The Church, ''Social Justice'' and ''Rights''

by Rev. Dr. John Williams

The Rev. Dr. John William is a Uniting Church minister and author
of numerous articles on theological, economic and educational themes.

In 1984 the US National Conference of Catholic Bishops published the first draft of a pastoral letter on the US economy.  That draft generated controversy both in ecclesiastical and in academic circles.  Two years were spent refining the arguments proffered in the letter, taking into account some of the criticisms the first draft had received.  The fourth and final draft was published in November 1986:  Economic Justice for All:  Catholic Social Teaching and the US Economy. ⁽¹⁾

THIS final draft has likewise been subject to considerable comment, both laudatory and condemnatory, from numerous individuals and organisations, particularly from Catholic and other Christians enjoying expertise in academic disciplines relevant to the issues addressed in the pastoral. ⁽²⁾

These comments, both critical and supportive, illustrate the wide divergence between Christian economic perspectives.

The economist (and practising Lutheran) Paul Heyne ⁽³⁾ states that "the fact of such conflicting visions disturbs ... few of those theologians who continue to draft or endorse new church pronouncements on the economy."  It is profoundly to be desired that the Australian Catholic bishops prove an exception to what Heyne states, and observation suggests, is the norm.  The Church, and indeed the nation, are poorer for a lack of creative interchange between Christians holding radically diverse social and economic visions.

Significant also is the conviction of many committed believers in both the USA and Canada ⁽⁴⁾ that the vision of a "just" and "good" society they hold and defend, a vision usually described as "classical liberalism," either went unheard, or was grossly misunderstood and misrepresented by their bishops.  Such indifference they regard as unjust and, indeed, intellectually irresponsible.

For better or for worse, a "classical liberal" vision of the "just" and "good" society has enjoyed a virtual renaissance in many economic, historical, and philosophical circles over the past 15 years.  To ignore, to misrepresent, or lightly to label as "unchristian" such a vision invites the charge of injustice and exacerbates a distressing pastoral situation.

The Church and the nation would be enriched if in the course of their report the Australian bishops were:

• to draw attention to the diverse visions of the "just" society competing for the allegiance of believers and other people of good will;
• to acknowledge that the theological, philosophical, historical and economic differences informing these diverse visions are not easily resolved, let alone ranked in terms of "Christian acceptability";
• to encourage a more intense but less rancorous interchange between Christians who believe that faith demands that they take seriously the material needs of human beings, but differ in their visions as to what constitutes and how best to achieve a "just" social and economic order.

ON JUSTICE

Many social and economic statements by mainstream denominational and ecumenical bodies make extensive use of the term "justice" and its cognates, particularly the expressions "social", "economic" and "distributive" justice.

The US Catholic bishops in chapter two of their pastoral letter, "The (sic) Christian Vision of Economic Life," develop and defend a concept of "justice" allegedly derived from biblical materials, the writings of some scholastic philosophers, papal encyclicals, and, so some scholars have argued, a "lively awareness" of the analysis of "justice" proffered by the contemporary US philosopher John Rawls. ⁽⁵⁾

It is a shame that the bishops do not make greater use of the philosophical and theological tradition which, in a sense, is their birthright.

This tradition defines "distributive justice" as the specie of justice dealing with the distribution of common goods, having nothing whatsoever to do with the distribution of wealth or of income, let alone with such issues as wages, profits, and interest.  These issues are discussed with considerable sophistication by the schoolmen under the heading at commutative justice. ⁽⁶⁾  Yet instead of drawing upon this tradition, the bishops advance what Paul Heyne describes as a "hodgepodge of citations (from diverse sources) ... mixed with ringing assertions about dignity and justice which could only be questioned by someone who wanted to know exactly what they mean." ⁽⁷⁾  The outcome is a model of "distributive justice" far removed from that of the schoolmen and eeriely reminiscent of that defended by John Rawls and vigorously attacked by Rawls' Harvard colleague Robert Nozick in his justly famous volume Anarchy, State and Utopia. ⁽⁸⁾

It may be useful briefly to indicate their respective stances.

