Wilhelm Roepke^s Humane Economy

Ralph E. A n c i l

D R . RALPH E . A N C I L is President of the Wilhelm Roepke Institute in

Washington, D.C.

Even if no other forces had been at work, this unparal-

lelled spring tide of humanity would have forced upon
mankind that colossal and over-complicated apparatus for
catering for the masses, that orgy of technology and organisa-
tion, mammoth industries, infinite division of labor, bloated
big cities and industrial areas, the speed and instability of
economic life, that materialist and rationalist life without tra-
dition, mass production, mass entertainment, centralisation,
organisation, world-wide interdependence, garish profusion,
the constant shuttling of men and goods, the undermining of
everything permanent and rooted, the subjugation of the
whole globe by a mechanical, positivist civilisation (Wilhelm
Roepke, The Social Crisis of Our Time).

The recognition of limits is the essence of humaneness. Wilhelm

Roepke recognised the limits of both market and democracy, of eco-
nomics and govemment, limits which stem from the very nature of man.
The recognition of the complexity of human social life prevents his strain-
ing all reality through a single principle. Among other things, this means
that some things are good for man and some are not. Some things are also
more important than others. Aristotle's hierarchy comes to mind: there are
"goods" of the soul and of the body as well as goods of things. The hu-
mane economist is one who seeks to conserve the goods appropriate to
human nature in the order of their importance. There is a finite form to
man's being which does not pronounce change of any kind and degree as

The island of Pag

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"good." Man's nature implies an order and form which necessarily means
that it is not infinitely adaptable to just any sort of condition or trend. This
failure to recognise limits is traceable, as Roepke explains, to a lack of
reverence, to a lack of respect for that which is given, received and or-
dained. It hes at the root of modem social madnesses. The corresponding
evil is the loss of a sense of indignation at the obscene and the indecent
which are themselves due to the loss of proportion, again, the disrespect
for limits. The result of this implicit denial of tmth is a society increas-
ingly committed to subjectivism in morals and social policy so that it is
believed, to paraphrase British novelist Leslie Charteris, that all social is-
sues are confounded in a relative gray and that everyone is entied to his
own "damned heresies." But Roepke disagrees. He is out to expose the
current heresies of impiety especially those relating to the "goods" of
work, of production and consumption, and of the overall pattem of living
derived from such activity. The conventional approaches to problems of
this kind have tended to fall either to the political left or to the political
right. On the left, problems are simplified into a call for excessive govem-
ment action and action of the wrong kind. On the right, idolising the mar-
ket and "socially blind technology" as the solution to all difficulties is
equally abhorrent. Both sides neglect the importance of character, culture,
and continuity as the foundations of govemment and economics. For these
reasons, and because it ignores the fragility of the human personality and
the finiteness of human nature, the world really is no longer humane.

Roepke, on the other hand, understands the need for balance and for a
Burkean politics of principled pmdence in order to address justly all the
legitimate needs of man. Work and leisure, mechanisation and handi-
crafts, competition and monopoly, freedom and restraint, town and coun-
try, nature and civilisation, and much more come upon his examination
table for diagnosis and therapy. The result is the composition of a tmly
wholesome vision of economic order that is as morally satisfying as it is
aesthetically pleasing. It is moral because it frees people to lead a life that
is at once more virtuous as well as more prosperous, and it is aesthetic be-
cause such a life enhances man's enjoyment of beauty. What this vision is
and how Roepke would implement it is, of course, the substance of his
prolific writings. It is the burden of the following pages to summarise the
broad features of this vision as clearly as possible. ^

