The Hypocrisy of Size
Fri, Feb02, 2007 - Category: Town
Funded by billionaire Tom Monaghan, AMU writer Joseph
Pearce's new book ("Small is Still Beautiful") is
either a brilliant spoof on conservative Catholic
thought, or ironic to the point of being
hypocritical. The University being built by money
from Domino's global fast food franchise - and
located in a new south Florida super-development
recently named "the nation's largest construction
site" - has put forth a writer to "warn of impending
calamity if rampant consumerism, technological
dynamism, and economic expansionism" continue. Huh?
UPDATE, 2/22 - The response to this post has been stunningly positive and appreciative. Businessman Mark Egger tells AveWatch "I made a contract proposal three years ago to manage the college bookstore at AMU, but instead they selected the world's largest college bookstore contractor [Follett]. I guess a small Catholic family-run business just didn't fit with their plans." Other important points were submitted:
+ [visitor quote] "You can't tell Wal-Mart and Walgreens that they can't sell contraceptives, but a Catholic pharmacist could be found who would operate under Catholic teaching and would not sell contraceptive. But this is not Monaghan's way of doing things. For him, big is beautiful."
+ Several visitors stated that Dominos franchises, under Monaghan's tenure, would hire manager trainees with the verbal promise that they'd eventually become managers. The trainees worked long hours for low wages. Just prior to the end of their trainee period, they were fired.
UPDATE, 2/22 - The response to this post has been stunningly positive and appreciative. Businessman Mark Egger tells AveWatch "I made a contract proposal three years ago to manage the college bookstore at AMU, but instead they selected the world's largest college bookstore contractor [Follett]. I guess a small Catholic family-run business just didn't fit with their plans." Other important points were submitted:
+ [visitor quote] "You can't tell Wal-Mart and Walgreens that they can't sell contraceptives, but a Catholic pharmacist could be found who would operate under Catholic teaching and would not sell contraceptive. But this is not Monaghan's way of doing things. For him, big is beautiful."
+ Several visitors stated that Dominos franchises, under Monaghan's tenure, would hire manager trainees with the verbal promise that they'd eventually become managers. The trainees worked long hours for low wages. Just prior to the end of their trainee period, they were fired.
"Small is Still Beautiful: Economics as if Families
Still Mattered" is a modern reflection on the work of
economist E.F. Schumacher. Many prominent
conservative Catholic intellectuals are applauding
Pearce's work as "a timely warning against the
idolatry of giantism". But some of these same writers
and academics also point-out an obvious crisis of
credibility - billionaire Tom Monaghan's sponsoring
of Pearce.
Monaghan is, and continues to revel in, the antithesis of what Schumacher and Pearce advocate. In fact, Monaghan typifies what they call "the obsessive pursuit of wealth" in an economic lie that will not "lead to utopia but more probably to catastrophe". A reading of Monaghan's biography "Pizza Tiger" makes this clear. Success is defined as being, and having, the biggest and best to consume. His empire is built on fast food - the very icon of corporate homogenization of culture and taste in America, even globally. The mega-corporation buys ingredients in huge quantities, hiring an army of disposable part-time employees, thereby forcing the closure of local made-from-scratch mom-and-pop shops via economic/pricing pressure. It worked, and Monaghan achieved his goal of wealth and pizza "domination". But such an achievement would have surely been repugnant to Schumacher. What of Pearce? Is Tom Monaghan some type of changed man to Pearce, or is Pearce opportunistically using the fruits of Monaghan's gigantism to promote his writing?
Monaghan's new venture as a south Florida real estate developer may be teeming with issues contrary to Catholic social thought. He is developing a new town on the edge of the Everglades in what was once tomato fields that provided income to migrant farm workers. The endangered panther roams the area. In late January 2007, Ave Maria Florida became "the nation's largest construction site" according to Pulte Homes Inc., a contractor for Monaghan's development. Rather than opt to use local builders, as Schumacher (Pearce?) would insist upon, Monaghan hired Pulte, a FORTUNE 200 company that is "the nation's largest builder of active adult communities for people age 55 and better".