Rawls provides an end-pattern analysis of (distributive) justice.  A distribution of wealth or income is "just" to the extent that it complies with a predetermined, ideal distribution exhibiting particular characteristics.  Rawls argues that a distribution is "just" if it approximates to the distribution which derives from what he calls two basic "principles" of justice.  These principles in turn derive from an ingenious use of what in effect is the "starting point" of social contract theorists such as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau.

What is significant, however, is that Rawls develops and defends the view that the "justice" or "injustice" of a distribution of wealth and income is determined by the congruence with or departure from a predetermined, ideal "pattern" of distribution. ⁽⁹⁾

Nozick, in addition to subjecting Rawls' position and, indeed, other "end-pattern" analyses of "distributive justice" to powerful criticisms, gives an "entitlement" (or what some philosophers have called a "procedural") analysis of "distributive justice".

The "justice" or otherwise of a given distribution of wealth or income is, on such an analysis, determined by reference to the behaviour which generates the distribution.  What matters is not any internal characteristic of a distribution of wealth or of income -- the distribution's "pattern" -- but how a person has acquired his or her holdings and income.  Nozick posits two foci:  "original acquisition" and subsequent exchanges of goods and services.  Specifically, if a person's original possessions and skills were "justly" acquired, and such exchanges as subsequently occurred between that person and his or her fellows were also "just" (minimally, not involving actual or threatened violence theft, or fraud) the resulting wealth or income distribution is "just".

A singer enjoys, let us say, an annual income of $1,000,000.  A magician, who practises even more diligently than does the singer and is equally devoted both to his "art" and to bringing pleasure to his audiences, endures an income of $5,000 per annum.  Is this distribution "just"?

An analysis of "distributive justice" in terms of an "end-pattern" -- a pattern stressing, say, "an absence of substantial inequalities" -- may well lead one to describe the distribution as "unjust".  The singer's income is, after all, two hundred times that of the magician.

An analysis of "distributive justice" in terms of "entitlements" or "procedures" would look not at the pattern of the distribution but at the events which led to the magician and the singer acquiring their respective holdings and incomes.  If a large number of people preferred to surrender substantial sums of money to enjoy the singer's performance rather than to retain that money or spend it in other ways, but few people similarly so chose in the case of the magician, no "injustice" is involved.  People have "justly" used what is "justly" theirs, surrendering what they value less to acquire and enjoy what they value more.  The magician may well deplore his fellow human beings' tastes and choices, but that is all.  The respective distributions, in no way involving actual or threatened violence, theft or fraud, are "just".

Nozick carefully distinguishes between "deserts" and "entitlements".  The recipient of inherited wealth may not, as is often pointed out, "deserve" that wealth.  Yet according to Nozick, he or she may well have "justly acquired" that wealth.  If the original holder of that wealth "justly" acquired it, it is owned by that person.  The verb "to own" signifies liberty to use that wealth, and to dispose of that wealth, as is chosen.

A further example may clarify the distinction.  A man enjoys two healthy kidneys.  His sister possesses but one failing kidney.  The logic of Rawls' argument seemingly leads one to conclude that, in the name of "distributive justice", the man should be forced to surrender one kidney -- assuming that his so surrendering has no significant effects for him or for "society".  He is no worse off and his sister is better off.

Nozick would insist that neither party "deserves" his or her respective situation.  Should the fortunate party surrender a kidney, make possible a transplant, and improve the situation of his sister, his action is one of "charity", not a dictate of "distributive justice".  In Jesus' metaphor, the man has gone "the second mile."  His behaviour is the result of a charitable compulsion no law could prescribe.

These summaries of Rawls' and Nozick's positions over-simplify two subtle and superbly-argued cases.  Yet at least they define two radically diverse analyses of "distributive justice" which any responsible discussion of this concept must involve.

SCHOLASTICISM AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

It is frequently claimed that medieval scholasticism embraced an "end-pattern" analysis of distributive justice.  It is thus to be expected, so some critics of the Canadian and US bishops' statements have claimed, that the "procedural" analysis of "distributive justice" defended by Nozick and other classical liberals inevitably received little or no hearing.