Wilhelm Roepke would no doubt rejoice in the demise of Soviet

Communism. Yet it is equally tme that he would be dismayed at the cur-

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William Roepke 's Humane Economy

rent condition of the "free" West. It was Roepke who very early warned
of the evil of Communism as well as that of national Socialism, wamings
which were too little heeded. Many of the social and political trends that
he pointed out in the 1930s and 1940s are not only still extant but have ac-
tually worsened. These objectionable trends are explicable in terms of two
more fundamental processes: "proletarisation" and "collectivism." These
two words express two sides of the same coin. To become a proletarian is
to lose all assets, all forms of productive property that promise security
and meaningful work and so to become an "industrial worker" with only
one's labour to sell. The ehmination of productive property from the
hands of private individuals is simply a part of the broader trend which
undermines all functional hierarchies, distinctions and discriminations be-
tween higher and lower orders in social life. It is, in effect, an attack on
authority and on other traditional values, the removal of which is neces-
sary before the desired power of modem economic and political goals can
be obtained. Large scale proletarisation is, then, a part of the total trend
toward "collectivism." The latter comprehends modem patterns of living
that are chiefly characterised by massive cities, excessively large indus-
tries, and bloated government programmes for deahng with social ills. It
is mass production, mass consumption, and mass hving in general that are
so debilitating. The atomised individual is de-personalised and operates in
anonymous associations resulting in a herd pattem of living.
The solution f o r proletarisation and collectivism does not, i n
Roepke's view, lie in adherence to the laissez-faire principle which today
would be associated with libertarian and with some "Conservative" think-
ing. Indeed, Roepke believed that such thinking was part of the problem:
the uncritical and dogmatic adherence to a single principle, abstracted
from other principles adds to its inhumanity. Competition, for example, is
not a solution for all economic or social ills. It applies beneficially only to
a market economy that has met certain pre-requisites of character, of busi-
ness ethics and of effective, but limited, government. Roepke, therefore,
looked for an altemative to the Welfare State, on the one hand, and to the
libertarian Utopia, on the other. This search led him to articulate a vision
of economic order which he came to call the "Third Way." This "Way" is
not the "mixed economy" where government and business mesh in an ad
hoc manner, usually hammered out as a result of political compromise
rather than as a matter of the systematic application of, and adherence to,
principles. The mixed economy still leaves the worker collectivised and
proletarisedeven more soand its policies are usually incompatible

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with a free market properly understood. Instead, Roepke wanted a "Lib-

eral" economic order where "Liberal" is used in its European sense and
includes definite limits to various activities of the market, as well as to
those of govemment. Roepke views the economy, as he does society, or-
ganically, as a body, where vital organs play important but hmited roles:
they must not be allowed to hamper one another's proper functions. A
Liberal order is balanced, moderate, and principled with a view to the
whole.

It was a tremendous boost to the freedom of Eastern and Central

Europeans to hear President Reagan describe the Soviet Union as the evil
empire. But it would be a serious mistake and a serious injustice to these
same people if, after rejecting the collectivism of Communism, they fell
into the collectivism of "Capitalism." This collectivism in part arises from
the historically unprecedented growth of population and is the source of
many of today's problems. The surge in the number of people was simply
more than our institutions could profitably bear. The difficulties of inte-
grating them into society in a civilised way was stupendous and became
part of the re-enforcing triadic syndrome of ideology, technology and
population explosion. It is in this context that the free market was first ad-
vocated. Roepke fully appreciates the virtues of a free-market economy.
He emphasises its non-material achievements which include private prop-
erty, freedom and markets, and especially, its making economics politi-
cally neutral, free from govemment. The material achievements are also
remarkable: the ability to produce the quantities and varieties of goods is
as unprecedented as the massive surge in population that such an eco-
nomic system must service.

Nevertheless, Roepke distinguishes between the principle of a free-

market economy and the specific historical form that it has assumed. To
accept the principle of a socially responsible free-market economy does
not mean that one must endorse Capitalism as it came to be known in the
nineteenth century. Historical Capitalism is an aberration of the free mar-
ket rightly understood, and it is full of misconceptions, abuses and aban-
donment of the very principles to which it paid hp service. Specifically,
Capitalism has allowed a system of production and consumption to de-
velop which is inconsistent with human nature. It is a system of political
economy that has lost sight of the higher goods in life and committed it-
self to endless social and technological change. There are rather definite
limits to such change: human beings are not infinitely flexible or "adapt-

