El artículo original puede leerse aquí.
Currently, many Catholics believe that the political conception most compatible with our faith is the Americanist view. This view holds that human beings have a series of inviolable and immutable freedoms granted by God (freedom to life, expression, property, and «religion»).
They support a version of human rights that supposedly contrasts with that of left-wing progressivism. The progressive stance defends freedom of expression except when certain people are «offended», a right to property except when the State needs to redistribute wealth, and a right to association unless gender quotas are not met. This apparent arbitrariness and inconsistency on the left leads some Catholics to gravitate toward a version of human rights that is claimed to be more logical and reflective of a congruent God who upholds an eternal and unchangeable truth. In this line, they also seek a version of human rights that is not based on the democratic will of the majority but on the Divine Will.
They often refer to this intended version as «libertarianism». Its systematization is found in the so-called Austrian School, especially in the works of Mises, Rothbard, and Hayek. Its theological foundation is found in the American Declaration of Independence: «We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness». This ideology advocates broad economic, sexual, familial, and religious freedom, as well as freedom in all matters concerning communal life. However, these Catholics argue that although an individual’s exercise of these rights may conflict with the commandments of God and the Church, such an immoral or sinful exercise is a matter of private ethics that does not pertain to politics or the public sphere. In this way, they consider it a political alternative compatible with being Catholic and an effective counter to left-wing progressivism.
The truth is that there is a whole series of errors and fallacies in this reasoning. Below, we will attempt to refute each one. To do so, we will set aside the two most obvious appeals to authority. First, that this conception is contrary to the Holy Scriptures and the commandments of God’s Law. Second, that it is opposed to the traditional Magisterium of the Church, as evidenced by countless encyclicals and doctrinal political documents frequently cited in this newspaper.
The first flaw in libertarian logic is the belief that its version of human rights is more consistent with the modern conception of freedom and equality than that of the progressives, whose view would constantly contradict these principles. What they fail to realize is that if one accepts the libertarian version, one must also accept any progressive version. The reason is that if everyone is free to define human rights and to judge what it means to respect or violate them, on what basis should we conclude that the libertarian view deserves legal enforcement instead of the progressive version? If all versions are to be equally protected, then why do some have the right to have their opinions on human rights imposed by the State? Fundamentally, libertarians share with progressives the same ideology, one capable of producing infinitely many equally valid versions.
If the first inconsistency shows that libertarianism cannot validate itself without also validating progressivism, a second inconsistency reveals that its principles cannot even support our legal system being based on a belief in human rights. These Catholic libertarians restrict themselves to seeking the version of human rights that appears most compatible with their faith. In doing so, they ignore any other vision of justice that is not based on subjective rights—in other words, the belief in innate and unconditional rights of the individual. Their starting biases consistently lead them to disregard the traditional vision of law, which is deeply rooted in Trinitarian theology. In that view, the eternal Word of God is reflected in the intrinsic order of Creation. Creation is a network of intelligible and teleological relationships in which all elements, including human beings, are embedded. These elements are interwoven by relationships of duty. A man acts justly when he treats others by giving them what he owes—that is, the right—for example, the honor he owes his parents, the fair price he owes a seller, the obedience he owes his fatherland, the truth he owes his listener, the care he owes his children, and the religion he owes to God.
Nominalism, Protestantism, and rationalism have denied this Trinitarian cosmology. They have also denied the existence of natural and intelligible relationships of duty among men. As a result, the just man becomes one who expects nothing from anyone (provided that others expect nothing from him). Thus, the term «right» would cease to refer to a relationship of duty and would instead refer to the absence of duty among men—the authority to dispose of one’s property, expression, or soul as one pleases, without owing anything to anyone. The Austrian Jew Murray Rothbard argued that libertarianism, based on this worldview contrary to the Catholic tradition, is founded on «the fundamental truths of human nature» [1]. However, why should the personal opinions of these authors about human nature and reality be imposed on us through their legal system, if libertarianism asserts that no personal opinion can be imposed by the State? Once again, we see that this ideology is unsustainable because its logical development leads to the impossibility of coherent legal application.
This problem recurs when attempting to legitimize any libertarian political community that is, in effect, a pseudo-community. Juan Ramón Rallo dixit, «The legitimacy of any political community will depend on it having been constituted voluntarily». However, he admits that by the very nature of politics it seems impossible to adhere to this principle. He explained, «maintaining public order is a service with a marked territorial component. Its provision benefits not only the individuals associated with the political community but also those individuals residing within the territory protected by that community, even if they are not members». His conclusion is that it is “not easy” to establish a libertarian society “with an absolutely voluntary genesis» [2]. Or rather, it is impossible. This would lead any rational person to abandon this ideology, since the alternative would involve advocating for a human organization that must simultaneously be considered illegitimate.
Marco Benítez, Círculo Cultural Alberto Ruiz de Galarreta (Valencia)
[1] La ética de la libertad, Madrid, Unión Editorial, 1995, p. 59
[2] Liberalismo: los 10 principios básicos del orden político liberal, Vizcaya, Eds. Deusto, pp. 105, 133 and 134.
Translated by Daniel Alejandro Rodríguez Guerra
Deje el primer comentario