Whether or not this assertion does "justice" to the bishops' deliberations can be debated.  What is not up for debate, however, is that many medieval schoolmen, when discussing issues today related to "distributive" or "economic" justice, were much closer to Nozick than they were to Rawls.  Questions about the distribution of wealth, income, wages, profits and interest were analysed in terms of commutative justice, not distributive justice.  This claim is defended at length in footnote ⁽¹⁰⁾.

SCRIPTURE AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

The US bishops, in developing an "end-pattern" analysis of "economic" justice, further claim that such an analysis is demanded by the scriptures.  Sadly, their exegesis of scripture, like that of liberation theologians such as Gustavo Gutiérrez and Juan Luis Segundo, "political theologians" such as Jurgen Moltmann and Jean Baptist Metz, and "liberated evangelicals" such as Ronald Sider, leaves much to be desired.

If one isolates all biblical Hebrew and Greek words appropriately translated by "justice" and its cognates, three conclusions are inescapable.

First, the most frequent use of such terms relates to "individual virtue," a concept roughly approximating to Aristotle's and Aquinas' notion of "universal justice."  Noah is described as a "just man, a man of integrity among his contemporaries" (Genesis, 6:9b).  According to Ezekiel, the "just man" is law-abiding and honest, worships only the God of Israel, observes religiously-sanctioned proscriptions and taboos, and shares of his own [that is, "justly acquired"] possessions with the poor (Ezekiel 18:5ff).

Second, the biblical writers use concepts akin to Aristotle's analyses of "retributive" and "commutative" justice.  Courts must not be "partial to the poor nor over-awed by the great:  [Israelites] must pass judgement on [their] neighbour according to justice" (Leviticus, 19:15, cf. Exodus, 23:3).  Weights and measures used in person-to-person exchanges must be "just":  "Your legal verdicts, your measures -- length, weight and capacity -- must all be just.  Your scales and weights must be just, a just ephah and a just hin."  (Leviticus 19:35f).  This insistence is given very down-to-earth expression by the author of Deuteronomy, who bluntly states that the Israelites must not have "two kinds of weights in their bag;  one heavy and one light" (25:13).  The equality of all -- aliens and natives -- before the law finds repeated reference (cf, Leviticus 24:22 and Numbers 9:14).  The "shepherds" (rulers), "interpreters of the law," and the wealthy are again and again castigated because they conspire to pervert justice, creating one law for the politically and economically powerful and another law for the poor and the outcast.

Third, conspicuous by its absence, however, is any use of a single word appropriately translated by "justice" and its cognates referring to any "pattern" of wealth or income distribution.  No concept remotely akin to the "end-pattern" analysis of "distributive justice" as advocated by Aristotle in Book V of his Nichomachean Ethics or by John Rawls or even by the Catholic bishops of Canada and the USA can be found in scripture.

Rather, the biblical writers adopt a position remarkably akin to that of Nozick.  The "justice" or "injustice" of a distribution of wealth is related back to the behaviour giving birth to the distribution.  If that behaviour was in accord with general rules of just conduct equally applicable to all, the resulting distribution is "just".  If the "rights" of widows and orphans had been trampled upon by the powerful, and different rules applied to the wealthiest and the poorest, the distribution is "unjust".

Clearly, ancient Israel also embraced institutionalised means for assisting the poorest.  While -- contrary to the claims of some Christians attempting to derive an "end-pattern" analysis of distributive justice from the scriptures -- the "annual tithe" prescribed for Israelites was not primarily a "welfare" measure, a further tithe, exacted every third year, was, in part, used to assist the poorest.

[The annual tithe funded (a) a yearly national festival involving feasting by all (Deuteronomy 12:10-28;  14:22-27) and (b) the Levites (Numbers 18:24).  Farmers were required to let the poor "glean" crops or fruit remaining after harvesting (Leviticus 19:9-10;  Deuteronomy 24:19-21) -- a practice more akin to "workfare" than "welfare", as those terms are used today.