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able," and the commitment to endless innovation has simply generated

unhealthy, alienating patterns of work and life. Roepke writes:
Today we have achieved the realisation, to a great extent un-
known to previous generations, that men cannot bear, without ex-
cessive harm to themselves and to society, the constant mental,
nervous and moral tension which is forced upon them by an eco-
nomic system dominated by supply and demand, market and
technology; nor can they withstand the insecurity and instability
of the living conditions which such a system entails (119).
The defects of historically experienced Capitalism are rooted in the at-
tempt to render the market autonomous. An autonomous market tends to
make everything a matter of profit and cost-efficiency, narrowly con-
ceived, and partakes of the optimistic doctrine of the "automatic harmony
of interests," which Roepke calls the great "blindness of historical Liber-
alism." Its adherents are blinded to the fact that many real needs still re-
main unmet. They refuse, for example, to see that the collective result of
numerous, individual decisions is not always good and that people do not
always pursue business goals with the character and goodwill necessary to
make the market work well, even in a purely economic sense. Conflict,
power, and unintended evil consequences also exist in market economies
which require extra-market solutions. The weight of historical evidence is
wholly against the view that i f left perfectly alone, an intrinsically harmo-
nious market would automatically usher in paradisetruly a view as
Utopian as anything that Marx envisioned. ^ Indeed, the central "defect of
Capitalism," that is, of a technology-driven market economy, is its ten-
dency to pass through severe crises ("boom-and-bust" cycles) with inade-
quate use of productive potentialities. While an excessively refined divi-
sion of labor increases productivity and "growth," it also promotes this
very instability. The "boom-and-bust" cycle is an inevitable consequence
of implementing the "growth" ideology.
Absolutising mass production is no better than absolutising the mar-
ket. For Roepke, the uncritical acceptance of modern machine technology
is unintelligent and harmful. There is a blindness here which must also be
rejected. Speaking of materialistic "progress" based on modern technol-
ogy and its consequences, Roepke writes:
today we are aware of the high price that had to be paid for it
[materialistic progress] and that we will continue to have to pay,
and we are by no means still certain that the price is not too high.
We distrust the optimistic assertion that technology and the ma-

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chine are completely innocent of all this, and that the blame rests
squarely on the man who is using them in the wrong way and
who will just have to leam the right way. We know that there are
Hmits to mechanisation both of men and work, to the emancipa-
tion from nature and the division of labor, Hmits which cannot be
overstepped without grievously impairing man's happiness and
the soundness of the social fabric (47, cf 123).

It is not a matter, then, of the use of the machine, a metaphor for modem
industrialism, but of the machine itself. The machine has certain require-
ments (or laws that it must follow) which must be met and which, when
broadly used, detrimentally affect the way of hfe; thus, the machine "ex-
tracts its tribute" from man. This tribute (social cost) may be more than its
economic benefit. By aiding the division of labor, it contributes to eco-
nomic instability; and, among its social costs, are boredom and neurosis.^
Such evils come from the treating of society as a machine and from an ex-
cessive reliance on techno-scientific rationalism. The scientifically
planned society reduces mankind to Pavlovian dogs or to the pathetic fig-
ures of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. We already suffer to some ex-
tent in this way, when man "in conscientious boredom eats according to
vitamin and calory charts [and when] social life also is at last to be ar-
ranged by the planning hand of the scientist and made the object of
strictly scientific rationahsm" (158). It is a "domineering and bhndly arro-
gant science" that contributes to sociahstic planning and Collectivism.
Roepke uses Goethe's Faust as the paradigm for modem evils, espe-
cially in relation to modem technology. It is the Faust-tumed-Engineer
who kills peaceful peasants in the name of "technological progress" and
of "technical dynamism" in the service of the colossal. This barbaric ob-
session with endlessly re-constmcting things, while originating in such
thinkers as Hobbes, Descartes, and Bacon, is properly characterised by
Roepke as "Faustian." It is the selling of one's soul to Satan in retum for
the power over, and acquisition of, material things at the expense of the
spiritual and the humane. In economics, such a Faustian view finds ex-
pression in the deification of bigness, of quantity and of mass production.
Long before E.F. Schumacher wrote that "small is beautiful," Roepke un-
derstood the evils of an exaggerated view of everything large. Speaking of
this "cult of the colossal," he explains:
In the view of this cult, it is despicable and a sign of reactionary
and romantic stupidity to be moderate in one's wants, to stress
the necessity for an integrated and varied social stmcture, and to

