Rush Limbaugh and Pope Francis: No Marks for 'Pure Marxism'

American right-wing radio loudmouth Rush Limbaugh is upset. I realise that this is not particularly big news- he seems to have spent the majority of his adult life upset, which must be exhausting and debilitating. Oh well… at least he’s turned his disability into a successful career.

Anyway, at this particular moment Limbaugh’s upset with Pope Francis’ new encyclical Evangelii Gaudium, professing himself ‘bewildered’ with the Pope’s views laid out in the 84-page document, branding them ‘pure Marxism’. You can read his thoughts on the issue here:

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/11/27/it_s_sad_how_wrong_pope_francis_is_unless_it_s_a_deliberate_mistranslation_by_leftists

It’ll probably come as no surprise to regular readers to know that it’s my opinion that Rush Limbaugh- and not for the first time- has no idea what he's talking about. It’s not just that I think he’s wrong or that his opinions differ from mine. It’s the fact that, on this issue, he so perfectly displays such a complete lack of understanding of so many topics so concisely- Marxism, Catholic social teaching, liberation theology, the Catholic Church in general- he may have achieved some sort of unified theory of ignorance. To be so completely misinformed about one issue- and from from so many angles- is actually quite stunning. It might be calculated cynicism to make a buck, or he might actually be this completely misinformed. Either way, it's almost a perverse form of genius.

Needless to say, I avoid Limbaugh like I avoid cold, damp rooms; exposure to either usually leaves me feeling like I’m coming down with something. But in this case he touched on so many things on which I’d either consider myself an expert or at least considerably well-informed that I had to wade in.

I personally wouldn’t describe Evangelii Gaudium as Marxism, ‘pure’ or otherwise… But that’s only because I’ve read a lot of Marx. When I read Limbaugh’s description of it, I immediately started playfully picking it apart. ‘What is ‘pure Marxism’? What would I say is the central premise- the ‘pure’ bit- of Marx?

Like I said earlier, I don’t think Limbaugh understands Marx, but maybe I do need to cut him some slack. Finding Marx a bit challenging is quite understandable and nothing to be ashamed of because, well, his stuff is very difficult to understand. Not that I think Limbaugh has ever tried very hard- I honestly don’t think he has the curiosity to read any long book, but that’s another matter...

So why is Marx such a challenge? Well, crucially, Marx assumed that his readers were thoroughly familiar with the full corpus of German philosophy, political, economic and social theory of his day (Hegel, Feuerbach, etc.). As you might guess, that is no longer a safe assumption.

Also, Marx made no ‘simple’ summaries of his works. Granted, innumerable authors since Marx have attempted to simplify his thought for mass consumption, sometimes doing a fairly decent job, sometimes positively butchering his work.

Additionally, Marx is difficult to put into everyday terminology. In my PhD, I had to come up with one big new term for my take on theology and plunked for ‘Transformational Theology’. Marx, over the course of his career, didn’t come up with one new term- or even a dozen- but hundreds, and trying to explain them without losing their meaning is a real chore.

Finally, there’s the long and potted history of ‘Marxism’. Marx’s  ideas have been the jumping off point for some of the most cruel and wrong-headed social experiments in history, ruining the lives of literally tens of millions. Now, is that Karl’s fault? Some would say ‘yes’, others ‘no’. Is Jesus to blame for the Crusades? That’s the kernel of the argument: is a thinker or founder responsible for the application of- or the misinterpretation of- his or her ideas by forthcoming generations? It’s not an easy question, and it is made all the more complicated because the misinterpretations have taken on a life of their own.  

So, regardless of the challenges to figuring out what Karl was on about, what was Karl on about?

Every philosopher has a paradigm, an outlook, something through which they view reality and use to interpret that reality. For Marx, it was work. Work- ‘labour’-, for Marx, is the primary way that humans interact with their environment. The philosophy of Marx is basically the philosophy of work- human labour and its place within the social order, and specifically how labour drives human society and human development. Man is bound to nature by his labour and vise versa. It is in work that man and nature achieve a common purpose; the relation of subject and object is balanced.

In a nutshell, Marx reasoned that ‘in the beginning’ humanity worked and created for their need and joy. Man was the subject of his world; nature was the object. From this beginning, Marx sees the slow, historic deterioration of that state of affairs as the ‘Fall’. Over the course of time and human historical development, man has become increasingly alienated from his labour, thus becoming increasingly alienated from both nature and his fellow man.

Marx posited a historical, gradual development of social divisions- ‘classes’- between humans. Certain classes began to  hoard up resources and then force other classes to pay for those resources through their work. ‘Capital’- money and the things that money can buy- increasingly became the primary focus of the work process. People were no longer able to do what they loved doing and be able to live off their work; they did what work was given them by more powerful classes for whatever money those higher classes would pay them-usually as little as possible. As Marx described in his theory of surplus value, labour is always, by necessity, the cheapest part of the labour market. Worse, the ownership classes then made the workers pay for the very things they needed to survive- food, shelter,  clothing- out of the wages that they were paid.

This state of affairs- which Marx refers to as ‘the division of labour’, gradually ossified into the class ‘system’. Some ‘have’ and some ‘have not’. Some are forced into certain kinds of work, not of their choosing. Thus basic human freedom is destroyed.

