Qui fideliter cuncta faciebant.
A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found.But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity Psalm 37:10-11 Many claim that capitalism has saved us from frequent famines and the “back-breaking” labor of peasant farming. “For example, Rutger Bregman tells … Continue reading Were Premodern Peasants Starving and Overworked?
Yet it is quite true in one sense that monasteries are devoted to Communism and that monks are all Communists. Their economic and ethical life is an exception to a general civilization of feudalism or family life. Yet their privileged position was regarded as rather a prop of social order. They give to certain communal … Continue reading What are the Commons?
The following essay is a review and guide of the “Good Money” podcast series produced by New Polity. Every episode of the series is briefly summarized. We encourage you to follow the many links below to listen and learn more. According to the Philosopher (Ethics IV.1) it belongs to the liberal man to part with … Continue reading An Introduction to Good Money
The great landlords destroyed deliberately and of set purpose and to their own advantage the common rights over common land. The small plutocracy with which they were knit up, and with whose mercantile elements they were now fused, directed everything to its own ends. That strong central government which should protect the community against the … Continue reading The Enclosure of the Commons
Would that these words, written at a time [1891] when what has been called "unbridled capitalism" was pressing forward, should not have to be repeated today [1991] with the same severity. Unfortunately, even today one finds instances of contracts between employers and employees which lack reference to the most elementary justice regarding the employment of … Continue reading What is a “Just Wage” in Catholic Social Teaching?
Community of goods is ascribed to the natural law, not that the natural law dictates that all things should be possessed in common and that nothing should be possessed as one's own: but because the division of possessions is not according to the natural law, but rather arose from human agreement which belongs to positive … Continue reading Private Property in Classical Liberalism vs. Christian Tradition
On the second place there is the order of the whole towards the parts, to which corresponds the order of that which belongs to the community in relation to each single person. This order is directed by distributive justice, which distributes common goods proportionately. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II. Q61. A1. co. All people … Continue reading Planning, Regulation, and Distributive Justice
[Trading for profit] is justly deserving of blame, because, considered in itself, it satisfies the greed for gain, which knows no limit and tends to infinity. Hence trading, considered in itself, has a certain debasement attaching thereto... Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II. Q77. A4. co. The merchant class is a group of people who, … Continue reading The Old Limits of the Merchant Class
The iniquity of money-lending must absolutely be abjured, and the gain which lacks all humanity must be shunned. A man's possessions are indeed multiplied by these unrighteous and sorry means, but the mind's wealth decays because usury of money is the death of the soul. —Saint Pope Leo the Great, Sermon 17 Many today have … Continue reading Understanding the Social Sin of Usury