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William Roepke 's Humane Economy

demand as much independence and autonomy as possible for the

sub-sections which constitute the larger units (federalism) both in
political and economic respects. This mega-idolatry is the com-
mon ideological breeding ground of modern Nationalism, Impe-
rialism, Sociahsm, monopoly Capitahsm and Statism (60).

The cult of the colossal exaggerates industrialisation and intemationalisa-

tion and contributes to the over-production of raw materials, to environ-
mental degradation and to the mal-distribution of income and property.

As with economics and production techniques. Autonomous Democ-

racy characterises the present times. This makes of Democracy a form of
government that is "unlimited"considered an appropriate solution for
all political and social ills. In this sense, instead of being the opposite of
Collectivism, Democracy is another form of its expression: tyranny of the
majority is as bad as any tyranny. This strong anti-Liberal tendency in
Democracy has to be watched carefully. In the United States "absolutising
Democracy" is often promoted under the slogan for total "freedom of
choice." But the lessons of history urge limits. The Weimar Republic
boasted of the freest constitution in the world, but this "total freedom"
ended in totalitarianism. Its inability to achieve and to adhere to a humane
altemative contributed to instability as the gradual growth in radical par-
ties of both Right and Left eroded the ability of the govemment to func-
tion effectively. In this context, along with pressures of inflation, debt, so-
cial and moral collapse, a demagogue gained power in a legitimate
Democratic election. The opposite of Collectivism, even of the Demo-
cratic kind, is the Liberal principle which sets limits in the form of non-
political spheres, a corps of institutions and associations intermediate be-
tween the individual and the national govemment, balancing freedom and
restraint. For Roepke, this corps of functional hierarchies consists of the
traditional institutions of family, church, neighborhood and local govem-
ment.

Roepke is not without recommendations for treating this "social dis-

ease." In his view, more than a matter of mere business-cycle theory, this
continuing economic "crisis" arises from deep-rooted problems in the
economic and social stmcture and the general "crisis" of civihsation. Eco-
nomic disintegration is preceded by social and moral disintegration which
can arise from, or be worsened by, economic instability: this is the only
law of economic history, he says, and it follows without exception. Mere
economic freedom is not enough to solve these fundamental problems. It

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will not bring back all the social conditions necessary to abolish the prole-
tarian economy and to restore to people the means for greater economic
security. By itself, freedom does not give dignity and meaning to work.^
As Roepke states: "De-centralisation, promotion of smaller production
and settlement units and of the sociologically healthy forms of life and
work" (179) are the elements needed to restore economic and social
health. He writes:
Man's nature, therefore, sets definite limits to the mle of the mar-
ket principle and in the same way as Democracy must permit
spheres free from the interference of the State, i f it is not to de-
generate into the worst kind of despotism, the market system,
too, must allow spheres free from the influence of the market; i f
it is not to become intolerable, there must be the sphere of com-
munity life and altmistic devotion, the sphere of self-sufficiency,
the sphere of small and simple living conditions, the sphere of
the State and of planned economy (119).

