Dr. Mary Hirschfeld of Villanova University, author of Aquinas and the Market: Toward a Humane Economy, is one of the few true economist-theologians I know of. Harvard-trained economist, Notre Dame-trained theologian, adult Roman Catholic convert, Dr Hirschfeld was recommended to me by a number of friends as a speaker for a symposium I organized in partnership with the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America (and hosted by the American Enterprise Institute in DC) this past March. Four papers by theologically minded economists and economically minded theologians – Dr Hirschfeld among them – anchored two solid days of tremendously broad, deep, and gracefully collegial conversation. (The four papers, by the way, will be published in an end-of-2022 issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality.) And it was a delight to meet and work with all of them, but particularly Dr Hirschfeld, whose paper impressed and engaged everyone in the room.
On returning from that symposium, since everyone was telling me I must read Aquinas and the Market (which I commend to everyone interested in the intersection of theology and economics) I’ve been meeting with two friends on a monthly basis to work through the book. To launch our reading group together, we watched a half-hour video interview with Hirschfeld posted last November by the Minnesota Catholic Conference. In preparation for our discussion of that video, I drafted the summary notes below. The interview is worth watching, but this will give you a quick study:
Around 3:00 – Why Aquinas on economics today? MH: “Because he has a deeper, richer take on what human happiness consists of than that underlying economics today.” “The economic models are descriptive, but not a good path toward happiness. Actively diverts us from the path to flourishing.”
Around 3:40 – Why is modern economic science incomplete at best or at worst might do more harm than good? MH: “B/c it’s not possible to talk about economic behavior without having an ethical component. Economists have one even though they say they don’t. See chapter of her book showing that economic analysis is rooted in assumptions about human happiness and flourishing – it just infests all their language. They assume efficiency, maximization are good. Those are strong ethical claims and need to be defended as such. Should be willing to talk with those that have different ethics.”
Around 4:30: What are these economic assumptions (e.g. “Homo economicus”)? MH: Two part answer:
- Many have misconceptions of what homo economicus means. Doesn’t mean people are always trying to get as much money as possible or are always pursuing their own self-interest. Homo economics properly understood has a well-defined set of desires that can be selfish or altruistic. Trying to use limited money and time to satisfy those desires as well as possible. So the caricature misleads people about what is wrong with economics.
- The problem with homo economicus is that
- it thinks people have well-defined preferences, desires – but a huge part of human life is trying to figure out what is good to want! So, this diverts us from the important task of cultivating our desires toward what we should want.
- secondly, it thinks we all want to get as much as we can get – either millionaire with yachts or Mother Teresa with beds for sick people. It’s a long story, but we’re finite, and for that reason, we need to realize our desires are limited – you can’t fix the whole world, own all the yachts, and you shouldn’t want to, as a finite person. You should realize that your desires should be in service to the concrete goals that you have. They should be satiable. You should be able to say at some point “I have enough.” [I think of Paul in Phil 4:12 – “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”] But in the economic view, you can never have enough.
- it thinks people have well-defined preferences, desires – but a huge part of human life is trying to figure out what is good to want! So, this diverts us from the important task of cultivating our desires toward what we should want.
6:45ish: How might economics look differently if it started with a (Catholic) anthropology? Even Genesis – human beings in relationship – fundamental social unit the family; we must steward creation: MH: On one level – wouldn’t be a radical change. Economics to the extent it is descriptive – people often do describe in ways economics describe. But we’d have to change how we evaluate that behavior, think about policy, talk about our economic lives, so as to promote genuine human flourishing. Vs. “more is better,” chasing after as much as we can get. That generates problems with economic justice, economic stability.
8:00: what about our terminology – stark categories – free markets vs socialism, etc. What is a market? Is our modern economy really built on markets? MH: Yes. It just means exchanging goods and services. We do that in myriad ways – Amazon, gas station, etc. I actually think if we could get away from the baggage around the term, that markets are very fitting with the Catholic social vision. It’s mostly about exchanging value to make us and each other better off. Allows us to be more agents. Recognizes value of human agency. Also price system coordinates our billions of choices into generally socially good outcomes. We are fantastically more wealthy than we were 300 years ago, because of the spread of markets.
But then b/c we are polarized into love/hate the market . . . markets have limitations, subject to abuses, especially in culture that assumes more is better and pursuit without limits. Would be good to cultivate culture that remembers our truest desires are not about goods or money, but about relationships, communities we build, etc. In a community that knows that, the market can serve those higher ends in a good way, but we’ve disassociated them. We have tended to be more atomized, think of selves as individuals or individual families.
10:40 – we’ve often thought of markets as “place of exchange” – how would it change if we thought of them more relationally – not our relationships commodified by the market? MH: market is a kind of relp that can be, very often is, dehumanizing. Go to grocery to get milk – I see only the gallon of milk and the price tag – don’t see all the people who got that to where I am. What it really is, is a lot of somebodies did a lot of work on my behalf. I am blinded to how interdependent we are! We think of work in ways that are distorted. If I were a baker, should think of giving customers good bread – that’s what I do, and good bread is good. If instead I think of getting as much money as I can, advancing market share, etc – and maybe I still think of my customers, but instrumentally, in terms of how they can feed my bottom line, instead of as partners in an exchange, neighbors. The market makes it harder to see how related we are. And it metastasizes when we extend market analysis to all our relationships. She teaches Gary Becker, Nobel laureate, who wants to extend market metaphor to all aspects of life. What’s scary is we’ve already done that! We talk about the marriage market – shopping for spouse to meet desires, maximizing our utility. If it doesn’t work out, a lemon, then you kick it out and re-optimizing. Incredibly dehumanizing. We do at times behave in these ways – but it’s an illegitimate and distorting use of economic thinking – it distorts the goods. Feeds divorce culture which undermines lots of other things. We’re in marriage for better and worse – there is a good in that but it is a very different way of thinking than the culture has.
