quote:

Catholic social teaching, like must philosophical reflection, distinguishes three dimensions of basic justice: commutative justice, distributive justice, and social justice.

1) Commutative justice calls for fundamental fairness in all agreements and exchanges between individuals or private social groups. It demands respect for the equal human dignity of all persons in economic transactions, contracts, or promises. For example, workers owe their employers diligent work in exchange for their wages. Employers are obligated to treat their employees as persons, paying them fair wages in exchange for the work done and establishing conditions and patterns of work that are truly human.

2) Distributive justice requires that the allocation of income, wealth, and power in society be evaluated in light of its effects on persons whose basic material needs are unmet. The Second Vatican Council stated: "The right to have a share of earthly goods sufficient for oneself and one's family belongs to everyone. The fathers and doctors of the Church held this view, teaching that we are obliged to come to the relief of the poor and to do so not merely out of our superfluous goods". Minimum material resources are an absolute necessity for human life. If persons are to be recognized as members of the human community, then the community has an obligation to help fulfill these basic needs unless an absolute scarcity of resources makes this strictly impossible. No such scarcity exists in the United States today.

3)Justice also has implications for the way the larger social, economic, and political institutions of society are organized. Social justice implies that persons have an obligation to be active and productive participants in the life of society and that society has a duty to enable them to participate in this way.

Excerpts from Economic Justice for All,
Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy , U. S. Catholic Bishops, 1986

The major themes of Catholic Social teaching are:
1) Dignity of the Human Person
2) Common Good and Community
3) Rights and Responsibilities
4) Option for the Poor
5) Global Solidarity and Development
6) Promotion of Peace and Disarmament
7) Stewardship of God's Creation
8) Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers
9) Role of Government and Subsidiarity
10) Free Markets, Economic Initiative, and Private Property

The above materials were excerpted or otherwise synthesized from The Website of the Office for Social Justice, Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, which gathered them from diverse sources, mostly Papal Encyclicals and Bishops' Pastoral Letters .

We have touched upon nearly every one of these themes here in the Shalom Place Forums in the past few months, certainly in recent years, some more directly, some more tangentially. We have discussed Free Markets vis a vis Michael Novak, and also have frequently invoked Subsidiarity Principles and the Role of Government. We have had a long-established thread running on the Verge of War with Iraq and addressed Peace and Disarmament themes therein. We have a separate thread on globalization. This is a pretty on the ball group.

At the beginning of the new year, without turning away from other concerns that grow increasingly more urgent, I would also like to open up a discussion regarding Distributive Justice, in general, and, more particularly, the theme of Global Solidarity and Development.

The St. Paul - Minneapolis Archdiocese Office of Social Justice frames up the theme this way:

quote:

We are one human family. Our responsibilities to each other cross national, racial, economic and ideological differences. We are called to work globally for justice. Authentic development must be full human development. It must respect and promote personal, social, economic, and political rights, including the rights of nations and of peoples It must avoid the extremes underdevelopment on the one hand, and "superdevelopment" on the other. Accumulating material goods, and technical resources will be unsatisfactory and debasing if there is no respect for the moral, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of the person.

I urge you to read selected quotes pertaining to this theme, for example:

quote:

The solidarity which binds all men together as members of a common family makes it impossible for wealthy nations to look with indifference upon the hunger, misery and poverty of other nations whose citizens are unable to enjoy even elementary human rights. The nations of the world are becoming more and more dependent on one another and it will not be possible to preserve a lasting peace so long as glaring economic and social imbalances persist.

from Mater et Magistra , Mother and Teacher by Pope John XXIII , 1961

We have discussed some of this within the context of our war thread and, clearly, economic and social imbalances, alone, are not to blame for the radical and militant Islamic fundamentalism that sits on a powder keg of hatred, distrust and ideological extremism. So, too, with North Korea, where Kim's stranglehold on power in one of the world's last communist regimes and his strategies and tactics threaten the peace moreso than the poverty of his people, which is extreme. But extreme poverty does play a role in any instability and exploitation by clearly evil regimes. Lack of development and education similarly plays a role.

But I'd like to set that point aside in this discussion. I'd like to set aside the issue of what is in it for us to feed the world from strictly military and political perspectives, apart from the slogan if you want peace work for justice .

I'd like us to consider the issue of Global Solidarity and Development from the standpoint of a Gospel ideal, as a value in and of itself, notwithstanding utilitarian aims and pragmatic concerns for maintaining the peace.

What are some of the major threads and principles that might run through this theme? Obviously the solution to developing and feeding the world is not as simple as simply redistributing wealth, of taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Neither can it be reduced to a slogan: Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. How might we go about substantively engaging this issue as individuals? as a Nation? as a Church? What is America already doing? or the United Nations and its various organizations? or the Church?

Help me research these issues so we can brainstorm them here. What are your ideas and philosophies regarding same?

pax, amor et bonum,
jb

What if we were to simply let the free market system take care of this?

Good thread topic. I need to give this more thought and have more time to do some writing about it.

No rush at all, Phil. Actually, I was just trying to rehabilitate my image after that virtual novelette exercise.

Obviously the solution to developing and feeding the world is not as simple as simply redistributing wealth, of taking from the rich and giving to the poor.

I agree, although I�m not sure how many �do-gooders� share that belief. But in a sense that is exactly what we need to do. The reason that it might not work or be very effective is that many people probably associate wealth with material goods and that leads to giving a man a fish. This is useful in emergencies but almost useless for long-term solutions and is even harmful if used as a substitute for teaching the skill of fishing. But much of the real wealth that leads to the creation of wealth itself is not a material good. It is often an idea (freedom, democracy, capitalism) or something a bit more tangible such as information, which can be used for technological advancement and the building of an infrastructure (banking, transportation, etc.)

And I suspect there are far too many people who put a punitive slant to this whole idea of helping the world. They really do want to redistribute wealth and would gladly to so by taking from one and giving to the other and ignoring the whole concept of what created the wealth to begin with. Socialism on a world scale is going to work no better than it does on smaller scales so I hope that 10) Free Markets, Economic Initiative, and Private Property is not just doing lip service to capitalism. Arguably this should be #1 on the list, not the last item. I fear this also reflects the relative importance given to it.