A Political Economist Looks at Rome

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In his popular economics book, The Rise and Decline of Nations, Mancur Olson sketches a grimly plausible picture of economic sclerosis. Over time, he argues, stable societies become overrun by small, well-organised special interest groups - what he calls distributional coalitions - that pursue their own advantage at the expense of the wider collective. These coalitions don’t need to be malicious. They need only be persistent, inward-facing, and difficult to dislodge. Their genius lies in their very inertia.

Olson’s thesis, born of Cold War economic puzzles - why Germany and Japan surged after defeat, while Britain languished in post-war fog - has since been extended to trade unions, agricultural subsidies, and the modern lobbying-industrial complex. But what happens if we take his idea and point it at something older and stranger than industry: the Catholic Church?

At first glance, Olson might seem ill-equipped for ecclesiology. His tools are rent-seeking and cost-benefit analysis. The Church is a voluntary organisation, offering unclear benefits to loosely affiliated members, some of whom give up a good portion of their time and money without any obvious return. But that’s precisely why it’s interesting. Because despite this apparent imbalance - no salaries, no perks, no obvious mundane utility - it persists. Flourishes, even. It’s hard to think of a more enduring global coalition.

The Church as Distributional Coalition

Let’s be clear: the Catholic Church doesn’t operate as a classic economic cartel. It doesn’t rig markets or lobby governments for direct cash infusions: at least, not with much success. But Olson’s analysis was always broader than mere economic interests. He was interested in how groups sustain themselves over time, even in the face of dwindling returns and increasing complexity.

In that light, the Church is textbook:

• It provides selective incentives, though not in the form of wages or tax breaks. Instead, it offers social standing, ritual belonging, and moral certainty. These are powerful currencies, especially for older generations whose secular roles may have diminished in retirement.

• It deters exit not through coercion, but through identity. Leaving the Church doesn’t just mean abandoning a Sunday routine, it can feel like cultural and spiritual dislocation. Volunteers may grumble about rotas and finance committees, but they rarely walk away. The cost is existential.

• It builds status structures. The Church, like any durable coalition, excels at symbolic hierarchy. Roles proliferate: sacristan, Eucharistic minister, deanery representative, parish safeguarding lead. Each a small honour, an anchor of meaning.

Olson would note with interest how little material reward is required to sustain these structures. Meaning and duty are enough. Occasionally, a bishop’s thank-you letter might arrive, typed and perhaps unsigned.

Decline Without Collapse

One of Olson’s key claims is that distributional coalitions, once embedded, resist change. They slow down decision-making, prioritise internal interests, and choke off innovation. Sound familiar?

The post-Vatican II Church has all the symptoms. Its structures are Byzantine, its capacity for reform sluggish. Clericalism operates as a kind of protected guild system: hard to enter, harder to expel. Parish life is increasingly run by an ageing laity whose loyalty outpaces their numbers. It's not a system geared for agility or growth, but that’s the point: it doesn’t need to be.

Olson’s coalitions don’t disappear when they stop being efficient. They persist because they’ve made themselves indispensable to their members’ sense of self. If you imagine trying to dissolve a parish council, you’d understand the scale of the task.

Regional Realities: Olson's Global View

So, would Olson say the Church is currently in equilibrium? Unlikely. He would see a global institution in slow and uneven decline, with pockets of growth masking deeper systemic sclerosis. His analysis would be regional.

Western Europe: The Overripe Coalition

The Catholic Church here is the textbook case of institutional senescence.

• Barriers to entry are high (time-consuming and arcane rituals; an insider-culture deeply counterintuitive to the secular world).

• Selective incentives have faded (no longer the hub of community life; rarely a career pathway).

• Exit costs have collapsed (nobody notices when you drift away).

The machine still turns, but the gears grind.

North America: Institutional Gridlock

Some vitality remains, especially among immigrant communities, but Olson would spot the warning signs:

• Polarised sub-factions (social-justice Catholics vs. trad-revivalists).

• Legal and financial overhang from abuse scandals.

• Too many conservative veto players, nowhere near enough vision.

A classic case of sclerosis disguised as diversity.

Latin America: Losing the Monopoly

Once the hegemon, the Church here faces competition from Pentecostal and Evangelical groups:

• The religious 'market' has opened up.

• Charisma and spontaneity undercut bureaucratic Catholicism.

• The Church remains dominant, but no longer central.

Africa and Asia: Growth With Frictions

Olson would register the expansion with guarded interest:

• Growth is real, but often subsidy-driven.

• New coalitions are forming, which may themselves ossify.

• Clerical formation often lags behind ordinations.

Vibrant now, but structurally precarious and porous to indigenous religious culture.

The Persistence of Meaning

And what of the volunteers? Olson’s analysis doesn’t require them to be deluded or exploited. It’s enough that the cost of defection outweighs the benefits. Parishioners aren’t stupid. They know the roof has its problems and that fundraising is a nightmare. But they also know that leaving the Church would mean losing a moral vocabulary, a ritual home, a community where people support each other, that still brings food to the sick and lights candles for the dead.

Not Pascal’s wager; social embeddedness.

Conclusion

Olson might conclude that the Catholic Church is the purest form of a rent-free cartel: distributing grace, collecting loyalty, and resisting dissolution through nothing more than habit, myth, and the quiet heroism of volunteers.

Not efficient, not innovative, not even especially coherent. But, for now, enduring: a brilliantly dysfunctional kind of resilience.