Economic Global Governance Must Incorporate Authentic Moral Standards
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
In an April 30, 2010 address to social scientists meeting in Rome, Italy, Pope Benedict XVI provided his further insights regarding the moral standards that should guide the work of any international authority responsible for the global governance of economic life. Ironically, only a few days earlier, in an April 26th keynote address to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, explained his vision for the global governance of the economic and financial sphere. Unlike Pope Benedict's emphasis on the moral dimension of the global governance of economic life, Mr. Trichet's vision lacked any reference to moral standards, a glaring omission in light of the moral shortcomings that caused the global financial crisis and the moral underpinnings of the common good about which those globally governing economic life should be concerned.
Pope Benedict made his remarks about the moral dimension of economic global governance in an address delivered to the participants at the sixteenth plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (the "Academy"). The members of the Academy met to consider the global economic crisis in the light of the ethical principles enshrined in the Catholic Church's social doctrine. In his address, titled "Economic Life Should Properly Be Seen as an Exercise of Human Responsibility," Pope Benedict explained that, because the common good is an indispensable principle shaping an ethical approach to economic life, the structures, institutions, and concrete decisions that are used to guide and direct economic life at a global level, as judged by internalized comprehensive and objective moral standards rooted in natural law, should promote intergenerational solidarity. For this reason, global leaders should strengthen the governance procedures of the global economy to incorporate moral standards, albeit with due respect for the principle of subsidiarity, which teaches that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization.
This call "to strengthen the governance procedures of the global economy" follows on the heels of Pope Benedict's call in his 2009 Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate "for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth." In the Encyclical, the global governance and sovereignty implications of which this author wrote about in an earlier article, Pope Benedict explained that it was necessary "to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity." In his opinion, the authority responsible for the realization and management of such an order, whether the UN or otherwise, "would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral development inspired by the values of charity in truth."
Additionally, in the last two sentences of paragraph 67 of the Encyclical, Pope Benedict explained that the "integral development of peoples and international cooperation" not only requires the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering for the management of globalization; but, also, "the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres." If, to the contrary, society is not governed by a moral order which international governing authorities internalize and to which they are held accountable, then, as stated in paragraph 5 of the Encyclical, "there is no social conscience and responsibility, and social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power, resulting in social fragmentation."
In his brief opening remarks to the Pontifical Academy, Pope Benedict explained in greater (though still limited) detail, how, by internalizing the comprehensive and objective natural law moral standards that must exist for the promotion of intergenerational solidarity, the authority responsible for globally governing economic life can positively participate in a social order that conforms to the moral order. Additionally, by respecting the subsidiarity principle, economic global governance institutions can leave it to citizens at the local, state, and national levels to use their reason and faith to purify and develop the natural moral law which, according to Pope Benedict, "serves as a beacon guiding the efforts of individuals and communities to pursue good and to avoid evil, while directing their commitment to building an authentically just and humane society." Also, by respecting the subsidiarity principle, economic global governance authorities can leave it to individual citizens and their elected local, state, and national representatives to construct or strengthen the link between the social order and the politics and the economic and civil spheres that generate it.
As for ECB President Trichet, in his remarks, titled "Global Governance Today," to the exclusion of the moral dimensions of the global governance of economic and financial sphere, he focused on the following institutional and structural dimensions:
* the constellation of supranational and financial institutions and informal groupings that have progressively emerged at the global level, including the G-20;
* the set of rules that facilitates the proper functioning of cross-border markets and reduction of transaction costs;
* the role of governments, central banks, international institutions and globally agreed prudential standards and codes as the means for securing the global public good of global economic stability.
Like Pope Benedict, President Trichet emphasized the principle of subsidiarity; however, he did so only to emphasize that no economic or financial rule should be imposed at a global or supra-national level if it can be more or equally effectively set at the national or local level.
Though President Trichet is not a religious leader, in light of the moral shortcomings revealed by the global economic crisis and the foundational relevance of moral standards in building a social order in which economic global governance can successfully promote the common good, it is disappointing that, thus far, he has failed to consider or publicly stress the role of morality in his vision for global governance. Admittedly, the ECB, Group of Twenty ("G-20") nations, International Monetary Fund ("IMF"), and other leaders of the economic global governance movement have expressed concern about achieving a "balance" in the global economy and addressing the development needs of all nations. However, if, in lieu of adopting an approach rooted in a morally inspired social order arising from authentic democratic evolution, these leaders adhere to a global redistributive market liberalism marked by an ambiguous human security agenda funded through taxation, then economic global governance will consist of nothing more than a UN office that is responsible for monitoring the wealth of nations and making utilitarian political decisions pertaining to its redistribution.
Ultimately, the creation of a legitimate and effective international authority for the global governance of economic life requires citizens: 1) who form their views on the subject through the reasoned consideration of relevant moral norms in the context of their particular religious traditions; 2) who, in their private and public lives, have the liberty and opportunity to promote those moral norms as the basis for the social order; 3) who can trust their elected representatives to consider applicable moral norms in developing and adopting rules for the governance of national economic policies and financial institutions; and 4) who can trust the supranational institutions and informal groupings that globally govern economic life to respect the role of local, state, and national institutions and the citizens to whom they are accountable.
Unfortunately, the secularization of Western Europe and, increasingly, the United States of America, has negatively impacted the desire or ability of individuals, businesses, and governmental institutions to construct and maintain a moral order to which financial institutions feel compelled to conform to a corresponding social order to which they are accountable. Although those leaders who desire to globally govern economic life cannot be expected to evangelize for a moral order conducive to the promotion of intergenerational solidarity, they should be prepared to facilitate and publicly support the ideas and work of what British historian Arnold Toynbee referred to, and Pope Benedict has publicly acknowledged, as "creative minorities"-those small subgroups who work out fresh responses to new challenges to civilization, which are eventually copied by the majority.
Jim Kelly is the President of Solidarity Center for Law and Justice, P.C., a public interest civil and human rights law firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. The opinions expressed herein are his own.
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