Loans to fellow Israelites were interest-free and were cancelled at the end of every seven years (Deuteronomy 15:1-2), but the criteria as to who qualified for such a loan were stringent, a poor person being defined as a person owning no more than one cloak (Exodus 22:26-27).  The much cited "law of the Jubilee" was not designed to alleviate poverty as such:  on this matter David Chilton, in a thoroughly unpleasant volume entitled Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators ⁽¹¹⁾ corrects some very dubious exegesis.]

The primary problem, however, is that ancient Israel was a theocratic state, not a pluralist let alone "multi-cultural" society.  The Israelites were a "covenanted people" in a sense that Australians are not, and given a free society and pluralism, cannot be.  No clear distinction can be made between an ancient Israelite's moral, religious, and legal obligations.  Such a distinction must be made in a pluralist, non-theocratic society.  Unfortunately, the US Catholic bishops -- and, ironically, Christians of the so-called "New Religious Right" such as David Chilton -- fail seriously to consider this distinction.

JUSTICE AND THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE

What, however, is so unacceptable about an "end-pattern" analysis of distributive justice?

Many references cited under (2) and (9) involve arguments for the inadequacy of such an analysis.  One particular line of argument, however, merits statement.

Nicholas Rescher attempts in his carefully argued volume Distributive Justice ⁽¹²⁾ to defend an "end-pattern" analysis of distributive justice.  He realises, as do thoughtful defenders of such an analysis, that a pattern based upon "but one, solitary, homogeneous mode of claim production" is profoundly unjust.  A "just" pattern of wealth distribution must be related to a multitude of human characteristics:  "basic ... human equality, needs, sacrifices, achievements, efforts, productivity, contribution to the "common good" and a valuation of individuals' services in terms of their scarcity in the economic world of supply and demand."

In a small, closely-knit society -- a family, say, or a school-class -- it might be possible to "reward" individuals by reference to these characteristics.  Such, however, is not feasible in a large, complex, pluralist and changing society characterised by a division of labour and specialisation even Adam Smith could not have imagined.  The information necessary to calculate an individual's "just" reward is simply not accessible.

One can make the essential point another way.  Children are prone to complain of two, seemingly contradictory, sorts of "unfairness" or "injustice" allegedly exhibited by their parents or teachers.  It may be claimed that the parent has a "favourite" or that the teacher has a "pet".  What is given to or tolerated in one child is not given to or tolerated in another.  This discriminatory behaviour is decried as "unjust".  The same rules should apply to all.

Yet, precisely the opposite behaviour is condemned as unfair or as unjust!  It is "unfair" that Joan, whose father is a drunkard and whose mother works as a waitress from 1:00 pm until 9:00 pm, should be penalised for not investing as much time in her homework as does William.  "Justice" demands that individual circumstances are taken into consideration.

Since the days of Aristotle, these diverse uses have been reconciled by the formula, "Treat equals equally, unequals unequally."  Yet when contemplating a large, complex, and rapidly changing society the formula is useless.

Given such a society, the first sense of "justice" indicated can be realised.  Individuals can all be subject to known rules of conduct equally applicable to all.

In a large, complex, rapidly changing, pluralist society, there is no counterpart to a parent or teacher who knows the peculiar situation of individuals.  Indeed, given human finitude, no such counterpart is possible.  Transferring "justice" as treatment appropriate to an individual's unique situation from the small social group to "society as a whole" involves a category mistake.

The best "justice" available to fallible, finite human beings is the justice of known general rules, equally applicable to all and impartially applied to all.  A distribution is "just" if it is generated by individuals' "just" behaviour, minimally, behaviour not involving actual or threatened violence, theft or fraud.

Friedrich A. Hayek has eloquently defended this understanding of "justice". ⁽¹³⁾  His detailed arguments deserve serious consideration, but unfortunately cannot be easily summarised.  What is vital, however, is his stress on the purely general nature of laws.  "Just" laws involve no references to particular individuals or groups, are "impartial" between agents, and are "morally neutral" in the sense that they neither prescribe nor proscribe any non-coercive vision of the "good life". ⁽¹⁴⁾

