Amintore Fanfani with his first wife, Bianca Rosa, and two of their seven children

TO BE an anti-capitalist is to be a socialist or a Marxist, right? To most American conservatives, there is no third way. One must believe fervently in the “free market” or be a Communist.

Amintore Fanfani, the Italian economic historian and politician who was six times prime minister, was one of the more eloquent critics of this false dialectic. In his 1930 book Catholicism, Protestantism and Capitalism, [IHS Press, 2003] Fanfani, who died at the age of 91 in 1999, wrote that no Christian can reasonably support capitalism or socialism. The third way is not a political platform but a mode of thinking, a way of viewing economic life as part of the supernatural order. Capitalism itself is a worldview or an orientation more than a technique or fixed system. Entirely naturalistic, capitalism is not the great antithesis of Communism it is believed to be. Indeed, Communism is a realization of the capitalistic spirit and one form of its capture of the instruments of the state and an entire society.

Fanfani, who was Catholic, rejected the famous argument by Max Weber, author of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, that capitalism was created by Protestantism. The “capitalist spirit” first emerged in Catholic countries as early as the 13th and 14th century, seeing its real solidification and rise from the 1500s to the 1800s. Though it was to become especially dominant in Protestant countries, advanced by Protestant theology and division, its roots were in a weakening of faith in Catholic societies.

What is capitalism? To the capitalist, economic activity, beyond basic moral prohibitions against theft and fraud, is purely subject to economic criteria. Wealth is “simply a means for the unlimited, individualistic and utilitarian satisfaction of all possible human needs.” Economic activity aids the common good by paradoxically remaining divorced from concerns about the social ramifications of business. The capitalist does not lose sleep because his business practices disrupt family life in general. The capitalist, with no remorse, moves his factories to foreign countries and encourages sweeping demographic change through immigration. The cultural effects are not his concern, nor does he believe they should be.

We so take it for granted that economic activity is highly individualistic and that there is nothing inherently wrong with intense and absorbing preoccupation with success that it may be a feat of the imagination to understand how different the conception of wealth once was. Fanfani tries to explain a different psychology of wealth:

The rules of religious and social morality accepted by the European pre-capitalist gave him an idea of wealth as a means for the attainment of the natural and supernatural ends both of him who had and him who had not. Thus this means was not so much given to the individual as given to mankind. This idea is of the first importance, for it leads directly to a social conception of the use of wealth, that is, to a correlation of the satisfaction of man’s own needs with the satisfaction of those of his neighbor. This conception withheld him from unlimited personal enrichment.

In contrast, a man governed by the capitalist spirit “will, in acquiring wealth, choose the most effectual means among such as are lawful, and will use them without any anxiety to keep the result within certain limits.” If it is effective to be constantly absorbed in economic activity, so be it. 

Fanfani described capitalism as having an inherent interest in what we call feminism. He lists the lower figures once paid to female factory workers relative to those of men and quotes a 19th-century English lord: “a manufacturer informed me that he employs females exclusively at his power looms; … gives  decided preference to married females, especially those who’ve families at home dependent on them for support; they are attentive, docile, more so than unmarried females, and are compelled to use their utmost exertions to procure the necessities of life.” No wonder capitalism has produced “flex time” and on-site day care. The idea that there is nothing wrong with one family taking two jobs that involve salaries each of which could support a family is quintessentially capitalistic.

Capitalism eventually requires a state apparatus that protects its “freedom.” The libertarian idea that the state and capitalism are opposed is not supported by history.

The one endeavor of capitalism has been to emancipate itself from ideas, or institutions based upon ideas, that impeded the economic rationalization of life. Its maximum result in the social sphere has been the parliamentary regime in a republican constitution, which makes it impossible for even the rare and feeble intervention of the State to be inspired by sentiments or ideas not shared by the governed.

Communism was the result of the capitalistic outlook. Both are based on materialism. Let me quote Fanfani here at length on this controversial point:

It may seem a paradox, but the most technically perfect economic realization of capitalistic civilization is the Soviet system, in which all private and public efforts have only one end: the economic rationalization of the whole of life, to the point of abolishing private property and the family, and of attempting the destruction of all religious ideals that might threaten such materialistic rationalization. Russia has carried the rationalizing experiment of capitalism to its highest point; she has carried it to its logical conclusion. She has taken the capitalistic ideal of the the economic rationalization of life and has rendered it the ideal no longer of the individual but of the abstract collectivity, of humanity, thus reaching the the conclusion that the final obstacle to rationalization was the agent of that rationalization, man, and that this obstacle can only be removed when that same man was made the instrument of rationalization. To this end it was enough to entrust the realization of the program no longer to the man, to the individual, who makes use of the State, but to the State which will realize the ideal entrusted to it even if the original mandatory comes to his senses.

