Within the Market Strife: American Catholic Economic Thought from Rerum Novarum to Vatican II (review)

In Within the Market Strife: American Catholic Economic Thought from Rerum Novarum to Vatican II, Kevin Schmiesing, a research fellow in history at the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has provided scholars and others interested in American Catholicism a thorough, well organized, and adeptly written intellectual history of Catholic social thought on economic policy and systems during the first half of the twentieth century. This monograph fills a lacuna by its revisionist presentation of how American Catholic thinkers addressed problems and proposed solutions to the social question from the publication of Rerum Novarum (1891) to the beginning of Vatican Council II. The book in every way is a significant contribution to the literature.

Schmiesing initially presents his basic theme, that Catholics who wrote on economic issues between 1891 and 1962 did so, based not solely on strictly authentic Catholic social teaching, but rather on the same complex set of factors that informed the views of non-Catholics of the period. He well supports his thesis through an informative introduction, six chapters, and a conclusion that analyze in chronological order how American Catholic social thinkers have addressed economic issues during this seventy-year period. Starting in Colonial and early nineteenth-century America, Schmiesing shows how American Catholics made no reference to church documentation when addressing economic social issues of the day. During the age of reform, 1890 to 1940, the author demonstrates that various opinions on the meaning and application of Rerum Novarum were used by American Catholic social thinkers to show Catholicism's compatibility with the virtues of middle America. People like William Kerby, his famous student John Ryan, and William Stang applied Leo XIII's social encyclical differently, but they also used various economic theories, denying the idea of the absolute character of economic laws. Even the conservative German-American Frederick Kunkel used contemporary ideas in his thinking. Speaking of Rerum Novarum, Schmiesing concludes, "The ways in which they [social thinkers] applied its mandates to the American situation varied widely" (p. 46). Schmiesing then reviews the 1920's and the New Deal era showing how Pius XI's Quadragesimo Anno was variously understood and applied by such notables as John Ryan, Dorothy Day, Virgil Michel, and Frederick Kunkel. The author concludes by reviewing how Catholic social thinkers in the 1950's, where debates on anti-Communism and capitalism dominated the scene, continued to present their views drawing from the views of non-Catholics as well as church teaching.

Schmiesing's monograph has several important features that enhance its usability. The prose is very clear, concise, and well organized. Readers are provided information and analysis in rapid order. This is a very scholarly work as evidenced by the numerous, detailed, and informative endnotes. The author provides readers with a highly functional bibliography that is arranged by subject for easier reference. Another significant element of this book is the author's choice to introduce readers to economic thinkers who are rarely if ever mentioned in the literature, including James Gillis, C.S.P., Edward Keller, C.S.C., and Goetz Briefs.

Within the Market Strife is a scholarly achievement that adds greatly to American Catholic scholarship of the twentieth century. Professional and interested readers of Catholic intellectual history will find this volume a welcome addition to their bookshelves.