The Framework of Economic Justice: The Out-Take Principle

Today’s blog posting is a selection from the book, Economic Personalism, which you can get free from the CESJ website, or from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Today we look at distributive justice, the “out-take principle” that governs distributions from a common endeavor.  Distributive justice, in one sense, is an individual virtue built on commutative justice, commutative justice being the most basic form of justice.

Binary Economics and Distributive Justice

As we may have mentioned once or twice, we like to get questions . . . if we can use our answers as blog postings, anyway.  The other day we were handed a question that came in over the transom — and believe it or not, we lived for four years at college in rooms that had transoms, so we not only know what a transom is, we know how to submit something over one.  Anyway —

What Happened to Distributive Justice?

 

In the previous posting on this subject, we related that Msgr. John A. Ryan changed the basis and understanding of the natural law from reason to faith.  The problem there, of course, is that if the natural law is based on reason, it applies to every human being.  If it is based on faith, it only applies to those who adhere to the faith that determines the natural law.

John A. Ryan v. Aquinas

In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at the different roles of faith and reason.  To oversimplify somewhat, reason takes first place in matters pertaining to the natural world, while faith takes first place in matters pertaining to the supernatural world.  At the same time, neither faith nor reason can contradict one another.

An Unimportant Shift in Meaning

In the previous posting on this subject we looked at the fundamental assumption of socialism: that people have a right to what they need.  In the modern age this has largely displaced the traditional assumption that people have a right to the means to acquire what they need.

How to Have Your Cake and Eat It

In case you haven’t noticed, there is something of a split in modern society.  On the one hand are those who believe that you only deserve what you work for, and if you don’t have something, it’s because you didn’t work for it.  You are lazy, shiftless, and worthless.

More on Economic Justice

As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, in any properly designed social system, the three principles of economic justice work together to support the system as a whole as well as fill particular functions.  No system designed by human beings can be perfect, but the Kelso-Adler principles provide a framework that, within the constraints of natural law, optimize the possibility for a just and stable economic order.

Things Are Seldom What They Seem

In the opening of Act II of Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore, Little Buttercup informs the Captain in cryptic terms that many things are not as they might appear at first glance.  Confused, the Captain responds in kind, trading a list of random aphorisms for Buttercup’s “incomprehensible utterances.”

Death to Reason! Long Live Love!

The idea seems to have gotten about in the last couple of centuries or so that “love” has triumphed over and abolished reason.  Love conquers all.  All you need is love.  All that jazz about truth and justice . . . feh.  It just gets in the way.

“The Classical Forms of Justice”

Is it Thursday already?  A few weeks of Mondays ago, we were asked to prepare a briefing sheet on areas of potential differences with a potential new member of CESJ’s advisory board, the Board of Counselors, with whom we met shortly after.  (Happy ending: the potential new member became a member, so any differences were straightened out.)

Synod on the Family, II: Focus on the Family

As we mentioned yesterday, the discussions reported as taking place in the recent Catholic Synod on the Family seemed remarkably shy about addressing the needs of plain, ordinary, normal families, whatever religion or political system within which the family subsists.  There seemed to be an over-emphasis on “hard cases” and what to do about them, and very little attention paid to the increasingly desperate situation of the Just Plain Old Family, everywhere more and more being subsumed into, not merely subsisting within, the State.

Synod on the Family, I: A Few Quibbles

What right does a non-religious organization have to comment on a religious event?  Every right, evidently, if you are the media.  The problem, of course, is that, even with all the best will and good intentions in the world, if you don’t understand the underlying principles of reason that support a religious organization’s faith, you’ll probably get a lot of things wrong, and misinterpret or misunderstand what you get factually correct.

Natural or Supernatural?

Last week’s brief series on whether or not “the rich” are automatically criminals based on mere unproved assertion and faith caused a minor flurry of commentary.  The cause of the tempest in a teapot was the implication that humanity can only enforce human law.  Divine law is God’s business.  This upset a couple (okay, we’re “under-exaggerating” here) of people.  There just seems to be a visceral reaction with some people that if God just can’t or won’t enforce His law to our satisfaction, we must take up the burden and start acting as judge, jury, and executioner until the poor, old, Divine Duffer finally wakes up and starts doing His job.

Are “The Rich” Criminals?, III: By What Authority?

Back in 1904, Robert Hugh Benson published his lengthiest novel, By What Authority?, a fictional account of England under Elizabeth I.  It’s so long that one purchaser claimed he bought it but never read it, and so gave it a “one star” review on Amazon without knowing what the book was even about.  It was just too big and cumbersome, according to him.  (His loss.)

Are “The Rich” Criminals?, II: Innocent Until PROVEN Guilty

Yesterday we raised the obvious question that arises when people claim that coerced redistribution of existing wealth belonging to “the rich” is the working of God’s law: how do we know that what we’re demanding is actually God’s law?  We concluded that, in accordance with reason, we cannot prove, that is, know, that something is, in strict fact, God’s law.  We cannot, therefore, claim to be enforcing God’s law when we cannot prove that it is, in fact, God’s law.

Are “The Rich” Criminals?, I: God’s Law

Recently we had a short essay on “distributive justice” accepted by Light and Heat Ministries.  You can find the piece here.  The point was one we’ve made many times in this blog: that “distributive justice” does not mean redistribution of existing wealth on the basis of need, but that each participant in a common endeavor receives output in strict proportion to the relative value of his or her input.  Redistribution may be essential as an expedient in an emergency, but it is not a solution to growing wealth and income gap, or to widespread poverty.

Buying Time, II: When the Solution is the Solution

Yesterday we looked at the problem of viewing redistribution as a solution instead of as an expedient to buy time on the way to developing and implementing a solution.  We decided that, consistent with common sense and Say’s Law of Markets (which is an application of principles of common sense, e.g., you can’t consume something that hasn’t been produced), viewing redistribution in any form as anything other than a short term expedient is not a good idea.

Buying Time, I: When the Solution is the Problem

Many people agree that something must be done, and done now, about the growing wealth and income gap.  When you add other problems, such as the mounting debt crises (government, student, and consumer), the alleged “recovery” from the “Great Recession/Depression,” spreading political instability, and a host of others, you end up with a seemingly hopeless situation.

No One Expects the Spanish Inquisition!, II: Social Justice is the Solution

Yesterday we looked at what you can’t do: mix politics and religion.  When we start basing things in the realm of natural law, or human positive law based on the natural law, on faith, we’re just asking for trouble.

Pope Francis Writes Again, III: How Work Can Be Fulfilling

Actually, the title of this posting should be, “How Work Can Be Both Fulfilling and Remunerative,” but that doesn’t draw the reader in . . . besides seeming a little crass and materialistic, don’t you think?