We closed the
last posting on this subject by asking, Where do ordinary people, who are
ordinarily powerless, get the power to organize and act on the system? That is, we noted that the way to restructure
the social order so as to provide the proper environment within which people
can live “the good life” (in the Aristotelian sense) and live and grow in
virtue.
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| That old devil Dan'l Webster had the answer. |
Now, the way to restructure
the social order to provide the proper environment for virtue is to organize
and carry out acts of social justice.
This is intended to reform institutions so that the institutions once
again conform to natural law principles in a way that meets the needs of
individuals and of society in the most optimal way.
. . . which begs
the question: HOW are people supposed to organize when they lack
power, “power” being defined as “ability for doing”?
Daniel Webster (1782-1852)
gave the answer nearly two centuries ago.
Not that he was the only one, but he did seem to be the most pithy . . .
pithiest? Most succinct? Anyway, as he put it in the 1820
Massachusetts constitutional debates, “Power naturally and necessarily follows
property.”
Thus, it makes
sense that Leo XIII and Pius XI, who were very concerned with the restructuring
of the social order —
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| Pope Pius XI |
What We have thus far stated regarding an
equitable distribution of property and regarding just wages concerns individual
persons and only indirectly touches social order, to the restoration of which
according to the principles of sound philosophy and to its perfection according
to the sublime precepts of the law of the Gospel, Our Predecessor, Leo XIII,
devoted all his thought and care. (Pius XI, Quadragesimo
Anno, § 76.)
The income aspect
of private property in capital is actually, in a sense, almost (but not quite) secondary
to the power aspect. By focusing
exclusively on income, yes, the wage system may be more secure (as long as
there are wages to be paid, of course, and the worker is not displaced by a
machine he or she doesn’t own), but the wage worker is entirely at the mercy of
whoever has power, whether a rich élite
as in capitalism, or a state bureaucracy, as in socialism. That is why, if only for their own protection
and nothing else, workers must become owners.
That is why Leo XIII said,
We have seen that this great labor question cannot be
solved save by assuming as a principle that private ownership must be held
sacred and inviolable. The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its
policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners.
(Rerum Novarum, § 46.)
Nor did Leo XIII
stop there. As he said,
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| Pope Leo XIII |
Many excellent results will follow from this; and,
first of all, property will certainly become more equitably divided. For, the
result of civil change and revolution has been to divide cities into two
classes separated by a wide chasm. On the one side there is the party which
holds power because it holds wealth; which has in its grasp the whole of labor
and trade; which manipulates for its own benefit and its own purposes all the
sources of supply, and which is not without influence even in the
administration of the commonwealth. On the other side there is the needy and
powerless multitude, sick and sore in spirit and ever ready for disturbance. If
working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a share in the
land, the consequence will be that the gulf between vast wealth and sheer
poverty will be bridged over, and the respective classes will be brought nearer
to one another. A further consequence will result in the great abundance of the
fruits of the earth. Men always work harder and more readily when they work on
that which belongs to them; nay, they learn to love the very soil that yields
in response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat, but an abundance
of good things for themselves and those that are dear to them. That such a
spirit of willing labor would add to the produce of the earth and to the wealth
of the community is self evident. And a third advantage would spring from this:
men would cling to the country in which they were born, for no one would
exchange his country for a foreign land if his own afforded him the means of
living a decent and happy life. (Ibid.,
§ 47.)
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