Poll Shows Americans Eagerly Awaiting Pope's First Social Encyclical
July 6, 2009 by O'Meara Ferguson
Filed under News, O'Meara Ferguson News
ROME, JULY 3, 2009 (Zenit.org) – Benedict XVI’s views on the current financial crisis, included in his first social encyclical — which will be released July 7 — could possibly become a bestseller in the United States if a recent survey carried out by the Knights of Columbus holds true.
The Knights’ poll of a broad sample of Americans in March this year showed that 57% of U.S. citizens were eagerly wanting to hear Benedict XVI discuss “the short sightedness of personal greed and selfishness” that is thought to be the main cause of the current crisis. A further 55% wanted to hear him explain how a society can be built “where spiritual values play an important role.”
Also interesting is that an earlier survey carried out by the Knights in February showed widespread public discontent with business ethics: 76% of Americans polled believed that corporate America’s moral compass is pointed in the wrong direction, and 90% of respondents, and 90% of executives, see career advancement and personal gain as primary factors that corporate executives take into account when making business decisions. Moreover, nearly two-thirds believed that religious beliefs should significantly influence executive’s business decisions, and over two-thirds of executives agree.
The encyclical, which Benedict XVI signed Monday, the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, comes just days after the financier Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in jail for defrauding thousands of investors of billions of dollars. It will also appear on the eve of the Group of Eight summit of world leaders in Italy, July 8-10.
“What our poll shows is that the American public sees something very seriously wrong and sees ethics as part of the solution,” says Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus. “Since the country is overwhelmingly Christian in the sense that most Americans are baptized Christians, and one out of four are Catholic, the view of the Pope on these matters is going to be very important in the United States.”
Anderson, who was visiting Rome this week, believes that the Pope is one of the few world figures who can speak out on these ethical questions with authenticity, and do so without favoring either the political left or right. “We have to give Benedict XVI his own space and not try to claim it from one side,” says Anderson, who is urging the public to read the encyclical with an open mind. “I think a Christian ought to approach an encyclical from a standpoint of how am I going to be changed, not whether or not it affirms a position on something.”
And although he predicts the Holy Father will underline the necessity of an ethical foundation to sustaining the free market system, he does not expect the Pope to enter into technical aspects or specific policy. “What he’s going to say is that a Christian, if he understands his two commandments of love of God and love of neighbor, can no longer ask Cain’s question: Am I my brother’s keeper? He understands he has a responsibility to his brother and understands who his brother is. Benedict has said time and again: We’re part of a human family, therefore we need to have a certain solidarity. [...] If you have that general ethical disposition, you’re going to make decisions in a context that are going to be far better than if you don’t.”
The supreme knight, who was once a special assistant to Ronald Reagan, is surprised that despite more than 90% of Americans believing there is a kind of unethical foundation to the current crisis, “nobody wants to talk about it,” thereby leaving a vacuum which the government is presently filling. It’s therefore time, he says, for corporate leaders to “fess up to some ethical responsibility.”
Not only would that “resonate very well” with the American public, he believes, but it would also help preserve the sustainability of the free market which is currently in “real jeopardy.”
The Pope has already given clues about the content of the encyclical, saying the current global economic crisis proves that the rules and values that have dominated the economy in past years need to be replaced by a concept that is “respectful of the needs and rights of the weakest.” He also took the opportunity at his weekly general audience July 1st to “stress the importance of ethical and moral values in politics.”
But this theme of establishing an ethical foundation is an idea the Holy Father has had for some time. In a prescient speech he gave in Rome in 1985, he said it is “becoming an increasingly obvious fact of economic history that the development of economic systems which concentrate on the common good depends on a determinate ethical system, which in turn can be born and sustained only by strong religious convictions.” Conversely, he warned, “it has also become obvious that the decline of such discipline can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse.”
“An economic policy that is ordered not only to the good of the group — indeed, not only to the common good of a determinate state — but to the common good of the family of man demands a maximum of ethical discipline and thus a maximum of religious strength,” he said.
The need of the hour is to promote responsible capitalism. Dunning (2004) brings out the achievements and failures of current capitalism and recommends a future path for global capitalism to make it more acceptable. The economy must exist for the sake of the people. It requires values like hard work, social trust, creativity and cooperation not vice versa. The focus should be on ethical standards of global capitalism to achieve its goals. The ongoing downturn has shown that uncontrolled market capitalism without proper checks and moral restraints have adverse effects for people, communities and countries. What is imperative is to develop ‘moral capital’ defined as the accumulated stock of virtues which determine the moral behaviour and human capital.
Moral Hazard is a special kind of information asymmetry. It is a situation in which one party in transaction has more information than the other. The party that is insulated from the risks generally possesses more information than the party paying for the negative consequences of the risk. Moral hazard occurs when an individual or institution does not take full responsibility of its doings. In other words if failure occurs they will be bailed out as witnessed in the current crisis. Samuel Gregg (2009) explains the importance of the word ‘moral’ attached to “Hazard”. It reflects some innate, largely unexplained awareness that there is something morally questionable about creating situations in which people are severely tempted to make imprudent choices. Had the governments and Businesses taken moral hazard with a great sense of integrity and concern the current crisis could have been averted. What exactly we mean by “moral Hazard” in the context of the current crisis? It is a term used to describe those situations when a person or institution is effectively insulated from possible negative consequences of their choice. This enables them to be greedy and take more risks as shown by the crisis. Several attempts were made writers to fix this financial crime on individuals, selected institutions, and other participants in this game. Some scholars of the crisis have fixed it not on people but on the very idea of ‘Moral Hazard”.
One thing that was sadly forgotten during the crisis is implications of human development paradigm. The actors in the financial industry merely acted as ‘economic man’, solely motivated by the desire to maximize profit. The crisis of global capitalism demonstrates what Ivan Illich says “material development beyond a certain point does not bring human happiness; it causes frustration and eventual decay”.