Stephen Schneck on Markets and Catholic Social Teaching

"The uniform of college students changes every few years. When I first began my teaching it was bell-bottoms, then dancers' leg warmers, Uggs, and skinny jeans. Now it's leggings, colorful rubber boots, and yoga pants. For the guys, I remember the first baseball caps in the classrooms, then it was backwards baseball caps, sideways baseball caps, and now baseball caps with painfully flat brims and a sticker. How do these changes happen?

"My mom was convinced that a coven of women-haters convened every year in Paris to enthrone what would be the most unflattering articles of clothing. Watching Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, you might think so. But in truth, nobody entirely controls fashion. Much as we might like, we cannot hold Madison Avenue or Vogue accountable. Nobody sees the vast majority of fashions coming.

"For the most part the logic of fashion is driven by something like market forces. And, like other markets, its hands are powerful and pretty much invisible. Walk across a campus or through an airport or mall and just imagine all the factors at work that lead people to dress in the styles they wear. We've all felt the pressure of the invisible hands of fashion, whether we want to be fashionable or not. How many millions of us have purchased yoga pants or baseball hats with flat brims? No doubt some of us do yoga and play baseball and need the appropriate uniform, but something else is going on here. Where did our desire to make those purchases come from?

". . . Catholic social teaching says nothing about yoga pants or baseball caps. But the church does say something about market forces."

In a recent commentary, Stephen Schneck, Ph.D., Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America, reflected on markets, human life and dignity, and their relationship with Catholic social teaching

To access Dr. Schneck's complete post, please visit:

U.S. Catholic: Blogs:  Yoga pants and Catholic social teaching (January 2016)