To help establish these other spheres as well as a more humane economy,

Roepke argues for sustenance farming, consumer education, the extension
of handicrafts and small tradesmen, and a pattem of economics and ex-
change of production and consumption that is primarily local. In this con-
text, while discussing several important changes, he writes:
One of the most important among these is, in our view, a simulta-
neous change of our whole economic and social system in favour
of drastic de-centralisation of cities and industries, of the restora-
tion of some more "natural order," more mral, but less urbanised,
mechanised, industrialised, proletarised and commercialised.
People will not like to face competition unless they have some
firm stand. They must not feel lost in this present de-humanised
world. Competition is a necessary social arrangement, not a so-
cial gospel likely to make us enthusiastic. It is a negative concept
which derives its strength from the fact that we like the alterna-
tives, monopoly and collectivism, even less. It must be supple-
mented by something which is humanly positive (235).

Competition is merely the policeman of the market, and just as one cannot
simply advocate more and more police in order to deal with growing so-
cial ills, so one cannot advocate competition in order to deal with all eco-
nomic and social problems. Both are oppressive. Instead, competition and
the market in general must be supplemented with, and rooted in, ethics
and a positive public policy whose motto is: "Liberty within limits." Such
a "supplement" requires a sustaining pattem of living and working, of a

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William Roepke 's Humane Economy

"sociable," humane economy, or as the Southern Agrarian, Richard

Weaver, might have called it, a "social-bond" economy.
In order to regain this dignity and meaning, a wide distribution of
property is needed. The chief difficulty with the historical form of Capi-
talism is not that men became Capitalists, but rather that not enough men
became Capitalists. More men need to be owners of productive assets, es-
pecially owners of land. Since the whole world has become proletarised
and collectivised, the ehmination of the proletarian is a long-run problem
which lies deeper than mere business cycles. Roepke advocates "peas-
antry" as the opposite of "proletarianism." He means this in the positive
continental sense of the word, not in the derogatory English, and espe-
cially American usage. In the English language, "yeomanry" would also
serve him well, since it refers to small freeholding farmers who cultivate
their own land. His advocacy of this pattem of hfe puts him in good com-
pany, which includes such men as G.K. Chesterton, J.S. M i l l , W. Thom-
ton, and W. Wordsworth. Farmer-owned property, appropriate in size for
the production and consumption of one family, "is embedded in the social
organisation of the family and the kinship group, of the village, of the co-
operative peasant associations and the occupational and neighbourly com-
munity to which every thought of competition is alien" (202). It is a com-
prehensive way of balancing life and work as well as production and
consumption in such a way that

it provides shelter and working quarters, brings men and nature

together, affords satisfying and purposeful activity and immedi-
ate enjoyment of its fmits, promotes in an ideal manner the inde-
pendent development of personality and at the same time the
warmth of human fellowship, and thereby counter-balances the
industrial and urban aspects of our civilisation with tradition and
conservatism, economic independence and self-sufficiency,
many-sided activity development, proximity to nature, modera-
tion and tranquility, a natural and and full existence near the
sources of life, and a humble integration into the chain of birth
and death (202-203).

In contrast with today's degraded family which is a mere consumption co-

operative (worse now than in Roepke's day) in such a yeomanry, we have
a family "which gives each member a productive function [appropriate to
age and gender] and thus becomes a community for life, solving all prob-
lems of education and age groups in a natural manner"^ (203). The yeo-
man's family farm solves the labour problems peculiar to farming, since

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he produces enough to provide for himself and his family and sells the
surplus. Even non-farmers can supplement their incomes and increase
their personal, economic stability with gardening. Nor is this Utopian.
Roepke gives concrete examples of situations where this approach has
worked in Europe. The Bally Shoe factory is one example of a responsible
employer, a "social bond" employer who accepts his responsibility to help
his workers become more independent of the market and, therefore, more
self-sufficient. The company helped its workers purchase land, and of-
fered them classes in gardening, among other things, and so helped them
to achieve a measure of self-sufficiency, even those who were not mem-
bers of the yeomanry.

