Liberation Theology and Liberal Society

250 Pages·1987·4.711 MB·English

by  Michael Novak

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Liberation
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Society
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American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Liberation theology and the liberal society.
(Sym 86 B)
1. Liberation theology-Congresses. 2. Christianity
and politics-Congresses. 3. Economics-Religious
aspects-Christianity-Congresses. 4. North America­
Relations-South America-Congresses. 5. South America
-Relations-North America-Congresses. I. Novak,
Michael. II. Series: AEI symposia ; 86B.
BT83.57.L493 1987 261.8'098 87-11552
ISB0N- 8447-2263-4
ISB0N- 8447-(2p2Kb6. 4)- 2
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Contents
FOREWORD .............................................. lX
Christopher C. DeMuth
CONTRIBUTORS .......................................... Xl
INTRODUCTION .......................................... 1
Michael Novak
A Dialectic between Liberationism and Liberalism ........... 4
Willia,n P. Glade, Jr.
. .
DlSCUS s1on . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
The Improvement of Democracy in Latin America and the
Debt Crisis ............................................ 37
Hugo Ass,nann
. .
DlSCUS s1on . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Commentary ........................................ 63
Nick Eberstadt and George Weigel
Underdevelopment Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Peter L. Berger
A Summary of Peter Berger's Oral Presentation .. . . . . . .. . 83
Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .. .. . . . . . . . 87
Latin America and "Dependency" Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Arthur F. McGovern, S. 1
Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .. . .. . .. . .. .. . . .. . . . . . 133
..
Vll
Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. . . 158
Dean C. Curry and Ashley 1 Tellis
It Is Not Easy to Argue with Liberation Theologians 164
Arturo Fontaine
. .
D 178
lSCUSSIOil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Political Systems and Economic Growth: The Case of Latin
America .............................................. 194
Mark Falcoff
. .
DlSCUSSIOil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Appendix ............................................... 229
The Return of the Debt Crisis .......................... 229
Tom Bethell
Where the Latin American Loans Went ................. 236
Larry A. Sjaastad
Vlll
Foreword
The troubles of our neighbors in Latin America continue to vex citizens
and policy makers in the United States. Of particular concern are the
roles of religion and morality in our response. The ideals of liberation
theology, Latin American style, and of the liberal society, North Amer­
ican style, are not identical. With the publication of this volume, the
American Enterprise Institute continues to investigate the underpin­
nings and consequences of these two ideals.
AEI has always attempted to foster greater interaction among the
various disciplines associated with public policy-economics, law di­
1
plomacy, and the social sciences in general-in the belief that the
competition of ideas is fundamental to a free society. The 1985 Summer
Institute, from which this edited text derives, is the seventh sponsored
by AEI's Center for Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy since 1978.
Held at Airlie House in Warrenton, Virginia, from August 4 to August
7, it brought together some forty persons from business, government,
the church, and the academy of both Latin and North America.
Special thanks are due to Michael Novak, director of the center,
and to Michael Jackson, Judy Shindel, and Scott Walter for planning
_ and directing the proceedings.
CHRISTOPHER C. DEMUTH
President
American Enterprise Institute
lX
Contributors
HuGo AsSMANN teaches at the Universidad Metodista de Piracicaba in
his native Brazil. He pursued his study of philosophy and sociology in
Brazil and his study of theology at the Gregorian University in Rome.
He has traveled and lectured throughout Europe and Latin America
and has held teaching positions in Brazil, West Germany, Bolivia, Costa
Rica, and Chile. One of today's leading liberation theologians, Dr.
Assmann's professional activities and writings are extensive. His Te­
ologia de la liberaci6n was published in Montevideo in 1970, followed
by Opresi6n-liberaci6n: Desafio a los Cristianos and Teologia desde la
praxis de la liberaci6n. His works available in English include Theology
for a Nomad Church, Practical Theology of Liberation, and contribu­
tions to numerous anthologies of liberation theology.
PETER L. BERGER is University Professor at Boston University and an
adjunct scholar at AEI. He has traveled and lectured extensively and is
a frequent contributor to Commentary magazine and many other pub­
lications. Professor Berger's eleven books include Pyramids of Sacri-
fice, The Heretical Imperative, and The War over the Family (with
Brigitte Berger). AEI has issued a collection of essays by Berger and
Michael Novak, entitled Speaking to the Third World. Professor
Berger's latest book is The Capitalist Revolution: Fifty Propositions
about Prosperity, Equality, and Liberty.
DEAN C. CURRY is chairman of the Department of History and Political
Science at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. He also serves
on the board of advisers of the Institute on Religion and Democracy as
