Reflections on last Wednesday's meeting (5 November)

Well, perhaps the picture isn't exactly a memorial to the most successful attempt at Catholic social engagement -but we did meet on 5 November!.

Lively and wide ranging discussion as ever. As ever, I'll stick to picking out just a couple of issues:

1) Universal destination of goods. (In surfing the internet to address this point, I came across this post by the US Acton Institute: here. I think it would be fair to describe the Institute as a fairly right wing Christian think tank, and I wouldn't want to support all they say here. However, I think it does give an interesting entirely free market perspective on the issue.)

Under the principle of 'the universal destination of goods', the Compendium (449) refers to Pope Paul VI's Populorum Progressio (22):


In the very first pages of Scripture we read these words: "Fill the earth and subdue it." This teaches us that the whole of creation is for man, that he has been charged to give it meaning by his intelligent activity, to complete and perfect it by his own efforts and to his own advantage.

Now if the earth truly was created to provide man with the necessities of life and the tools for his own progress, it follows that every man has the right to glean what he needs from the earth. The recent Council reiterated this truth: "God intended the earth and everything in it for the use of all human beings and peoples. Thus, under the leadership of justice and in the company of charity, created goods should flow fairly to all." 

All other rights, whatever they may be, including the rights of property and free trade, are to be subordinated to this principle. They should in no way hinder it; in fact, they should actively facilitate its implementation. Redirecting these rights back to their original purpose must be regarded as an important and urgent social duty.


I think the key point here is that property (goods) is simply an extension of our own activity (work). Just as we have a duty to our fellow human beings, so the things that come into our possession through our work also must be used for others. That doesn't mean that our property isn't any less our property, but it does mean that it is wrong if that property isn't placed at the service of humankind. (How precisely that it is to be best done is of course a separate -and often difficult question.)

2) Competition. I have heard the jibe before that, just because the Church is a hierarchical, centrally planned organization, it finds it difficult to understood to understand or value the decentralized competitiveness of a capitalist free market! Whatever truth there may be in that, in principle, Catholic social teaching does accept the importance of competition between enterprises:

The free market is an institution of social importance because of its capacity to guarantee effective results in the production of goods and services. Historically, it has shown itself able to initiate and sustain economic development over long periods. There are good reasons to hold that, in many circumstances, “the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs”.The Church's social doctrine appreciates the secure advantages that the mechanisms of the free market offer, making it possible as they do to utilize resources better and facilitating the exchange of products. These mechanisms “above all ... give central place to the person's desires and preferences, which, in a contract, meet the desires and preferences of another person”.


A truly competitive market is an effective instrument for attaining important objectives of justice: moderating the excessive profits of individual businesses, responding to consumers' demands, bringing about a more efficient use and conservation of resources, rewarding entrepreneurship and innovation, making information available so that it is really possible to compare and purchase products in an atmosphere of healthy competition. [Compendium, 347.]

However, it also suggests the limitations of such free markets. How that balance is to be struck is never a matter of a formula, but always a matter of a prudential balancing of the tensions involved. In the end, we are all in this together (more formally, the principle of solidarity) and whatever we do must be done with the ultimate aim of serving everyone, even if the means to this are by no means always clear.

I'll post at the beginning of next week about the next meeting (12 Nov).