While the dependency on the existing system of production and con-

sumption places limits on his programs of reform, Roepke insists that this
cannot be taken to mean that we should do nothing or that we should keep
going along the same overwrought track: "Our life . . . would be far more
natural, healthy and happy i f certain technical and organisational develop-
ments could be reversed, and this despite the present size of the popula-
tion" (112). This means that machine technology and industrialism in gen-
eral and Capitalism, as it is historically received, should be made subject
to a fair but critical review, considering all of the social as well as the eco-
nomic consequences of particular cases. The same commitment to the
technical colossus that requires tribute-extracting economies of scale nat-
urally contributes to the extraordinary size of factories and cities. Unlim-
ited size in firms tends toward monopoly; such hypertrophic growth is
promoted further by the self-financing of large businesses, and by inade-
quate corporation laws which are badly in need of reform. Large corpora-
tions that are necessary because of the large investments required need to
be watched in order to prevent abuses and distortions. To keep the work-
ing and living relationships wholesome and humanised, therefore, neither
the factory plants nor towns can afford to become too big. There is a point
where the social costs and, in some cases, the economic ones also exceed
the benefits of size and must be accordingly scaled back.^ As Roepke ex-
plains it:

However, even i f certain sacrifices have to be made as regards

immediate and measurable profitableness and technical practica-
bility, it must nevertheless be stressed that this sacrifice will be
repaid in a wider, social sense and may in the long mn even re-
dound to the advantage of the enterprise itself. I f we take into
consideration all the sociological consequences of proletarisation.

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William Roepke 's Humane Economy

we are . . . entitled to the conclusion that in certain circumstances

the mechanical organisation of industrial plants which permits
the cheapest form of production on the basis of measurable costs,
may in the end prove to be the most expensive for society as a
whole (221).
In other words, a humane economy will recognise the need for optimum
sizes in plants and in towns.
In order to bring about appropriate changes, Roepke (unenthusiasti-
cally) allows the use of taxation to promote optimum size, though he does
not explain how and to what extent this is to be done. He is more inter-
ested in the use of other means to help small business such as the use of
model firms or methods which may need a demonstration project at public
expense, and pohcies that help meet the credit needs of small businesses.
Examples of countries that successfully countered "big business" (at the
time of Roepke's writing) include industries in Switzerland, Italy, and
France. "De-proletarising" industry and restoring its optimum size go to-
gether. Big industries must be dispersed in the open country and in small
towns, not to the point where the distinction between town and country
disappears as Marx wanted, but where the size is reduced and the manner
of living conformed to human scale.^ Some regional planning w i l l be
needed in order to combat the tendency to concentrate in cities. Obvi-
ously, the foregoing implies some defined role for govemment. Roepke
justifies govemment action at three levels. First, govemment's basic role
is that of the traffic police: it sets up roads, road signs, speed limits, traffic
hghts, and so on; but it does not tell drivers where to go, what road to
take, or what position on the road to take, and it does not apply military
principles to economic life. Individuals are free to make these decisions
themselves, but they do so within the infrastructure of laws, rights and du-
ties, and other basic policies which all but the most rabid libertarian
would support. At the second level, Roepke acknowledges that economic
life is also part of a fallen world where things can and do go wrong. Since
the pursuit of self-interest does not always lead to harmony, government
intervention is needed. Here Roepke makes the important contribution of
distinguishing between "compatible" and "incompatible" interventions.
The "compatible" intervenes in the market in such a way as not to freeze
the price mechanism, and thus allows the forces of the market to adjust to
tiie intervention. A protective tariff would be such an example. Incompati-
ble intervention chokes off the natural flow of market forces causing such
dismption that still more govemment intervention is required. His exam-

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pie here is rent control. Other examples of compatible intervention in-