These considerations allow us to estimate the Russian experiment at its real value, and reveal the superficiality of those who see in Communism the adversary of capitalism. It is merely its final and most highly evolved stage. A system in which the basic principle is the economic criterion cannot be the adversary of capitalism. It is the system that places other criteria above the economic that is the adversary of capitalism. (pp. 92-93)

Looking at the world from Fanfani’s perspective, we can see that the glorification of free enterprise by evangelical Protestants today is at odds with their culture war against same-sex “marriage” and abortion. They are two sides of the same coin. Traditional family life cannot be resurrected under our capitalistic state. The traditional family isn’t good for business. Capitalism is deeply anti-Christian, Fanfani wrote. It obliterates the Christian mode of living and progressively separates man from God.

God is the rationalizing term of human life; all human means will appear rational or irrational just insofar as they lead man towards the attainment of God.

Wealth is a gift from God, not simply the result of hard work or luck. It is not to be shunned, but becomes an evil when an end in itself or when sought too eagerly. The true end of man is attainment of the Beatific Vision in heaven and, in everything we do, we are either moving forward or backward in the direction of this end.

From this idea spring all the [Catholic] rules as to the acquisition of goods.It has been said that these rules show a great district of wealth, but we would say rather that, in their awareness of the effects of the Fall, they reveal a great mistrust of men.

By acting as anti-capitalists in a capitalist system, the Christian may find himself very poor indeed or even unable to survive economically. The whole thrust of things is toward forms of competition that involve ethical compromise and absorption in success. But to be a cheerleader of the very system that undermines social order and the higher good is not an option for him either. Every Christian should be a committed anti-capitalist even when forced to compromise his ideals.

[Catholicism, Protestantism and Capitalism, Amintore Fanfani; IHS Press, Norfolk, Va, 2003]

— Comments —

Hurricane Betsy writes:

I can’t comment on Fanfani himself because I don’t understand politics all that well. Perhaps he should have taken a step further into Social Credit, though.

I sure love that photo of the Fanfani family. It appears that Mrs. Fanfani is feeding the baby something from a teacup.

Could it be…tea? Or worse, coffee? My God! Where are the social workers, the government’s home visiting nurses or some other apparatchik when you need them? By the way, that could be heated milk or some medicine in that cup for all I know, but whatever it is, that scene brought back memories.

We were allowed coffee or tea when we were little (even pre-school) in our poor farm family. This is North America I’m talking about. I cannot contemplate what would happen to a parent who tried this today, even one sip! Actually, I do know of a case (relatives of mine) where a father was accused by his exwife of feeding coffee to their child during a visit of the child with his father, but charges were not laid.

Paul A. writes:

It seems that almost anytime we are given only two choices, it is a false dichotomy: Capitalism vs. Communism, Left vs Right, Republican vs. Democrat. I think this is useful to some entities as a way to limit our thinking on any subject, in order to prevent us from having any inconvenient epiphanies.

The Catholic view of wealth is that it carries great responsibility. It is a gift from God, and He did not give it to someone for that own person’s gratification. While wealth had always been abused through history, even Catholic history, it has also been used for much good. Cathedrals, art, music, foundations for the poor, universities, missionary activities, hospitals, and even legal and military activities, including the inquisition and the crusades.

The Capitalist view of wealth seems to create a different reaction. It seems that those who are blessed with wealth in a capitalist context view themselves as somehow anointed or favored. Witness the shallow celebrities who speak before Congress on some mostly trivial trend of the day. Bill Gates or Warren Buffet seem unsatisfied with a success that comes from hard work, contacts, and a deal of luck. Instead, they view themselves as almost demi-gods in some fashion, who are now tasked with the duty to remake the world according to their shallow and misguided whims. This is not restricted to capitalism, of course. There are lots of examples of prosperity gospels, and so on that view wealth as a gift from god, but as a reward, not as a duty. The ancient pharisees had this view of wealth, so it is nothing new.

Here is a good link on alternatives to the capitalist/communist dipole.

I’ll have to read up on Mr. Fanfani.

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