The Centre for Enterprise, Markets and Ethics (CEME) is delighted to announce the publication of Government Debt: A Neglected Theme of Catholic Social Teaching by Philip Booth, Kaetana Numa, Stephen Nakrosis and Richard Turnbull.
Abstract
Government debt in developed countries has risen sharply in recent decades, yet Catholic social teaching — which has engaged extensively with sovereign debt in the developing world — has paid surprisingly little attention to its moral implications closer to home. This essay seeks to fill that gap.
The authors begin by charting the growth of government debt across several major economies, noting that peacetime reductions have become increasingly rare and that “implicit” liabilities — unfunded pension and healthcare promises — may dwarf the official figures. They examine the various reasons governments accumulate debt, from wartime necessity and counter-cyclical spending to the perverse incentives facing democratic electorates, who may prefer to consume today at the expense of future taxpayers.
The central moral argument turns on intergenerational justice. Drawing on the creation mandates of Genesis, the scriptural emphasis on stewardship and wealth creation, and Catholic principles of distributive justice, the authors contend that systematically burdening future generations with debt — or with unfunded social-insurance obligations — is difficult to reconcile with the dignity owed to all persons across time. They supplement this with perspectives from the wider Protestant tradition, including Calvin, Kuyper and Chalmers, all of whom point towards a limited but purposeful role for the state and a strong presumption against excessive public indebtedness.
Historical case studies — from Bourbon France and nineteenth-century Egypt to interwar Germany, Argentina and the eurozone crisis — illustrate how high debt can impair democratic accountability, provoke inflation and default, deepen poverty and undermine the very functions of government that Catholic social teaching regards as essential. The authors conclude that excessive government debt sits uneasily with Christian teaching and deserves far greater attention within Catholic social thought.
A PDF copy can be found here. A hardcopy of the publication can be ordered by contacting CEME’s offices at office@theceme.org