Catholic Ethical Framework for Economic Life
Drawing from official Catholic social teachings, which constitute part of the authoritative moral doctrine of the Church, the U.S. Bishops have delineated 10 ethical principles that are to be taken as the criteria for judgment of, and the direction for action in, economic life. As principles, these are not prudential judgments but are the very criteria by which judgments are made (i.e., they are not subject to the beliefs, preferences, and attitudes of the faithful).
1. The economy exists for the person, not the person for the economy.
2. All economic life should be shaped by moral principles. Economic choices and institutions must be judged by how they protect or undermine the life and dignity of the human person, support the family, and serve the common good.
3. A fundamental moral measure of any economy is how the poor and vulnerable are faring.
4. All people have a right to life and to secure the basic necessities of life (e.g., food, clothing, shelter, education, health care, safe environment, economic security).
5. All people have the right to economic initiative, to productive work, to just wages and benefits, to decent working conditions, as well as to organize and join unions or other associations.
6. All people, to the extent they are able, have a corresponding duty to work, a responsibility to provide for the needs of their families, and an obligation to contribute to the broader society.
7. In economic life, free markets have both clear advantages and limits; government has essential responsibilities and limitations; voluntary groups have irreplaceable roles, but cannot substitute for the proper working of the market and the just policies of the state.
8. Society has a moral obligation, including governmental action where necessary, to assure opportunity, meet basic human needs, and pursue justice in economic life.
9. Workers, owners, managers, stockholders, and consumers are moral agents in economic life. By our choices, initiative, creativity, and investment, we enhance or diminish economic opportunity, community life, and social justice.
10. The global economy has moral dimensions and human consequences. Decisions on investment, trade, aid, and development should protect human life and promote human rights, especially for those most in need wherever they might live on this globe.
-United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “A Catholic Framework for Economic Life”
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A link:
http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/ACatholicFrameworkforEconomicLife.pdf
All people have a right to life and to secure the basic necessities of life (e.g., food, clothing, shelter, education, health care, safe environment, economic security).
Interesting to mention a “right to life” and a right to health care in the same sentence.
The passage reads “a right to life and to secure the basic necessities of life.”
In the developed world, at least, it is pretty obvious that healthcare should be regarded as a “basic necessity” for human life.
Wikipedia: In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% controlled 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation’s wealth.
wj,
Assuming the statistics from Wikipedia above are anywhere near accurate, how can the United States be considered a just society when some people are phenomenally rich and others don’t have the basics?
A question that has been with me since I was in high school is this: How can I justify having so much when others in the world have nothing at all? If I had an ample supply of food but everyone around me was starving, I am sure I would feel compelled to share what I had, even if it meant I had to starve, too. Just because I don’t personally know the starving, does that mean my obligations to them are less?
Sounds like a pretty sensible list.
They all sound good to me.
David nickol,
I must have misinterpreted the tone of your earlier comment.of course you are right to point out the structural injustice of the American system. I myself adhere to the principles of peter maurin and jacques maritain–
As for your question, I believe it is a good one but I have no easy answer. Even taking into consideration the Ordo caritatem, it seems obvious that we tend in peter ungers phrase to live high and let die
This seems like an excellent thread to derail with a discussion of the superiority of distributism and why we all should immediately begin practicing it in our local communities as a moral obligation. =)
As for David Nickol’s comment: In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% controlled 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation’s wealth.
That is not as disturbing as it seems (though it is disturbing) when one considers the SIZE of that wealth. Our total national wealth is apx 50 trillion. That means the bottom 40% are still controlling 500,000,000,000 (500 Billion) in wealth. When we break that down into wealth-per-family, we’re looking at roughly $15,000 in wealth per family.
Though the wealth disparity has grown over recent years, it is because the amount of wealth total has expanded. As a result, the bottom 40% is now more wealthy overall (when adjusted for inflation) then there were, say, 20 years ago.
This is an excellent article by the heritage foundation:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm
Though I’m sure the heritage foundation is not normally common reading ’round these parts, it’s mostly an analysis of census information. What does it reveal to us? An increased level of affluence among the “poor” and that the poor of today resemble almost nothing of the poor several decades ago. The face of poverty in America is quite dynamic.
My commentary: We have become obsessed with materialism, and so we radically misunderstand poverty. This represents a fundamental failure in solidarity.
Sounds like a pretty sensible list.
Could you refer to these principles a little more often in your blog posts, then?
They all sound good to me.
Hmmmm.
It’s unfortunate this thread isn’t getting more play, these are issues that really need internalizing by most Catholics.