Ten Catholic Principles for Economic Life

The US Bishops have posted these ten principles as the "decalogue" for Catholic approaches to the economy.

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, such as food, clothing, shelter, education, health care, safe environment, and 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.

Number 4 caught my eye, as I've been reading a book by a priest who works with the very poor in the Pacific Northwest (Portland, I think, or Seattle). The part where he discusses living conditions and roaches is, um, unforgettable. For whatever reason, I have always felt a particular impetus towards helping homeless people, though my contributions in this area are less direct than I'd like them to be at this point. It may have something to do with my desire to feed people, which is ethnically based.

but also a bit confused. Like, I'm not sure with point 4 where everyone has a right to a safe environment or to economic security. I can see how those are goods, but are they rights? Because if they're rights, that means people have an expectation that some third party will produce those conditions for them, and I'm not sure that's always feasible. I know a right isn't always necessarily observed, but it seems like by definition it would have to be observable.

Or with #5, what does it mean to say I have a "right" to productive work? A right guaranteed by whom? Don't I need to actively participate in my own education and training to make myself productive? When unemployment is 12%, what does it mean to say I have a "right" to a job that doesn't exist?

I feel, too, like #7 tends to sell out private charity a bit.

I also think the list tosses around the word "justice" in ways that are very vague. What exactly is "justice" in economic life? I don't think that's an "end," since different people would hardly agree on what it means. It's a vague goal that could mean very different things to different people.

I find the phrase "social justice" especially slippery.

So, for me, most of the list is pretty solid and unobjectionable. But some of it is vague and tends to trade in the language of "rights" without stopping to think about the meaning of the word "rights."

So, yeah, that's Joe giving the bishops about a B/B- for this list.

that you pointed out a few things because if you hadn't, I would have taken the liberty. The list is nice and certainly idealistic but only realistic in Utopia..... which in itself is also subject to opinion and interpretation.

I'm working on a new term, but I haven't finished it yet. I need a term that doesn't mean utopia (good place) or dystopia (bad place) but more like mesotopia (place where we're in the middle, neither all good nor all bad). Mesotopia? I don't know if I like it.

I'd settle for some Mesotopia in present day Mesopotamia, wouldn't you?

Joe, thanks for posting this. Yes, #4, "right to economic security" caught my eye.

But lately I see the word "rights" get used in ways that leaves me wondering. I know CS Lewis said that Christianity by its nature is more socialistic then is currently exhibited (and he said this back in WWII) but, I have personally experienced the feeling of entitlement and I understand what that can do to one's world view. The obligation to work and contribute to this world needed to be put at number one.