This is why, for Marx, it is the system itself where the true problem lies. Marx passionately felt that man must never be treated as simply a means to an end, but that is precisely what 'capitalism'- the rise of capital, its acquisition, and its being given intrinsic value- in his mind, did. Man had become not the subject but the object; capitalism allowed a person no intrinsic value apart from the labour they could generate that could then be converted in capital.

This crisis must not be seen, from Marx’s perspective, as a moral issue, and it’d be incorrect to see Marx as a moralist. Critiques of what Marx calls capitalism existed in other quarters for centuries, but Marx strenuously fought against moral solutions to what he saw as social problems. Rather, Marx sought to formulate a scientific analysis, ‘laws of national economy’. The crisis had nothing to do with ‘evil intent’ on either the part of the capitalist or the worker and therefore couldn't be solved through ‘reformism’- basically making capitalism more ‘worker-friendly’. This is why Marxists find groups like Christian Aid and Make Poverty History ultimately a dead end.Nevertheless, there is an essential humanism to Marx’s diagnosis of the problem, even if his prescription sought to be more concretely scientific.

What is Marx’s solution to the crisis? Just as the creation of the crisis was an historical progression, Marx saw history as inevitably progressing toward a solution. The inherent contradictions and injustices of capitalism and class conflict would eventually lead to a revolutionary situation. Capitalism then collapses under its own weight. Out of this revolutionary process would eventually emerge ‘communism’, Marx’s grand encapsulation of a myriad of ideas and suggestions.

Marx gave very few clues in his work as to what a communist society would look like. But we can extrapolate that it is a radical and revolutionary re-envisioning of human society- all things held in common; private property ceases to exist; all of the fruits of work going, once again, to the workers themselves. Humans would again be subjects, shedding capitalism’s alienation and objectification, humanising the working process, gaining freedom from assigned roles and seeing a flowering of solidarity and human fellowship.  

If there is a ‘pure Marxism’, it is that idea: an historic progression from slavery and alienation to a state of freedom; humanity as subject and not object; workers themselves in control of the means of production. In a nutshell, humanity once again free to work and create out of one’s own need and for one’s own joy.

So, is Evangelii Gaudium ‘pure Marxism’? No. It’s not even watered-down Marxism. It concerns itself primarily with evangelisation in the modern world, and yes, Francis does emphasise economic inequality, the ‘idolatry of money’, and a global financial system that ‘rules rather than serves’ as anathema to the Gospel of Christ. But that’s a far cry from anything Marx was describing. As stated earlier, critiques of capitalism existed before Marx and there are critiques of capitalism from any number of angles now. But crucially- and what Limbaugh fails to understand- is that not every critique of capitalism is Marxism.

Marx was an atheist and had made a clean break with religion and theology. The idea of a change in the material conditions of the poor and the oppressed arising from Christian evangelism, spiritual renewal or even religiously-motivated social movements was, to Marx, absurd. The Pope is, well, the Pope. His desire for justice and equality derives directly from his Christian faith and a century of Catholic social teaching. If Limbaugh had even a cursory knowledge of Catholic social teaching, he’d be able to see that, apart from the freshness, the simplicity and the emphasis given to social justice by Francis’s pastoral style- undoubtedly his greatest strength- there really isn’t much that’s particularly surprising in either theology or doctrine in the encyclical.

Well, except for one thing, and it has nothing to do with Marxism...

Perhaps Limbaugh’s most ludicrous piece of ‘evidence’ of Francis’s supposed Marxism is Francis’s call for ‘people to share their wealth’ (which is actually a descriptive line from the news report, making me think that he didn’t actually read Evangelii Gaudium). This is a common anti-Marxist trope- that it calls for the redistribution of wealth.

Ironically, Marx never talks about redistribution of wealth. He was thoroughly uninterested in attempts at making capitalism more equitable by moving capital around, either by charity or public policy.

No, if you want to find something as radical as the  redistribution of wealth- the demand to expropriate the money and property of one citizen and give it to another- you have to look to Christianity.

This is the radicalism at the heart of Evangelii Gaudium; Francis delves into the radical wellspring of the early Church Fathers to bolster his vision of what he wants the Church to be. He quotes 4th-century Archbishop of Constantinople St. John Chrysostom:

Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs.

Francis could just as easily have quoted Ambrose,  4th-century Bishop of Milan:

You are not making a gift of your possessions to the poor; you are handing over to him what is his.

… or Basil the Great, 4th-century Bishop of Ceasarea:

When someone steals a man’s clothes we call him a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry man; the coat hanging unused in your closet belongs to the man who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the man who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.

Francis is not quoting fringe cranks or heretics, but bishops and archbishops- the hierarchy of the early Church. And every one of them calls for active, comprehensive redistribution of wealth. It is doubtful that any mainstream Christian leader- of any denomination- who said the same thing with the same force or emphasis today, would be in his position very long. And yet these men said it, constantly.

Ironically, Limbaugh boasts about how much the most wealthy in American give to charity. But what Limbaugh boasts of as ‘charity’, these early Christian leaders would refer to as 'justice', the very least we should be doing. If you have it and don't need it, then to the early Christian leadership you had no right to have it and it should be taken from you.  7th-century Patriarch of Alexandria St. John the Almsgiver declared:

If, without ill will, a man were to strip the rich right down to their shirts in order to give to the poor, he would do no wrong.

Rush Limbaugh seeks to condemn Pope Francis by calling him a Marxist.

In fact, the worst thing he could ever accuse him of is being a Christian...