Karl Marx and Millennials

welcome back to the word on fire show I'm Brendan Vaught the host and the content director at word on fire Catholic ministries joining us is the main man Bishop Robert Barron Bishop Behrens good to talk with you hey Brandon always good to see you good to see you what's to talk to you I just got back from the big annual GK Chesterton conference and you gave a paper it I did I gave a little talk on Chesterton as husband and father but it was so invigorating there was over 500 Chesterton fans from all over the

world as far as Kenya in the chili tons of people from America and Canada Cardinal Colin speakit of Canada the Archbishop of Toronto who funny enough he's a great guy boy he was a great guy we got to talk to him for a while they got a registration just through the website from Thomas Collins from Toronto and they're like wait a second here this couldn't be Archbishop Thomas Collins and/or Cardinal Thomas Collins so they emailed them and they asked him and he said oh yeah it is it's me I I just had a free weekend

and I love Chesterton he's changed my life so I just decided to register and come and they're like well will you give a talk will you celebrate Mass and he agreed to all that so he spoke on the deeper details time his own life yeah and he's read a surprising number of Chesterton books he gave a talk quoting from I think close to a dozen of them talking about how he influenced him as a young Catholic but also as a priest in a bishop so we recorded it it's all online but just a delightful I

love that delight your talk is is recorded to notes you wrote for but I'd like to like to Europe yeah yeah okay well today we're gonna be talking about a an increasingly discussed topic namely Marxism and various forms of communism this is I think thanks to the political climate become a much more attractive option especially among young people I see a lot of my fellow Millennials if not openly embracing Marxism and communism at least sort of thrown the question out like well you know given how bad the political scene is why shouldn't we consider these

alternative economic or political political positions there was a specific article that I want to frame this disguise around it was in the magazine Teen Vogue neither of us are subscribers to that magazine I should add yeah but but again this is a magazine marketed toward teenagers and they're not a feature piece titled who is Karl Marx that offers a fairly positive profile and it it explains how many teens and many teachers have begun dabbling and Marxism there's of course been a slew of other articles and noting the rise of the support among Millennials for socialism

but since I just found out you did your master's work on Karl Marx so this is an area that at least at one time you spend a lot of time researching and learning about so I thought you'd be the perfect person to talk to about it so let's start with the basics who was Karl Marx and why is he significant well Marx is a 19th century a political theorist philosopher social activist born 1818 easier member in the city of Trier in the western part of Germany he dies in 1883 in London and if you go

to Highgate Cemetery in East London you can visit his grave Marx lived Germany as a young man for time in France in Belgium and spent most of his really productive years in London now why is he important well he sets in motion I mean arguably the most significant social movement of the last 200 years and as you suggest one that's still having impact ramifications to the present day let me give you a little overview obviously we're broaching here a hugely complex topic but say a few simple things about Marx one way to get Adam is

with this phrase dialectical materialism it's a way that his thought has been characterized the dialectical part of that comes from Hegel so as a young man marks like a lot of German intellectuals was under the influence of hegel hegel presents a famously dialectical view of history and what he means is that ideas and events tend to move in this one side giving rise to a opposing point of view or opposing institution the two of them coming into a kind of conflict and then giving rise to a synthesis so thesis antithesis antithesis followed by a synthesis

now Hegel saw this as ingredient in the way a god or absolute spirit comes to self possession I won't go into all that Marx took the dialectical side of Hegel which he thought was right he felt that history does in fact move in this conflictual dialectical manner but he stripped Hegelian ism of its kind of in his mind kind of airy-fairy mystical spiritual overtone and so he said there is a dialect assist but it's a purely historical and material dialectics ISM namely the conflict between social classes between economic systems so history moves as one economic

system it gives rise to a great opponent the two of them clash and then a new synthesis emerges here's what you have is a dialectical materialism or a dialectical historicism now the clash of economic systems Marx things has led by his own time to the dominance of this capitalist system now Marx is writing think mid 19th century especially in England you want to get a sort of imaginative sense of this read any of Dickens's novels written around the same time Dickens and Marx to be contemporaries this very brutal unreformed uh nuanced form of capitalism that

