In the first place it would have to be a society professing the Catholic faith.[1062] Should the enemies of religion or even the indifferent by any chance ever gain the upper hand in the social unit the whole structure would immediately fall to the ground. Its realisation, accordingly, is quite hypothetical.
It would also be a society founded upon brotherhood in the full sense of the term. The only real brotherhood is that founded upon the fatherhood of God, and not upon any socialistic conception of equality. But even brotherhood and a common parentage may not be sufficient to prevent irregularities, and the family relation in addition to this almost inevitably implies the rights of the youngest and the duties of the oldest. Within the corporative unit already outlined true equality would always reign, for the humblest, meanest task would be of equal dignity with the most exalted office in the State, and everyone would be content and even proud to live where God had placed him.[1063]
Such a society would be a pure hierarchy. All the authority and responsibility, all the duties involved, would be on the master’s side. On the worker’s side would be rights respected, life assured on the minimum level, and a re-establishment of family life.[1064]
Social Catholicism further undertook to disprove the first article in the socialist creed, namely, that “the emancipation of the workers can only be accomplished by the workers themselves.” It maintained that, on the contrary, this object could only be accomplished by the help of the masters and of all the other classes in society, not excluding even the non-professional classes, landed proprietors, rent-receivers, and consumers generally,[1065] all of whom ought to be informed of the responsibilities which their different positions impose upon them and of the special duty which is incumbent upon all men of making the most of the talents with which the Master has entrusted them.
The German Christliche Gewerkvereine, which gets most of its recruits among the Catholics, is already taking an important part in German political life and is doing something to counterbalance the “Reds,” or the revolutionary socialists. They advocate the union of masters and men, but are extremely anxious not to be confused with the “Yellows,” or those who advocate mixed unions. In other words, they are independent both of the masters and the socialists.
State intervention might be necessary at first in order to establish the corporative régime, but once founded it would naturally monopolise all the legislative and police power which affects labour in any way, especially in the matter of fixing wages,[1066] arranging pensions, etc. The legislature would still find ample material to exercise its powers upon outside these merely professional interests, especially in regulating the rights of property, prohibiting usury, protecting agriculture, etc.[1067]
“The State,” says the Immortale Dei, an Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII—repeating a text of St. Paul—“is the minister of God for good.” Elsewhere St. Paul declares that the Law is the schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, and if we paraphrase this to mean that the function of law is to lead men to a higher conception of brotherhood we have a fairly exact idea of what Social Catholicism considered to be the function of the State. Occasionally the party has betrayed signs of more advanced tendencies which would bring it more into line with modern socialism. But for the most part such indications have been of the nature of individual utterances, which have generally resulted in the formal disapproval of Rome and the submission of the rebel.
It was M. Loesewitz in 1888 who made the first violent attack upon the so-called productivity theory of capital in L’Association catholique.[1068] It caused quite a sensation at the time, and provoked a disapproving reply from the Comte de Mun. Afterwards, however, the article became the programme of a party known as “Les jeunes Abbés.” Nor must we omit to mention the growth of the Sillon, founded in 1890, the political ambition of whose members is the reconciliation of the Church and democracy and even republicanism, and whose economic aim is the abolition of the wage-earner and his master.[1069] This is also the aim of the syndicalists, and Article 2 of the Confédération générale du Travail (C.G.T.) declares that one of the avowed objects of the federation is the disappearance of the wage-earner and the removal of his master. Instead of seeking a solution of the problem in the parallel action of syndicats of men on the one hand and of masters on the other, it would suppress the latter altogether, leaving the men the right of possessing their own instruments of production and of keeping intact the produce of their labour. It is true that the Sillon is under the ban of the Pope, but this essentially syndicalist movement is still in existence.
If the Catholic school has experienced some difficulty in throwing out a left wing it has never been without a right wing which has always shown a predilection for the masters. “The problem is not how to save the worker through his own efforts, but how to save him with the master’s co-operation”—the benevolent master of Le Play’s school over again.[1070] The right wing, moreover, thinks that the existing institutions would prove quite equal to a solution of the so-called social question if they were once thoroughly permeated with the Christian spirit or if the leaders really knew how to deal with the people.