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Abstract
The Left usually dismisses charity as demeaning intervention into the lives of oppressed classes, an obfuscation through which exploitation is legitimated. Few arguments by Marx and Engels are as deeply ingrained in Marxism as their statements on charity. This can be traced back to Marxism’s common roots with liberalism. Marketization, religious reform, and liberal political economy undermined traditional conceptions of poverty and relief, which upheld interdependence between God, the rich, and the poor as sacrosanct. Marxism thus inherited an unshakable suspicion of heartfelt poverty alleviation, whereas today’s liberalism has moved beyond its classical vulgarity to invigorate charity with a new spirit. Exploring Lucien Goldmann’s take on Blaise Pascal and the ongoing reformulation of caritas within Christianity, this essay contends that a radically different conception of charity is possible and that charitable love is a battleground between conservative, liberal, and emancipatory understandings of religion, as recent developments within the Catholic Church demonstrate.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Michael Burawoy, Aynur Sadet, Ann Swidler, and the reviewers of Rethinking Marxism for their contributions.
Notes
1 These facets include the organization of the Catholic Church, the role of the clergy, and moral reform (Gramsci); messianism as well as the myths, stories, themes, theology, and doctrines of the Bible (Bloch Citation2009, 27); religion's role in protest, local autonomy, and community and class formation (Thompson Citation1966, 26–54, 118–20, 391–3, 397–9, 422–3); and last but not least, controversial religious figures such as Saint Paul (Badiou Citation2003, 4).
2 This otherwise extensive survey mostly neglects Marxist theorization of non–Judeo-Christian religion, but Marxists seem to be thin on Islamic charity too. For instance, Marxism and the Muslim World (Rodinson Citation1972), arguably the major classic in this field, mentions zakat, sadaqa, and charity only a few times and quite dismissively.
3 This is a modified translation based on Draper (Citation1971).
4 Also see Luxemburg (Citation2003) on the classical Marxist criticism of early Christian communism and its charity/alms.
5 An essay by Hal Draper (1971), which treats charity as the negative reference point against which the Marxist idea of self-emancipation develops, is an exception.
6 For a criticism of the argument that Christianity assumes that inequality and poverty are immutable, see Collier (2001, 89–101).
7 See “Charitable Giving Statistics,” National Philanthropic Trust, accessed 11 June 2016, http://www.nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-giving-statistics.
8 See, for instance, Pullan (1994, 31–2) for the blurred lines between divine love, charity, and communion during the Counter-Reformation, as well as for the continuum between acts of love and acts of charity in medieval confraternities (183–4).
9 Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas also opposed caritas and cupidity, but for them the latter was disorderly love for earthly goods (Lindberg Citation2008, 106–7). Pascal's revolutionary break with this premodern theology lies in his recognition that the love of earthly goods constitutes an order, which in Pascal's language means a realm of being and acting with its specific ethics and system.
10 Today, it appears that the proletariat has left the earth (in the Pascalian sense). Whether it can come back is a faith question as much as an empirical one. This essay, however, would not be the right place to discuss whether the proletariat is still worthy of such quasi-theological “investment.” Regarding Goldmann's own position on the topic, see Cohen (1994, chap. 8).
11 See Badiou (2005, 212–22) for a more sympathetic reading of Pascal.
12 Some have argued, however, that a tradition that runs from Saint Paul to Saint Aquinas also posits a clear hierarchy between the love of God and the love of the poor. It is only with Saint Francis, according to these scholars, that the love of the poor becomes a good in itself (without hierarchical dependence on the love of God), though some precursors are observable in Eastern Christianity and in Old English homilies (Buhrer Citation2012).
13 Similar notions of interdependence marked class relations in the beginning of the modern era too. Kayatekin and Charusheela (Citation2004) point out that sharecropping African Americans deployed notions of fairness, justness, reciprocity, and dignity to protest, to insult, and to make demands on landlords within the postbellum order. They did not base their claims on the independent, individual rights of black people but on the mutual obligations of interdependent sharecroppers and landlords. The landlords’ assumptions about blacks’ inferiority came with a set of obligations on their part to protect and care for sharecroppers, which enabled blacks’ protests and demands. While in both the postbellum order and in medieval charity reciprocity and interdependence are based on essentially hierarchical assumptions, twentieth-century “solidarism” demonstrated how they could be wedded to relatively more egalitarian values and practices.
14 Others, including Aquinas, also called charity an order, but not with the same sociological overtones and insights.
15 Exceptions include Pius XII's calls to stop the Nazi threat through charitable love and Paul VI's speech during the last general meeting of the Second Vatican Council, in which he stated that “charity has been the principal religious feature of this council.” See “Address of Pope Paul VI During the Last General Meeting of the Second Vatican Council,” 7 December 1965, https://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/speeches/1965/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19651207_epilogo-concilio.html.
16 Certainly, these efforts had precursors in previous papal thinking (see especially Paul VI 1967, sec. 44, 67).
17 In actual modern practice, it may not be that easy to disentangle the two, since Christians may draw on more than one framework, and even among the most committed, it takes a lot of effort to align prescriptions with everyday activity (see Swidler Citation2001, 46–51, 60–6, 69).
18 See “From Hitler Youth to the Vatican,” Guardian, 20 April 2005, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/apr/20/catholicism.religion3.
19 Benedict's language is reminiscent of Polanyi's critique of the liberal economy and creates the impression that he has read the author (or at least, those Polanyi has inspired). There are also close parallels between his arguments and Mauss’s (Citation1990). Nevertheless, he departs from both thinkers by ultimately subordinating reciprocity to markets and individuals.
20 See Benedict XVI (2005, sec. 5, 11). The other face of cultural liberalism on which Benedict (2009, sec. 26, 61) waged war was “relativism.”
21 Despite being solidly anti–liberation theology, Benedict (unsurprisingly) appropriated the phrase “option for the poor” by citing two encyclicals of Jean Paul II rather than the original coiners of the phrase (Cahill Citation2010, 304).
22 Just as Benedict claimed continuity with all post-1891 social encyclicals, Francis claims he follows those of Benedict XVI. See “Pope Francis: Charity in Truth Is the Basis for Peace,” Vatican Radio, 10 February 2014, http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2014/10/02/pope_francis_charity_in_truth_is_the_basis_for_peace/1107727.
The struggle over caritas frequently erupts between the lines rather than being fought openly. Benedict XVI's (2005, sec. 33) encyclicals sustained Ratzinger's witch hunt but did so without openly declaring war: “The personnel who carry out the Church's charitable activity on the practical level … must not be inspired by ideologies aimed at improving the world, but should rather be guided by the faith which works through love.” This was Benedict's way of advocating for the dismissal of those who believe that caritas involves radical change. Also see Francis (2015, sec. 231) for a critical appropriation of Benedict's emphasis on charity.
23 Even the title of an article is enough to demonstrate the binary nature of our thinking on this issue. See Eric Frith's (2014) “Charity or Justice? Pope Francis Revisits Liberation Theology.”
24 For a recent example, see Snow (Citation2015).
25 These quotes of Gutiérrez come from “Gustavo Gutierrez Introduces Caritas Assembly: The Church Is a Friend of the Poor,” Vatican Insider, 12 May 2015, http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/caritas-gutierrez-41032. The emphasis is added.
26 For a partial synopsis of remarkable exceptions, see Gardiner (Citation2000). Also see Dhar (2015, 8–11), Chakrabarti and Dhar (Citation2015), and Gibson-Graham (Citation2006) along these lines.