15:00 – supply chains and supply chain management. We don’t know who produced our goods. Do we need to rethink free trade and bring things back to human scale? MH: I tentatively suggest we should think about it. I hesitate, because globalization has lifted many from poverty, created much prosperity. But as we’re discovering, emphasis on efficiency and profit maximization has made us vulnerable to disruptions. And the scale is so large that it’s harder to remember the people involved in the chain are people. Adam Smith is thinking about a small-town commercial society. That’s where my heart is, would be more human. But if we were to move in that direction (and we can do that incrementally, with community emphasis) . . . there are some who are all in on localism. But the downside of that you will be poorer – part of our prosperity is being able to trade with lots of people with different skills than us. It also makes you more vulnerable. If there’s not much trade and your corner of the world has famine, drought . . . it’s good to trade in lots of places. But I worry everything is framed in language of global economy.
17:30 Building blocks from Aquinas, then policy prescriptions. What are foundations of human economy from Thomas? MH: 1. Get in right relationship with wealth – not maximizing always and then deciding what to do with it, but first deciding what kind of life I want to lead, then what goods do I need to serve that life, then how do I make that living. Then that drives everything. You will see work as more than a paycheck: how to exercise talents, support community – more relational. Still has plenty of room for the market. If I’m a good firm, say as a carpenter, first I must make good cabinets, then the price signals can tell me how to shift my production – hurricane, wood prices up, for a while I may want to make different things out of different materials to allow those goods to be allocated elsewhere. But I would never look at my work as primarily about making as much money as possible – how to serve community, to provide good work space for employees, etc.
(after 20:00) Start with Why we are doing things! (says the interviewer). MH: we never get to that q if we think we already know what we want! This helps us deploy goods and wealth better! I do think markets are good, but not ultimate good. Room for state to both support the market and curb its excesses. IN a corrupted, fallen culture, some laws can act as training wheels – redistribute wealth (I’m not a fan of it) as a signal to the community to help cultivate other habits of thought. I am center-right. I like markets but not as idols. I also critique ill-considered state intervention. There is a tendency to want to do good through state intervention, and intentions always good, but people both overestimate what we can really do, and forget the unintended harms that are often done.
21:17 This also fits with the Catholic idea of subsidiarity, that wherever possible, you want agency to be at the level that is as close to the individual, community, family as possible. Burden of proof is – is govt intervention always necessary?
21:40 Chesterton: Hudge and Gudge: big business and big government. We see this today with industry consolidating, selling things quickly at a profit, most of our books come from Amazon, most info from a few big companies. Is there a place for antitrust intervention in the market? To avoid monopoly? MH: I am with Chesterton – I find small scale to be better, with more problems cropping up in big structures – business as much as government. What is very frightening right now is that their interests are harmonizing and they are supporting each other. Is antitrust the right answer? The impulse behind it strikes me as right – problem with consolidated tech companies isn’t that they are charging too much, but the consolidation of power is frightening. But it’s not my area of expertise. And I was also want to say: be wary of our tendency to overestimate our ability to fix things from above.
Also remember we’re all complicit in this: shopping at Amazon all the time. How in small ways can we withdraw our support from some of those structures. When possible, shop local. We can make a difference.
24:00ish: We are celebrating this month the preferential option for the poor. If we’re going to build a more human economy, that would presumably mean we’d uphold human dignity, try to get people to a certain standard of living – but also help them to get jobs, to achieve human flourishing. What are some prescriptions you or Thomas might offer to lift up the poor, help them build wealth and have the dignity of work?
MH – your question already has the answer in it! If I am in right relationship with wealth, I can identify what’s a surplus for me – business bringing in more than business needs to continue – that wealth comes from others. So we should be willing always to give assistance where we come. We Americans are richer than we think. Aquinas focuses on this. But me using a Thomistic lens – it’s very important to the human to be a contributing part of the community – having a job really is part of human dignity. We always talk abou the poor as “others” – hear that “othering”? How can we avoid that. It’s good to help the poor, but how can I also view them a person with whom I can be in relationship who can also have something to give me – that is essential to dignity. Soup kitchens good, but how to help them have standing, sense of community. Adam Smith is good with this! Poor people become socially invisible, marginalized, excluded. We don’t see the janitor, the homeless person. Our eyes are averted from them, drawn to those who have markers of wealth. We need to practice that sense of all as persons with whom we can have relationship. All have gifts they can give others.
27:25: is the principle of participation here an important one? For social and ecclesial life? Does Aquinas prescribe fostering greater economic participation? MH: He didn’t talk that way, living in a world of smaller thicker communities. Yes, all need to participate. We’re by essence social creatures – so to fulfil our potential, participation in that life is really important. If looking at community blighted by poverty, go in and talk, build bridges, hear from them – what assistance needed? Help them participate in their own lifting-up, give back to greater community too. Bring communal ties back – that’s how you get authentic human flourishing.
29:00 I love the word Oikos – what if we based our economic life around household, family, in the micro, but even thought of the macro in family terms, focusing on needs rather than wants, the weakest and most vulnerable. Is thinking about economics in terms of the household an important conceptual shift? MH – first coming to mind: the objection: Can’t think of 330M Americans as family in same way. Can’t entirely take model of household, family and apply that at macro – relationships essential. But I can recognize that people in the larger community are human persons – should inflect how I interact with them. But part of our finitude is I can’t know everyone on planet the way I know my brother. So hesitation here – there are different scales of sociality. And on that larger scale, it must devolve back to those personal relationships. I can’t love the Mozambique person the way I love my brother, but can treat him as I would treat my brother.
Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians
Grateful to the dead 