In the
previous posting on this subject we asked whether a society can maintain
itself when the vast majority of people are cut off from participation in the
common good by lack of capital ownership — and answered our own question with a
“no.” Some people will object to this,
citing the fact that there have been many societies throughout history in which
the great mass of people owned nothing but their labor.
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| Labor used to be the predominant input to production. |
That’s perfectly
true, but it closes an eye or two to the fact that we are living in modern
times, not history, and there have been some significant changes over the past
couple of centuries or so that have altered the scenario at the most basic
level. Specifically, until about two or
three hundred years ago human labor was the predominant input to production. If you owned labor (and it’s generally
considered that if you are alive and free you own your own labor), you could
produce enough to maintain yourself and your dependents reasonably well, and
thus participate fully in society, which you cannot do if you are a dependent,
such as a slave or a child.
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| Man is by nature a political animal. |
This is important
because (as Aristotle noted), “man is by nature a political animal.” As such, human beings ordinarily require a
social environment — the common good — to be able to exercise rights and
acquire and develop virtue. Thus, we
have as the eighth item on the list of the
Core Values of the interfaith Center for
Economic and Social Justice (CESJ),
People also create and maintain
social institutions as highly specialized “invisible tools” designed to serve
highly specialized social functions within a just social order. Institutions,
as organized expressions of society’s values and goals, largely determine the
quality of each person’s individual and social life. As historical creations of
humanity carrying within themselves the wounds of history, institutions are
continually in need of healing and perfecting.
It is important
to realize that human beings are not only rational and political, but tool
makers and users. There is, of course,
also the irrational and emotional side of human beings, but since we are
discussing personalism and the primacy of reason over irrationality, we will
ignore it for the sake of the argument.
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| Pius XI: the common good is a network of institutions. |
Consistent with
human nature, then, we consciously structure and maintain our environment in
both its physical and its social aspects to provide the opportunity and means
to secure our wellbeing. Our physical
environment, including the natural world around us, also consists of
infrastructure, houses, factories, stores, roads, dams, bridges, and so on,
that we possess individually or in association with others.
Our social
environment — the common good — consists of a vast network of invisible
structures comprising the common good that each person possesses in its
entirety. This network includes laws,
customs, traditions, and other institutions (“social habits”) such as money and
credit, tax systems, even language and the State.
Both the physical
and the social environment are tools by means of which the human person carries
on the process of living. Primarily the
process of living consists of acquiring and developing virtue, thereby becoming
more fully human.
It is by means of
these social tools that each person as a political animal satisfies not only
his individual wants and needs, but his social wants and needs (i.e.,
domestic and civil interpersonal relationships). Preferably this is done in a way that also
assists each person in becoming virtuous, that is, more fully human.
In satisfying
individual wants and needs within a social framework there must also be no harm
done to others or to the common good, and ideally what is done should
indirectly benefit the whole of society.
To participate fully in society, then, each person must have full access
to those invisible structures of the common good, the tools for living in
society.
The act of social
justice is directed at repairing the institutions of society so that everyone
has full access to them.
#30#