clude State or municipal monopolies to handle, for instance, utilities or
some raw materials. Monetary pohcy to control inflation and deflation is
still another example of compatible intervention. The third level of gov-
ernment action, unlike the earher ones, allows for some instances of hm-
ited "planning." Roepke makes it clear that not all "planning" is Collec-
tivistic or Socialistic. The latter is a particular method of planning that is
objectionable, namely, one which opposes the methods of the market. It is
better termed the "bureaucratic" or "command" economy rather than the
planned economy. One cannot hate "planning" any more than one hates
"cutting" into the human body: it all depends whether one does so in order
to heal or to hurt. This, in turn, requires a vision of the human body and
an understanding of its health, not an abstract principle separated from the
social body of enduring values. Roepke's apphcation of this concept is
both humble and healing, because it amounts to one of "regional plan-
ning" or "town and country planning" in an effort to satisfy the needs out-
lined above.
Finally, Roepke identifies the need for an international order. This
need arises, in large part, because of the development of modem modes of
communication which have "shrunk" the distances that have normally
separated people around the world. After centuries of wandering and sep-
aration, people now are drawn together in a manner reminiscent of the
Tower of Babel: today's "tower" might be thought of as the electronic
media of satellites and television which render nations more like cantons
on an international scale. Unfortunately, the forcing together of nations
which do not naturally or peacefully come together raises questions of an
intemational order. These remarks clearly recall present-day discussions
of one-world order or even of a one-world govemment.^ Roepke wants an
intemational economic order based on a Liberal trade policy. He is not so
naive, however, as to believe that intemational trade by itself produces
peace and goodwill among nations. It may well be that the spread of the
"economic democracy of competition" over the "entire globe" in a time of
"world economy" has led to a straining of this principle and to an "over-
comphcation which cannot continue for any length of time" and which
tends to evoke the still worse reaction of autarky and other similar mea-
sures (104). Again, when referring in this regard to the notions of the
well-known nineteenth-century free-trade advocate, Richard Cobden,
Roepke specifically argues that peace and goodwill must come first be-
fore free trade can be successful. Just as historical Liberalism was bhnd to

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William Roepke 's Humane Economy

conflict within a nation's economy as expressed in the slogan about the

automatic harmony of interests, so also this harmonic theory is unrealistic
on the intemational level. Such a bhnd pursuit of intemationahsm (global-
ism) partakes of the same cult of the colossal criticised above within a na-
tional economy. The desideratum for wholesome intemational trade is a
sense of chivalry, of basic decency and, within limits, of mutual responsi-
bility among the participating nations.^

Roepke's vision of an intemational order is based on the nineteenth-

century model of intemational trade, a Pax Britannica which was really a
secularised Pax Christiana of the Middle Ages. Unlike the search for a
one-world government controlled by the United Nations, this nineteenth-
century example embraced an internationalism which largely respected
the individuahty of participating nations. Its nature is seen in three impor-
tant features: It relied on an international language f o r diplomacy
(French), but this language did not replace national languages; it required
an intemational law of nations which respected the sovereignty of individ-
ual countries (in the tradition of Hugo Grotius and other Christian human-
ists) and which encouraged a sense of honour in their dealings; and it
needed an intemational monetary standard (gold) which did not eliminate
the individual currencies of various nations. There was unity in diversity,
an extended economic "dominium" with individual political "imperii"
The basis for this order is analogous to, and perhaps derivative of, the
Westem tradition of metaphysics. The discovery of the metaphysical sub-
strate beneath the epiphenomena of events allows for this ordered unity
without being destmctive of diversity which arises from the natures of
things and of beings, just as the ability to understand and converse in
more than one language indicates a commonality beneath the differences
that make such understanding and conversing possible. It is this implicit
and sometimes explicit reliance on the philosophical and religious insights
of the Judeo-Christian tradition, especially in regard to human nature, that
Roepke apphes to intemational economic issues as well as throughout his
economics, and which finally justifies its title as "humane."

With the Westem world continuing to stumble down the path of eco-
nomic and social decay, the newly liberated countries of Eastern and Cen-
tral Europe can hardly feel at peace in a wholesale imitation of the West,
despite the latter's great material prosperity. A n excessive preoccupation
with materiahsm is one of the major reasons that the West is in trouble at
all. As the cries mount for significant change either in favour of a laissez-

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 The Chesterton Review

faire style materialism or a Socialistic welfarism, Roepke offers a third

way, a humane approach to economic matters that respects the non-mate-
rial side of man as well as the material one. The newly liberated countries
of Eastem and Central Europe have the opportunity to avoid the mistakes
of the West while enjoying its benefits. In this context, they should recall
that when the Nazis took over Hungary in 1944, they declared that "the
time of Roepkeism is over." Now that the era of Communism is also over,
we may hope that the time of Roepkeism has retumed.

