tax on those activities, notwithstanding the fact that such a tax would be, in at least some sense, discriminatory? Which of these situations are ones in which such a tax would be fair? In which cases wouldn’t it be? And what’s the principled reason to put a tax on the lifestyles of poor Missourians in the “fair” column rather than the “unfair” one?

I don’t raise these as devastating objections to the very idea of a tax on carbon; coupled with a sharp reduction of the payroll tax and significant investment in low-carbon infrastructure development for the most affected regions, it seems to me that such a tax is the best emissions-reducing tool we’ve got, even if it’s a bit of a clumsy one. But just as it’s surely necessary to consider the possible effects of global warming on people living south of Key West, it seems to me that we well-to-do urbanite bloggers would do well to show a bit more sympathy for the lives and livelihoods of the people on whom our favored policy ideas are likely to put a significant strain.

If the First Things crowd ever decides to do one of those fundraising cruises that have become so popular of late, I know of a river in Egypt that would be an appropriate destination.

Whole thing here.

2. If a policy idea cannot survive the opposition being partisan and also lying about it, I submit the policy idea is not such a good one.  You can blame the opposition with all the justice in the world on your side, but still the idea has major, major problems.

In a more perfect political world this would likely be true, but in the world we’ve got I’m not so sure. When it comes to climate policy, for example, a straightforward carbon tax would be at least as good an idea as a cap and trade program, but it’s also much less likely to survive partisanship and misrepresentation and so gain the support of voters (a new tax! … as opposed to something the public can’t identify) or corporate interests (you mean this isn’t a way for us to generate a new market out of thin air?). By my lights, a more accurate principle would state that the goodness of a policy idea is close to inversely proportional to its ability to survive partisan lying; if this makes the political process sound hopeless, then that’s just as it should be.

In any case this bit is spot on:

6. The Democrats do in fact rule by more than one seat in both houses of Congress.  So maybe the marginal Democratic legislators don’t have so much bargaining power after all.  You can cite 60+ in the Senate but of course this is endogenous to what the Democrats themselves think public opinion will bear.  There is a reason why the Democratic establishment does not, as Matt Yglesias so often recommends, abolish the 60+ requirement.  Often they prefer inaction, combined with the ability to blame the Republicans for such.  See #4.  The often-sad truth is that the Democrats as a whole prefer to tailor policy to pander to their "worst" members.

And #4 states:

Both the Republicans and the Democrats share some common problems and they are known as voters.  And special interest groups.  If your plan cannot survive the influence of voters, and special interest groups…well…see #2.

As Cowen and Robin Hanson have both noted, the Democrats used up a lot of political capital passing the stimulus bill, and the public’s evident exhaustion with grand and costly measures is quite understandable. Progressives had, and indeed still have in principle, the political representation necessary to pass any part of their agenda they’d like, and while blaming the opposition for their failures can make for a nice story, the responsibility is ultimately shared out much more widely than that.

Why is there no line in the sand that the bill’s sponsors won’t cross to get support from midwestern Dems?  Why are they so eagerly giving away the farm?

And the answer is obvious: it’s because Republicans have cynically decided nearly en masse to blindly oppose any action on climate change whatsoever.  This means that Waxman and Markey have no choice except to grimly cut deals with every last parochial interest on the Democratic side just in order to get anything passed at all.  So that’s what they’re doing.  And it’s ugly.

Now, if they wanted to, Republicans, in return for their votes, could fight to keep the bill cleaner, keep it more effective, and insert provisions that would make it more acceptable to conservatives.  That would be great.  Waxman and Markey wouldn’t have to give away the store to every congressman with a coal mine in his backyard if there were even a small band of serious Republicans willing to support a climate change bill and bargain in good faith to help get it passed.

But there isn’t.  It’s the Party of Nyet that’s created this political dynamic.  They can stop it anytime they want.

Jim responds by suggesting that the GOP’s opposition to the bill may not be so blind or cynical after all,* but it seems to me that this is beside the point, as when last I checked, the Democrats controlled the Executive Branch and held 60% of the seats in both the House and the Senate. This means that if the Democrats were both (a) serious about passing a climate change bill that wasn’t a complete sop to corporate interests and (b) disciplined about following through on those things they were serious about, we could have a cleaner and more effective climate change bill by Monday. It’s true, of course, that Republican cooperation could also help this sort of thing to happen, but it’s only because of the failures of the Democrats that such cooperation is necessary at all.

I understand, of course, that Drum’s a Democrat, and that as such it’s in his rooting interests to stick up for his guys. But in fact his real interests tend in a quite different direction: progressives who are upset with the failure to come up with a worthwhile climate bill should be directing their ire in the direction of the party that represents them, not excusing their political incompetence and general lack of principle by complaining about the “political dynamic” supposedly created by the antics of the powerless opposition.

* The natural way to evaluate this claim is to ask whether the GOP would be similarly opposed to a better – e.g., Manzi-style – Democrat-sponsored climate bill, too. And I think I know the answer.

First of all, I’m honored to have been invited to contribute to the Commonweal blog, and my first post over there takes on Joe Carter’s recent criticisms of “theistic evolution”:

If God is omniscient, then his knowledge of the course of evolution is eternally perfect – and whether the evolutionary process was random or not has no bearing on this at all. Contra Carter, then, the randomness of evolution wouldn’t require God to tinker around with multiple universes any more than the reality of free will means that Gabriel had to be prepared to ask women other than Mary whether they’d bear the Christ child; in each instance, the fact that the universe’s prior state constrained but didn’t fully determine what was going to happen doesn’t mean that God had to have been ignorant about how things would go.

Whole thing here; it may that you have to register in order to comment, in which case I’m happy to discuss the argument over here as well.

Also, I’ve got a new post up at The American Scene, defending mandatory composting programs against the Reasonoids.

According to the conditions that prevail at the overwhelming majority of the world’s fisheries, many different fishermen compete with one another to draw as many fish as they can from the water. Even in the presence of regulations to limit the allowable catch, illegal fishing is widespread and often undetected, and fish populations plummet until they reach a level where fishing is barely profitable. As Costello and his colleagues write: “Because individuals lack secure rights to part of the quota, they have a perverse motivation to ‘race to fish’ to outcompete others. This race can lead to poor stewardship and lobbying for ever-larger harvest quotas, creating a spiral of reduced stocks, excessive harvests, and eventual collapse.” The communal nature of the fishery, in other words, feeds right into a tendency for abuse.

By contrast, granting fishermen “catch shares” – renewable, and usually tradable, rights to portions of the fisheries’ annual yields – gives them a long-term stake in the health of the stock. As a result, fishermen with catch shares have intrinsic incentives to keep the fish populations robust and their supporting ecosystems intact: as Costello says in an interview with Science Daily, “when you allocate shares of the catch, then there is an incentive to protect the stock—which reduces collapse. We saw this across the globe. It’s human nature.” Ecological responsibility can’t just be imposed from above by a set of abstract rules and regulations; it is achieved most easily when people have a genuine stake in that which they’re being asked to be responsible for.

Whole thing here.