It is important to stress that procedural justice is a necessary, albeit not sufficient, condition for the emergence of an economic system co-ordinated by market-determined, changing relative money prices.  Such "encode" in accessible form information unavailable to centralised, socialist "economic planners" -- information about diverse ordinal rankings of wants, skills embodied in and diffused among millions of people, rapidly changing technologies, and the ever-altering relative scarcities of raw materials.  In the absence of such information it is impossible for a community to know what is to be produced in what quantities and by what means.  Scarce resources are misallocated, making a mockery of any notion of responsible stewardship.  Put positively, economic activities co-ordinated by market-determined, changing relative money prices enable individuals to act in ways which benefit innumerable people they do not and cannot know:  they can "care for" people they do not and cannot in a personal sense "care about."  A rise in the money price of corn relative to wheat "tells" the farmer how to use resources in ways ultimately dictated by consumers. ⁽¹⁵⁾

Studying the writings of Western "free market" economists may seem a harsh penance.  A perusal of the Soviet economist N. Shmelyou's article "Advance and Debts" which appeared in the June 1987 issue of the Soviet economic and literary journal Novri Mir might prove less onerous.  The case for reliance upon freer markets and the distribution of wealth and of income effected by procedural as against "end-pattern" analyses of distributive justice is today finding cogent expression in the writings of several economists from the USSR and mainland China. ⁽¹⁶⁾

THE "GENERAL" NATURE OF LAW

There remains, however, something intuitively attractive, at least to men and women of good will, about a law which discriminates between the richest and the poorest, coercively transferring wealth from the former to the latter.

Yet such a law, identifying and discriminating between different sub-sets of a community, is, for the classical liberal, profoundly "unjust".  If discrimination is permitted, political considerations will determine who are the beneficiaries and who are the victims of such discrimination.  What, in principle, precludes laws which transfer wealth from the elderly to the young, from the lower-middle class to the upper-middle class, from Australians of Asian descent to Australians of Anglo-Saxon descent?

The problem is simple.  Given the legitimacy of laws transferring wealth from one sub-set of society to another, politicians, anxious to promote their own utility, can transfer wealth from people who do not know what they are paying to special interest groups knowing precisely what they are obtaining.  The "information-rich" benefit and the "information-poor" suffer.  The name of the political game becomes one of identifying, even creating, and advantaging sufficient special interest groups to secure election to office.

The "law of the political jungle" reasserts itself.  The world of class and caste and legally entrenched privilege against which the classical liberals of yesteryear fought re-emerges.  "Justice" removes her blindfold and peeks!  "Tell me who you are, and then I shall tell you your rights."  Inexorably, the politically strongest reach the government trough first;  the politically weakest are left with token scraps.  A class war between net tax consumers and net tax payers is generated.  The "welfare state", in which people own their justly acquired wealth and incomes but pay a share to government for common expenses and a "safety net" system of welfare, rapidly degenerates into the "redistributionist state", wealth initially secured and created by individuals being perceived as somehow belonging to all, governments deciding what income and what wealth an individual may enjoy.  The door to tyranny is opened.

In a very real sense, classical liberals take the doctrine of the fall seriously.  They seek to specify structures and institutions which minimise the evil the "worst" people could do, assuming that these "worst" people were to enjoy political and economic power.  Lord Acton made the point succinctly:  "The problem is not that a given class is not fit to govern.  No class is fit to govern."

No sub-set of the community can be entrusted with potentially unlimited power.  Not Plato's guardians.  Not an elite privy to Rousseau's "general will."  Not the 19th century "high" or "radical" Tory aristocrats.  Not Marx's class conscious workers and liberated intellectuals.  Not Nazism's hierarchy of fuehrers.  Not the majority of unrestrained democracy.  Not "born again" Christians.

But how to curb power?  One vital restraint is an insistence that rule must be by laws classically defined:  Known general principles of just conduct equally applicable to all in an unknown number of future instances.

HISTORIANS AND CLASSICAL LIBERALISM

Oddly, the case for an unfettered market economy, and thus, at least by implication, for a procedural analysis of justice, is being made today not only by numerous economists but by some very hard-nosed historians, including not a few disillusioned ex-Marxists.

