I don’t much like the term Calvinism. I think it is historically unhelpful, and in general prefer to use something like Reformed theology or speak about the Reformed confessions, depending on the particular context.

And I don’t much like the term capitalism, preferring instead to discuss the market economy, or perhaps, in light of the results below, free enterprise.

But while popular and intellectual usage certainly prefers the use of the former term (even if it often is caricatured or has negative connotations), it doesn’t look like the public responds too well to the latter. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has launched a multi-year publicity campaign, but won’t be using terms like capitalism or protectionism.

BusinessWeek reports (HT: First Thoughts via The Corner) that the Chamber did some study of how particular terms are received by the public, and the results of the focus groups showed that, as Chamber spokeswoman Tita Freeman puts it, “‘Capitalism’ was universally problematic,” and was often associated with greed and oppression.

It’s true of course that particular words and terms shouldn’t simply be ceded because of potentially negative public regard. It may be that capitalism isn’t an irredeemable term (although many would contend it is an irredeemable system!).

One of Sam Gregg‘s favorite paragraphs from the encyclical Centesimus Annus discusses this terminological issue. Paragraph 42 reads, in part,

Returning now to the initial question: can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system, and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress?

The answer is plex. If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy”. But if by “capitalism” is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.

Public relations campaigns aren’t typically the place where nuanced terminological arguments can be made. And so there’s some strong rhetorical support for the Chamber’s decision to talk about free enterprise rather than capitalism, but this may also reflect some deeper wisdom about the usefulness of particular terms.