well as the Peace, Freedom, and Security Studies Program at the
National Association of Evangelicals. Mr. Curry received his M.A.
from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. from the Claremont
Graduate School. He has written for several academic and popular
journals including Orbis, Crisis, and Eternity. He edited and contrib­
uted to Evangelicals and the Bishops' Pastoral Letter and is cowriting a
book on the social ethics of war and peace in a nuclear age.
.
XI
CONTRIBUTORS
NICK EBERSTADT is a visiting fellow at the Harvard University Center
for Population Studies, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute, and a doctoral candidate in political economy and govern­
ment at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Mr. Eberstadt is
the author of Poverty in China and a forthcoming volume tentatively
titled State Power a11:d Human Poverty under Communism. He has
written widely on population, nutrition, and economic policy problems
in third world and Communist nations and has been a consultant to the
World Bank and the Department of State on development issues. A
contributing editor to the Rockefeller Foundation's RF Illustrated, Mr.
Eberstadt is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the
Committee for the Free World.
MARK FALCOFF is an international affairs fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in
1970 and has taught at the Universities of Illinois, Oregon, and Califor­
nia (Los Angeles). A specialist on Latin America, he was a senior
consultant to the Kissinger Commission and served as a professional
staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Co1nmittee during the
Ninety-ninth Congress. His books include Prologue to Peron: Argen­
tina in Depression and War 1930-1943; The Spanish Civil War, 1936-
1939: American Hemispheric Perspectives; Small Countries, Large
Issues; and most recently, The Continuing Crisis: US. Policy in Central
America and the Caribbean.
ARTURO FONTAINE graduated in philosophy from the University of
Chile and holds an M.A. and an M. Phil. from Columbia University. He
teaches philosophy at the U niversidad de Chile and Academia de
Ciencias Pedag6gicas in Santiago. Mr. Fontaine is the editor of Estudios
Publicos, the quarterly interdisciplinary journal published by the Cen­
tro de Estudios Publicos. His essays and articles have appeared in
Economia y Sociedad, Aiesthesis, Realidad, Estudios P11blicos, and
the Wall Street Journal. His poems have been selected for several
anthologies of Chilean poetry.
WILLIAM P. GLADE, JR., is professor of economics at the University of
Texas at Austin. His Ph.D. in economics is from the University of
Texas, and he has served on numerous public committees and associa­
tions related to Latin America. His books include The Political Econ­
omy of Mexico, The Latin American Economies: A Study of Their
Institutional Evolution, and Latin America-US. Economic Interac­
tions (coeditor) .
..
Xll
CONTRIBUTORS
ARTHUR F. McGOVERN, S.J., was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio.
He graduated from Georgetown University in 1951 and entered the
Detroit Province of the Society of Jesus in the same year. He obtained a
master's degree in philosophy from Loyola University, Chicago, and an
S.T.L. degree in theology from West Baden College, Indiana. His doctor­
ate is from the University of Paris, where he did his dissertation under
Raymond Aron on "The Young Marx on t4e State." Father McGovern
taught three years at the Bellarmine School of Theology before going to
the University of Detroit, where he has been since 1970. In 1980, he was
promoted to professor and honored with the University of Detroit's
President's Award for Excellence in Teaching and Research. His pub­
lications include Marxism: An American Christian Perspective and
essays in Demythologizing Marxism, American Business Values, and
Three Worlds of Marxist-Christian Dialogue. He has published articles
and reviews in many periodicals and is working on a book dealing with
large corporations. He has lectured in various parts of the country on
Marxism, church social teachings, liberation theology, and related
topics.
MICHAEL NOVAK holds the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion,
Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute,
where he serves as director of Social and Political Studies. He was
appointed head of the U.S. delegation to the Experts' Meeting on
Human Contacts of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in
Europe and served as a presidential adviser to the Ford and Carter
administrations. He is vice-chairman of the Lay Commission on the
U.S. Economy and Catholic Social Teaching. Mr. Novak received his
M.A. in the history and philosophy of religion from Harvard and has
published numerous books including The Spirit of Democratic Cap­
italism, Moral Clarity in the Nuclear Age, Confession of a Catholic,
and Freedom with Justice: Catholic Social Thought and Liberal Institu­
tions. His most recent work is Will It Liberate? Questions about Liber­
ation Theology.
ASHLEY J. TELLIS is a visiting reseacher at Georgetown University. He
has published articles on third world theology, economic development,
and national security in the Indian Journal of American Studies, Indian
Theological Studies, Strategic Review, and Comparative Strategies.
GEORGE WEIGEL is president of the James Madison Foundation in
Washington, D.C., and was a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Interna­
tional Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution, September
Xlll