Two economic historians recently wrote as follows:  "If we take the long view of human history and judge the economic lives of our ancestors by modern standards, it is a story of almost unrelieved wretchedness.  The typical human society has given only a small number of people a humane existence, while the great majority have lived in abysmal squalor.  We are led to forget the dominating misery of other times in part by the grace of literature, poetry, romance and legend, which celebrated those who lived well and forget those who lived in the silence of poverty.  The eras of misery have been mythologised and may even be remembered as golden ages of pastoral simplicity.  They were not." ⁽¹⁷⁾

The simple truth is that with the slow evolution of private property rights, the development of rule by general laws equally applicable to all and the procedural analysis of "distributive justice" such rule involves, the free market economy was born.  The economic lot of humanity was transformed.  Here the work of Fernand Braudel is vital. ⁽¹⁸⁾  So is Jean Baechler's. ⁽¹⁹⁾  Helpful also is Gertrude Himmelfarb's The Idea of Poverty:  England in the Early Industrial Age. ⁽²⁰⁾  Such works must be heeded.

Ironically, with the free market the "problem" of poverty came into existence.  For most of human history poverty and destitution were simply realities to be accepted, not problems to be solved.  Water flows downhill.  The grass is green.  The sun rises in the morning.  The life of the vast majority of human beings is a ceaseless and often futile struggle for bare survival.  Facts -- or so it was thought.  The free market, where and when it has been allowed to operate, has made material abundance the norm, departures from which puzzle and perplex.

It is, surely, anything but clear that, in the name of a philosophical and biblically suspect concept of "distributive justice," the Church should ignore the material abundance even a fettered free market makes possible.

Consider a simple case study.  Tanzania once exported maise.  In the name of "Christian socialism" a good, kind, and compassionate ruler, Julius Nyerere, collectivised agriculture.  Within 15 years, Tanzania was reduced to dependence on foreign aid for the most basic of foodstuffs.  In fact, Tanzania received, during the years Nyerere held office, more foreign aid per capita than did any other Third World nation.  By 1975 almost half the more than 300 industries Nyerere nationalised were bankrupt.  Productive output per capita dropped some 50 per cent.  The bureaucracy grew at the rate of 14 per cent per annum, doubling in less than a decade.  Nyerere said "No!" to transnational corporations in general and to "international agribusiness" in particular, the old alibis thus failing.  A once-prosperous nation was almost reduced to destitution.  And all in the name of an end-pattern analysis of "distributive justice."

The story is not, alas, sui generis.  Sri Lanka exhibited the same appalling decline in ordinary people's standard of living, although abandonment of socialist principles in 1977 by J.R. Jayawadene's government was rapidly followed by a dramatic increase in gross domestic product.  Numerous similar cases are cited by the Swedish economist Sven Rydenfelt in his recent volume, A Pattern for Failure. ⁽²¹⁾  Commitment to an "end-pattern" analysis of distributive justice has frequently proved a commitment to equality in destitution.

RIGHTS

In the course of their pastoral letter, the US bishops refer frequently to "human rights."  They clearly value such traditional "rights" as the rights to free speech and freedom of worship.  They also refer to "economic rights," and urge that such "rights" be added to those enumerated in the US Bill of Rights.  "First among these are the rights to life, food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, and basic education."

"Economic rights," the bishops acknowledge, "... call for a mode of implementation different from that required to secure civil and political rights.  Freedom of worship and of speech imply immunity from interference on the part of both other people and the government.  The rights to education, employment, and social security, however ... call for positive action by individuals and society at large."

The distinction made by the bishops is vital.

Substantial disagreements between philosophers attend the very notion of "human rights," as is shown by a perusal of the writings of the sub-set of contemporary philosophers defending the reality of such "rights". ⁽²²⁾  Yet some points of agreement obtain.

First, a "human right" is a right existing independently of government which government "should" recognise.  Second, a "human right" does not derive from contracts made between consenting and informed individuals, such as the "right" of an electrician to an agreed upon payment and the "right" of his client to efficiently installed lighting.  Third, "human rights" allegedly are grounded in "human nature," deriving from a "shared humanity," a "universal human essence."

