Justice University

Aristotle In classic Aristotelian philosophy, including that of Aquinas, distributive justice has only ever had one meaning: distribution according to a pro rata share of inputs.   In economic terms, distributive justice is “the most classical form”( Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church , § 201) of the virtue, t he out-take principle.   It is based on the market value of one’s economic contributions.   This is the principle that everyone has a right to receive a proportionate, market-determined share of the value of the marketable goods and services he produces with his labor, capital, or both.

On his death in 1985, Father William J. Ferree, S.M., Ph.D. was eulogized as “the second founder” of his religious order, the Society of Mary.   Father Andrew F. Morlion, O.P., Ph.D., Belgian philosopher and founder and first president of the International University of Social Studies in Rome, referred to Father Ferree as “America’s greatest social philosopher.”   But who was he?

One of the things we find most consistent about socialism is its inconsistency, the ability to say one thing and do another with astonishing regularity.   This was brought forcibly home to us when we came across the writings of Robert Owen, considered the first of the British line of socialism.

Recently we received a quote from a news commentary on an allocution by Pope Francis to the effect that the head of the Catholic Church had abolished the natural law.   Not all of the natural law, of course, just the part that some people disagreed with and needed some credible authority to back them up regarding the alleged abolition of private property by Pope Francis (or any other pope).   Specifically,

There is a problem with having government pay for infrastructure . . . especially when we expect government to pay for everything else!   Of course, what is really at issue is that “the government” doesn’t actually pay for anything.   Either it collects taxes or borrows money . . . which it is supposed to repay by collecting taxes.

In the opening of A Tale of Two Cities , Charles Dickens noted that the French Revolution was a time so like his own day as to be practically indistinguishable.   Although Dickens was employing a literary device to bring the reader into the story, a similar observation could be made comparing the early twentieth century to the present time.

Many people think that replacement of human labor by capital and the alienation and social disintegration that results is a new thing.   It is not.    Economic and social alienation due to advancing technologies or changing economies has been around since the dawn of time.   It is just that the rate at which change occurs started accelerating about five hundred years ago.   For this, two factors are responsible.