Pulte homes are considered by some to be the antithesis of Catholic culture, with artificial cookie-cutter gated-communities that sterilize and homogenize normal family life. Try putting-up a basketball hoop or nativity scene on your property. Ave Maria town will have at least one Pulte community where home buyers are forbidden, by contract, to have children under 18 live in the house for more than 3 months. Other family-hostile implications are less apparent. What are the effects on family and society when grandparents move en masse to places on-the-way-to-nowhere, content to have phone relationships with their grandchildren and adult children? Is it culturally healthy to have large congregations of individuals over 55 doing little but complain about the service at Denny's while riding-around in golf carts all day? Isn't there more than self-indulgence and luxury to "active adult living"? How many scraped-knees and First Holy Communions will be missed living in remote south Florida? One conclusion is indisputable. This is not the kind of living that Schumacher described.
Tom Monaghan's ostentatious taste is well documented:
+ tried to build "the world's largest crucifix" in Ann Arbor but was denied zoning
+ tried to build "the largest church in North America" (skinned in glass, no less), but finally reduced the size due to budget pressures for Ave Maria Town
+ tried to build the largest Catholic newspaper in America ("Credo"); now defunct
+ constructed his Domino's office building to have "the world's largest copper roof"
+ owner of the world's largest private collection of Frank Lloyd Wright memorabilia
+ owner of the famous "Monaghan Collection" of rare cars
Monaghan has also "dabbled" in the collection art and wine; a 2005 Sotheby's sale from some of his cellar went for over $3 million, with many bottles bringing-in well over $20,000/each.
In contrast, according to New Oxford Review (June 2006, online), Monaghan's Ave Maria University advertised for a full-time senior-level PhD-trained biology professor at a salary of $37,000/year (less than 2 bottles of wine). The mean salary for a comparable position in biology in other Florida universities is reported as $56,000/year. What kind of housing could a single-income Catholic-sized family afford in south Florida, the nation's most over-priced housing market, on $37,000/year? Is this what is meant by "Small is Still Beautiful: Economics as if Families Mattered"?
It may be that Pearce's book is his first attempt to get-out from under Monaghan's influence. Sources claim that Pearce no longer resides on campus year-round. His new book was published by ISI Press, a departure from Ignatius Press, the publisher of his other books. Ignatius is run by AMU Provost Fr. Joseph Fessio.
Pearce, however, still appears solidly behind Monaghan. Sources report that Pearce's Saint Austin Review magazine has a policy of rejecting, without review, submissions from anyone thought to be unsupportive of Monaghan's management. According to former Ave Maria College (Michigan) employees, such lack of backbone runs in contrast to Pearce's rousing orations on Monaghan's administrative "violations of human dignity" offered during faculty senate meetings prior to moving to Florida.
The problem is that Pearce's writing on "smallness" gives cover to Monaghan's past and current business practices, and such practices undermine Pearce's writing. Maybe this "scratch-each-other's-back" symbiotic relationship is an attempt by both to be shrewdly opportunistic. But who, besides Pearce and Monaghan, benefit from such contradiction in the end?
Monaghan is, and continues to revel in, the antithesis of what Schumacher and Pearce advocate. In fact, Monaghan typifies what they call "the obsessive pursuit of wealth" in an economic lie that will not "lead to utopia but more probably to catastrophe". A reading of Monaghan's biography "Pizza Tiger" makes this clear. Success is defined as being, and having, the biggest and best to consume. His empire is built on fast food - the very icon of corporate homogenization of culture and taste in America, even globally. The mega-corporation buys ingredients in huge quantities, hiring an army of disposable part-time employees, thereby forcing the closure of local made-from-scratch mom-and-pop shops via economic/pricing pressure. It worked, and Monaghan achieved his goal of wealth and pizza "domination". But such an achievement would have surely been repugnant to Schumacher. What of Pearce? Is Tom Monaghan some type of changed man to Pearce, or is Pearce opportunistically using the fruits of Monaghan's gigantism to promote his writing?