^ This paper is based mainly on Roepke's The Social Crisis of Our Time (Francis-
can Publishers, New Brunswick, 1992). All page references are from this book.
^ In the context of modern technology and methods of organisation, the au-
tonomous market gives rise to conflict between consumers and producers. The separa-
tion of these two functions leads to the formation of overall interests that encourage,
for example, producers to acquire monopoly conditions, that is, to produce little and
charge dearly for it. This is consonant with Roepke's recommendation for limited self-
sufficiency where these two functions are united in the same individual or family.
^ Marx understood the problems of the division of labour, but regretted the exis-
tence of such a division, especially its root in gender differences, the most basic divi-
sion. But Roepke wanted to preserve such basic divisions while avoiding some of the
extreme versions of specialisation. These latter tend to render work de-personalised,
anonymous and meaningless. Roepke's criticism of modem work is reminiscent of
Adam Smith's similar critique.
^ Roepke's views are not the same as the old time Liberal thinking and social re-
form notions both of which were interested only in costs and profits, not in freeing the
worker from his proletarian life.
^ Roepke always speaks of family and gender relations in natural, traditional
terms, that is, as patriarchal. He rejects implicitly and explicitly the feminist ideology
and the policy approaches that it imposes on people.
^ Bigness and the cult of the colossal do not restrict themselves to mere physical
size or numbers of employees. The cult of the colossal includes what we might call
"functional bigness" such as volume of output and geographic area. Perhaps today this
obsession is also exemplified in the existence of rootless but mammoth intemational
corporations.
^ The retum to appropriate size may be hindered insofar as the cult of the colossal
arises from the growth of feminist ideology. In other words, a retum to traditional pat
tems of living is dependent on traditional gender roles. By lowering the status of such
traditional roles and pattems and making them obsolete economically, industrialism
and the outgrowth of feminism, left men little choice in the search for authority and re-
spect, formerly attained in the home, the family and the church, than to become Hitlers
of industry. The restoration of smallness, then, may be related significantly to the
restoration of an expansive "husbandry," that is, traditional patriarchy. Here again, so-
cial and moral decay affect economics. That the "Capitalistic" West can espouse the
heresies of feminism, so much a part of Marxist thought, shows that, in this respect at
least, there is not much difference between the two forms of Collectivism. What Marx-
ism could not achieve in Communistic countries, feminism has achieved under Demo-
cratic Capitalism of the collectivised West.

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William Roepke 's Humane Economy

^ Modem technology tends towards globalism because it absolutises manipulative

power, its purpose being the overcoming of all obstacles presented by differences, dis-
tinctions, stmctures and hierarchies. Hence it proceeds by reducing things to what is
taken as their lowest common denominator. All this is congment with the ideologies of
democratism, materialism, egalitarianism and feminism, and applies between nations
as well as within them.
^ Otherwise, to insist on unconditional free trade for a nation in the face of hostile
trading partners is to commit oneself to the self-destmctive fanaticism of the libertarian
who, like the dmg addict, insists that no matter what the ultimate consequences of ad-
diction (including death), the "trip" is always worth it. According to such a view, no
matter what the shock to the economy is, the benefits of this carefree free-for-all al-
ways exceed the economic costs and no amount of pmdent foresight that involves the
govemment is ever worthwhile. Any govemment intervention in intemational trade is
acceptable as long as it is not one's own government. The oxymoron of calling this sit-
uation "free trade" completely escapes the libertarian.
Roepke refers to the Middle Ages as another good example of a high degree of
intemational order even though the basis for its unity was theological and moral, and
its geographic area was limited to Christendom. Unfortunately, this order was dis-
mpted by the rise of national absolutism which plunged Europe into anarchy.

The Romanesque basilica of St. Mary's in Rab

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