held sway in the industrialized nations of Europe especially in England begins to awaken in Marx this this powerful sense of rebellion he feels what's gonna happen is capitalism will give rise to its antithesis it'll give rise to an opposing system in this great clash what will emerge is pure communism eventually so Marx sees that as the end of history as history's been moving dialectically toward this resolution it finally happens in the emerges of pure communism what's pure communism well here's where I did a lot of my work when I was a kid I did my

masters researching in Marx's early writings Marx there talks about alienation a lot and that word is very big in German philosophy and phlegm doing in German be like becoming an enemy to oneself alienation Marx felt that capitalism as he knew it alienate us from our best self were meant to be free were meant to be creative were meant to be other oriented were meant to be socialized capitalism as he knew it he felt violated all of those and led to this very deep alienation whereby my freedom is lost my creativity has lost my sense of

connection to the wider world is lost and so that alienation is going to give rise to rebellion and to revolution and Marx wants to encourage that so as to bring about the emergence of pure communism that would be a very very quick little overview of the way Marx saw history and the social reality how would you describe Karl Marx's ideal society like how would he structure it politically and economically in his mind what would be the ideal here's where he's famously lacking and at the very least ambiguous in the early writings it's it has a

kind of religious overtone it's like a like a monastery where everyone lives freely creatively in an other oriented way benefiting each other each one working according usability giving to each his Courtney's need etc was it looked like on the grand scale he never really articulates it clearly it's more like an eschatological ideal one of his famous characterizations is I'd like to be hunter in the morning fishermen the afternoon critic in the evening and then play my violin the end of the day without ever becoming hunter fisherman critic or violinist the point being I'm free I'm

creative I'm not constrained I can do what I want in union with those around me that's the idealistic sort of almost utopian understanding of Marx now when we get down to the nitty-gritty it's where things get Kitty problematic with Karl Marx and we're the church and in social teaching has spoken very strongly against and we could get into some of that if you want to press them we will in in just a minute I want to talk about how the Catholic Church has responded to Marxism or various forms of communism or socialism but sticking with

Marx here for a second two terms that often pop up in his writings are the proletariat and the bourgeoisie what do these mean and how do they fit into his philosophy well thank you forgetting his time mid 19th century industrialized Europe he's talking about but the bourgeoisie he means that the class the social class that has come to own the means of production and has come to sort of dominate the industrial in the factory system so the economy is making a transition from a more rural farm based economy now to the industrial so the bourgeoisie

would be the owners of the means of production the proletariat is the new industrialized working class so as the people have come off the farms and into the cities they're now the ones employed in these great factories and so on and the proletariat this industrialized working class he saw as the spearhead of the revolution he wanted to radicalize the proletariat so as to lead this rebellion against the kind of budva establishment so that's it in a way his understanding that dialectical sense of the clash of social classes and the proletariat was the point of the

spear did he think that this class conflict or this class struggle was in itself a good thing or merely a means to a further end well I think he would probably bracket good and evil at that point is it yes is the way it is that's the way history has moved and it's good in the measure that it'll lead to the emergence of pure communism and so he wants to foment class struggle that's key for Marx he doesn't just sit back and watch it he wants to foment it the role of the marxist intellectuals to

do just that is to radicalize and inform the proletariat so as to move them toward active rebellion he wants to encourage the the dialectical struggle between the classes so as to bring about communism this is now getting toward one of the many things the church finds problematic in Marx let's turn there now in 1891 I believe it was 18 yeah 1891 yeah pope leo xiii famously issued rerum navara this great encyclical on human labor on social and economic questions it's kind of seen as the Fountainhead of the modern Catholic social teaching tradition how did Pope