Monaghan's new venture as a south Florida real estate developer may be teeming with issues contrary to Catholic social thought. He is developing a new town on the edge of the Everglades in what was once tomato fields that provided income to migrant farm workers. The endangered panther roams the area. In late January 2007, Ave Maria Florida became "the nation's largest construction site" according to Pulte Homes Inc., a contractor for Monaghan's development. Rather than opt to use local builders, as Schumacher (Pearce?) would insist upon, Monaghan hired Pulte, a FORTUNE 200 company that is "the nation's largest builder of active adult communities for people age 55 and better".
Pulte homes are considered by some to be the antithesis of Catholic culture, with artificial cookie-cutter gated-communities that sterilize and homogenize normal family life. Try putting-up a basketball hoop or nativity scene on your property. Ave Maria town will have at least one Pulte community where home buyers are forbidden, by contract, to have children under 18 live in the house for more than 3 months. Other family-hostile implications are less apparent. What are the effects on family and society when grandparents move en masse to places on-the-way-to-nowhere, content to have phone relationships with their grandchildren and adult children? Is it culturally healthy to have large congregations of individuals over 55 doing little but complain about the service at Denny's while riding-around in golf carts all day? Isn't there more than self-indulgence and luxury to "active adult living"? How many scraped-knees and First Holy Communions will be missed living in remote south Florida? One conclusion is indisputable. This is not the kind of living that Schumacher described.
Tom Monaghan's ostentatious taste is well documented:
+ tried to build "the world's largest crucifix" in Ann Arbor but was denied zoning
+ tried to build "the largest church in North America" (skinned in glass, no less), but finally reduced the size due to budget pressures for Ave Maria Town
+ tried to build the largest Catholic newspaper in America ("Credo"); now defunct
+ constructed his Domino's office building to have "the world's largest copper roof"
+ owner of the world's largest private collection of Frank Lloyd Wright memorabilia
+ owner of the famous "Monaghan Collection" of rare cars
Monaghan has also "dabbled" in the collection art and wine; a 2005 Sotheby's sale from some of his cellar went for over $3 million, with many bottles bringing-in well over $20,000/each.
In contrast, according to New Oxford Review (June 2006, online), Monaghan's Ave Maria University advertised for a full-time senior-level PhD-trained biology professor at a salary of $37,000/year (less than 2 bottles of wine). The mean salary for a comparable position in biology in other Florida universities is reported as $56,000/year. What kind of housing could a single-income Catholic-sized family afford in south Florida, the nation's most over-priced housing market, on $37,000/year? Is this what is meant by "Small is Still Beautiful: Economics as if Families Mattered"?
It may be that Pearce's book is his first attempt to get-out from under Monaghan's influence. Sources claim that Pearce no longer resides on campus year-round. His new book was published by ISI Press, a departure from Ignatius Press, the publisher of his other books. Ignatius is run by AMU Provost Fr. Joseph Fessio.
Pearce, however, still appears solidly behind Monaghan. Sources report that Pearce's Saint Austin Review magazine has a policy of rejecting, without review, submissions from anyone thought to be unsupportive of Monaghan's management. According to former Ave Maria College (Michigan) employees, such lack of backbone runs in contrast to Pearce's rousing orations on Monaghan's administrative "violations of human dignity" offered during faculty senate meetings prior to moving to Florida.
The problem is that Pearce's writing on "smallness" gives cover to Monaghan's past and current business practices, and such practices undermine Pearce's writing. Maybe this "scratch-each-other's-back" symbiotic relationship is an attempt by both to be shrewdly opportunistic. But who, besides Pearce and Monaghan, benefit from such contradiction in the end?