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Narrative Character of'Christian Soc ial H lilrs
of arbitrary desires. As C. B. Macpherson argues, liberalism’s cmbraec of the
market as the dominant institution of society involved a fundamental change
in the conception of human nature. The traditional view of man was that of a
being whose activity was an end in itself. With the rise of the market society
the essence of rational purpose was taken to be the pursuit of possessions—we
are what we own. But as soon as you
take the essence of man to be the acquisition of more
things
for himself,
as soon as you make the essential human quality the striving for pos
sessions rather than creative activity, you are caught up in an insoluble
contradiction. Human beings are sufficiently unequal in strength and
skill that if you put them into an unlimited contest for possessions, some
will not only get more than others, but will get control of the means of
labor to which the others must have access. The others then cannot be
fully human even in the restricted sense of being able to get possessions,
let alone in the original sense of being able to use their faculties in
purposive creative activity. So in choosing to make the essence of man
the striving for possessions, we make it impossible for many men to be
fully human.32
Ironically, however, when such a view of man prevails scarcity be
comes an ever-present necessity. For scarcity is a necessary social creation
when men are defined as having unlimited desires. The genius of liberalism
was to make what had always been considered a vice, namely unlimited
desire, a virtue. Thus it became legitimate for us to assume that the governing
law of human nature is ‘‘the insatiable desire of every man for power to render
the person and properties of others subservient to his pleasures. ’’33 Indeed
such a view has us so strongly in its grip that we are now unable to think what
might sustain a society that did not make scarcity integral to its understanding
of man. No matter how great our abundance, we assume it is necessary7to
make and want more, even if the acquisition of more requires the unjust
exploitation of “ less developed lands.” In truth we have no choice, for in a
social order where distrust is primary we can only rely on abundance and
technology to be a substitute for cooperation and community.
The recent emphasis on “justice” in the elegant ethical and political
theory eleborated by John Rawls might be taken to indicate that liberalism is
capable of a profounder sense of justice than I have described. Without going
into the detailed argument necessary to criticize Rawls, his book stands as a
testimony to the moral limits of the liberal tradition. For the “original posi
tion” is a stark metaphor for the ahistorical approach of liberal theory, as the
self is alienated from its history and simply left with its individual preferences
and prejudices.34 The “justice” that results from the bargaining game is but
the guarantee that my liberty to consume will be fairly limited within the