Leo the 13th respond to Marxism and other forms of problematic social orders yeah let me say a couple things about Rama Varma and I would love to encourage any younger people listening to me who are tempted to say I'm gonna get into Karl Marx I got nothing wrong with reading these these philosophical figures I mean I read Marx at one time in my life happy I did happy I came to know that system but gosh if you have limited time I would encourage you to read the Catholic social teaching tradition now rerum Novarum means of

the new things right that's the opening line of the new things Leo is talking about the new things obtaining politically and economically in the Europe of the late 19th century in a way the very things Marx was worried about and complaining about was their great social inequity was their great social injustice was their great suffering on the part of the poor yes indeed and those are among the new things and the new economic forms that Leo is talking about does he think Marx is right in diagnosing things and is he right in in proposing a

solution here Leo pretty emphatically says no let me save a few things about this first of all and maybe young people who are tempted to read or take mark seriously listen please Karl Marx was a student of Hegel as I said he was also student of Ludwig Feuerbach for your bike the founder of modern atheism for Ibaka who said right that God is simply a projection of our idealized self understanding and God's a fantastic being that we've invented so that we feel better about ourselves etc well Mark said yeah I agree with that in fact

he said we must all be baptized in the Feuerbach for your buck in German means the brook of fire so we must all be baptized in the fiery brook of fire box atheism but Marc said let's ask a further question why do we do what feuerbach says we do so granted he's right we invent this fantastic super being why do we do it we do it because Marc said we're so oppressed economically we're so deeply unhappy we're so alienated economically that we invent this fantasy world to feel better about ourselves hence religion is the as

he said the opium of the masses right it's a drug taken by the oppressed masses so that they can dull their sensitivity to the pain they're going through now press that idea who loves religion therefore well the working class because it makes them feel better but also mark says the oppressive class because they're cynically using it for that purpose they they like religion because it keeps the the workers come you know so that's why religion now is functioning as a super structural support for the sub structural economic system that's Marxist language well the Pope of

the Catholic Church be at home with this little analysis I would suggest no I would say to those who claim oh you can be a Marxist without being an atheist not according to Marx Marx Allah says the first critique before you get to my economic analysis the first critique you must undertake is the critique of religion now who's a consistent Marxist therefore wennen Stalin Mao Pol Pot Fidel Castro all those people who did indeed think the first critique is a critique of religion obviously this is gonna cause enormous problems for anybody who's sincerely authentically religious

I would argue you can't really be a consistent Marxist and believe God here's the second great thing that Leo points out the calling into question of private property which Marx clearly does private property is is if typeof theft private property is is an appropriation of what doesn't belong to somebody what we want eventually is the is the collective ownership of the means of production eventually collective ownership of all the goods in the society right so overcoming private property is key to Marxist communism for the Catholic Church Oh contraire leo says private property belongs to us

as part of our dignity as human beings and it's an economic correlate of political freedom just as we say in our Western democracies that that political Liberty is a good thing right that I have my own rights and I can play a role in in the termination of my political situation well the economic correlative that would be private property and its concomitant market economy whereby I can enter freely with my own creativity in my own enterprise I can make a profit I can have my own property leo xiii and all the popes follow them recognize

that as a fundamental right and value economically that's radically odds with Marxism thirdly Marx as we saw borrowing from Hegel has a conflictual dialectical understanding of economic history and of the relationship between the classes and in fact he wants to encourage a violent clash the church says no to van the church says no the social classes to a large degree reflect basic differentiations within the human enterprise that labor and capital if you want are not implacable opponents but they're sort of mutually implicative Co agents in the great economic process we shouldn't encourage a clash between

them but rather a deep cooperation under the aegis of the common good so the church would would be opposed to the sort of violent quality which is why by the way in the 1960s 70s and 80s the church blocked at Liberation Theology even as it applauded the liberation of theologians in their advocacy for the poor no question about it just I would applaud the young Marx in saying there's something wrong here that needs to be addressed but the church certainly bought at the suggestion that the fomenting of a class struggle of violent class struggle is

the way forward I think you know granted for these and many other reasons the church has bought now let me say one last thing does the church therefore advocate an utterly free unfettered capitalist market economy no now Reid I think the best summary statement of that tradition namely John Paul the seconds sent a zimos honest latin for the hundredth year published in 1991 a hundred years after rerum Novarum 1891 right so in that great text John Paul says the market economy and he prefers that language to capitalism which I do to the market economy is

