Heinrich Pesch

What do you think about when you hear the word “economics”? A cold, deductive science in which we’re mechanically labeled as consumers and producers and our lives are determined by dense mathematical formulae similar to something you’d find in an advanced physics class? Do you think of Adam Smith and his influential 1776 book Wealth of Nations? The invisible hand of the marketplace and all that? A philosophy ultimately based on hedonism (satisfying wants)? Or do you think of Karl Marx and all the soul-killing varieties of socialism and communism? Or Malthus, the gloomy prophet who predicted starvation from economic collapse two centuries ago?

Have you ever heard of Heinrich Pesch? Probably not, but you’re probably aware of some of his ideas.

Heinrich Pesch was a German Jesuit priest and economist who lived from 1854 to 1926. At the age of 47 he turned his scholarly mind towards the study of economics. Seventeen years later he published his masterpiece, which in English is translated as the Teaching Guide to Economics – in ten volumes, over 4,000 pages of writing.

How influential was this work?

Well, ever hear of the word, Solidarity?

His thought was extremely influential, especially on Pope Pius XI and particularly Pope John Paul II. Know as “solidarism,” or “solidarity,” Pesch can basically be understood as an economist who developed an economic theory that is in complete harmony with the social teaching of the Catholic Church. The German Jesuit’s ideas found their way into the thought and writing of Pope John Paul II, particularly the encyclicals Laborem Exercens (1981), Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987) and Centesimus Annus (1991).

Moved by the bitter struggle of the working and middle classes in the grinder of laissez-faire capitalism, the greatest social issue of his time, he devoted nearly two decades to the formulation of solidarism. Though he was a capable mathematician and statistician, he relegated mathematical formulae to a secondary position in his theory. Prime place is reserved for one thing, and one thing only: man, as the social and relational being he is.

Pesch was no lover of capitalism. And not just because of a knee-jerk reaction to its abuses. He rejects the “invisible hand” that somehow sets prices. He sees “values-free” economics as an oxymoron. The economy is not some wild field to be plundered. Free-market economics distorts the interrelationships between men, women, families, communities, and the state. To the Jesuit, true economics must sprout from the soil of ethics; any other way results in a system that will eventually yield evil. Ethics comes first, and is greater, than any economic theory.

Because of the primacy of ethics (rooted in the teachings of the Catholic Church), Pesch also condemns all forms of socialism and collectivism, as well as, of course, totalitarianism. Interestingly, in his writings, he foresaw the reactionary emergence of these political and economic systems spawned from the writings of Marx and his followers. But just because he rejects the ideas advocated by Adam Smith and Karl Marx, does not mean that everything is cast away out of hand. Like Aquinas, another great Catholic system-builder, Pesch takes what works, what fits in ethically with his theories, and intertwines it into his solidarism, much like the saint took works from the pagan Greek philosophers, the Arabs, and the Jews, and fleshed out the philosophical underpinnings of the Catholic Church. Pesch’s 10-volume work has been called, accurately enough, the “Summa Economica.”

What are the ideas behind Solidarism?

That will be the subject of tomorrow’s post. I guarantee one thing, though. No matter what tribe of political, economic, or politico-economic philosophy you belong to, you’ll be offended by something in the thought of Heinrich Pesch. I’m still trying to wrap my pre-conditioned and auto-conditioned beliefs around some of his ideas. You will, too.