a great good for the reasons I said but the market economy must be both legally and morally conditioned best to say to some degree yes there ought to be legal constraints upon the market now I know I'm rambling a bit here Brandon but go back to Marx's time when capitalism was a very primitive stage since Marx's time what have we had we've had child labor laws we've had minimum wage requirements we've had limitations to the work day we've had unionization we've had antitrust legislation think of all these reforms of capitalism that represent a legal constraint

upon the market John Paul says good I like it secondly even more importantly a moral constraint upon the market provided large that he thinks by religion when we talk about love of neighbor care for the poor other orientation the dangers of greed all of these are meant to be moral constraints upon a possibly oppressive and self-aggrandizing capitalism that's how they not in a way toward the our concerns right without subscribing to all the things in Marxism that are really problematic anyway I'm trying to say in about 15 minutes when I used to when I would

teach this in my political philosophy class we probably about four or five classes on on Marx and Marxism but I would urge young people it's okay I think it's good to read people know what's going on but please don't be romantic about Marxism and communism you know I know this sounds patronizing and I apologize to Millennials and generation whatever they are now sees or whatever younger than you I'm old enough to have lived through communism as it existed in Soviet Russia and and to remember my parents generation certainly had a vivid sense of this monstrously

oppressive system because he once you say boy the purpose is to foment your class struggle to bring about pure communism and you know individuals that they get in the way as Lenin said you got to crack a few eggs to make an omelet you know well they cracked a few eggs already I mean to the tune of maybe 50 million corpses so communism is a very dangerous thing indeed and as you're as you're playing with it I'd be very wary of it and be much happier if you read sent Haysom Asano's than the Communist Manifesto

Bishop why do you think it is that there's been this recent surge especially among young people in attraction toward communism or various socialist forms of government I think because young people and I get it and applaud it young people have a natural affinity for the questions of justice you know and I think Brandon retell because it goes back to little tiny kids those tiny kids have a sense of justice of what's right and wrong and they have could too much and that's not fair and so are there deep in justices in our society of course

there are of course there were and so people are attracted to systems that put the establishment of justice in there in the first place how justice is established though is a very important question so the passion to set things right I'm in favor that the concern for the poor I think that's terrific but I would say ask some very serious questions about what's being concretely proposed in regard to this improvement of a lot of the poor and also with my friend Arthur Brooks in mind it is simply empirically the case it's demonstrably the case that

no economic system has lifted more people out of real poverty than a vibrant market economy to demonize the market economy is just a bunch of selfish old you know plutocrats and then to romanticize Marxism as you know advocacy of the poor that's a very dangerous combination well it's time now for our questioner from one of our listeners today we hear from Amanda who lives in Indiana and she's got a question about the Apostles Creed here's Amanda hi bishop baron my name is Amanda and I live in Indiana in the Apostles Creed we say Jesus descended

to the dead what did he do when he was there and why is this line not included in the Nicene Creed thank you yeah good this is complex stuff Jesus descent into hell and that christened in first Peters where we got that in the scriptures Jesus descended to hell preaching to those in in Hell what that mean it means that Jesus following the downward trajectory of the Incarnation so though he was in the form of God he didn't deem equality with God a thing to be grasped but rather emptied himself and took the form of

a slave being born the light and cement he was known to be of human estate it was thus but he humbled himself even further accepting even death death on a cross right that's Paul to the Philippians but now the next step having died does Jesus go into the realm of the dead there in solidarity with and we'd say preaching to those in that place to liberate yes even them are they outside the scope of the downward and salvific trajectory of the Incarnation the answer is No so the descent into hell is a very important component

of our of our faith the Incarnation has implications for those who heard Jesus implications for us who hear him at the distance of 2,000 years and implications for those who had died before he came and so he's he reaches all the way down to bring in all those who had wandered far from God I think that's the implication of the descent into hell well thanks for listening to this episode a quick shout out to a couple of our word on fire show patron supporters Michelle Paletti shelp and David Richter Michelle and David thank you guys

really appreciate you we're really grateful for your support if you'd like to join them and help this show to reach more people visit the website word on fire show.com slash patron and join us as a supporter thanks so much and we'll see you next week on the word on fire show