Traditionally, "human rights" have been understood negatively.  A person's right to free speech signifies merely that a person is not obligated to refrain from speaking.  Other people are obligated not to force that person to refrain from speaking.  They are not, however, obligated to provide that person with a rostrum and audience.  An individual's "right to property" signifies simply that he or she is not obligated to refrain from peaceful behaviour the object of which is the acquisition of property (say, a wrist-watch) and is not obligated to surrender property so acquired.  Other people are obligated not to force him or her to refrain from peaceful property-seeking behaviour or to surrender his or her property -- the wrist-watch.  They are not, however, obligated to provide that watch!  Traditionally understood, "human rights" demand, as the bishops put it, simply "immunity from interference."

The bishops' concept of "economic rights" does not, as they freely acknowledge, fit these criteria.  They do not, however, seem to realise how difficult it is rationally to defend what "economic rights" imply, particularly the conclusion that a sub-set of the community is obligated to surrender, and perhaps even to produce, goods and services expropriated and transferred to another sub-set of the community.

Consider the difference between "natural rights" as traditionally defined and "economic rights."

First.  Joe Citizen, it is claimed, has a "natural right" to the goods and services requisite for a secure and moderately comfortable existence in good health.  His fellow citizens are thus obligated not simply to refrain from interfering with Joe's self-initiated, purposeful behaviour but are positively obligated to provide the goods and services his alleged "right" demands.  The alleged right is derived not from what Joe Citizen and his fellows have in common, but from what they do not have in common, namely, wealth above a specified level.

(In fact, that statement of the situation presupposes the benign stance of the bishops.  As argued under the heading "The 'general' nature of law", the identity of the beneficiaries and the victims of such "rights" is of necessity determined politically.)

Second.  Traditionally, "human rights" are declared to be universal, deriving from the common nature of all people at all times.  It seems at least odd to suggest that a cave man somehow enjoyed, as do his descendants, a "right" or a "natural entitlement" to a good education.

Third.  By a highly improbable but logically possible shared act of will, all violations of all the world's inhabitants' "natural rights" could be ended.  All the inhabitants of earth might agree never to initiate invasive or coercive actions against their fellow.  Obviously, no such act of will could immediately bring to an end all violations of people's alleged "economic rights."  A massive increase in wealth would be required.

Fourth.  Traditional human rights do not generate zero or negative sum games.  Joe Citizen's not being assaulted in no way implies that someone else has been or will be assaulted.  "Economic rights" do generate zero or negative sum games.  If Joe Citizen is somehow "entitled" to goods he in no way created, someone somewhere has either to surrender those goods or engage in involuntary servitude to produce them.

The underlying logic of the situation can be simply described.  Any "right" -- assuming that the expression "I have a right to X" signifies something more than "I want X!" -- implies a correlative obligation.  My right not to be assaulted or robbed obligates other people to leave me and my justly acquired goods alone.  My right as party to a contract with an electrician to competently installed lighting obligates me to pay the electrician the sum of money the contract specified.  An "economic right" to employment obligates someone somewhere to provide a job and pay a wage.

The reality of contracted obligations is hardly debatable.  More difficult, but still possible, is the development of a moral case for the basic "natural right" to non-interference.  (As a first move, one can note that the onus of proof would seem to lie with people claiming that a sub-set of human beings, defined by breeding, race, intelligence, income, religious commitment or whatever, are somehow entitled coercively to curb the peaceful, self-initiated behaviour of their fellows.)

But how does one even begin to defend the claim that one set of human beings is obligated to surrender, or by involuntary servitude to produce, goods to which another set of human beings allegedly is "naturally" entitled?  Gerwich and Finnis have brilliantly attempted to articulate such a defence, but their critics have not found it difficult to demolish that aspect of their respective arguments. ⁽²³⁾

Christians and other men and women of good will may regard a question about the "obligation" of the talented and wealthy to provide goods and services for the simple and poor as in itself evidence of moral depravity.  Is it not morally self-evident that the Good Samaritan who gave of his time and wealth to assist a hurting person correctly perceived a moral obligation culpably ignored by those who passed by a suffering human being?  Is it not morally self-evident that "the just [person] ... gives of his [or her] own bread to the hungry ...?"  (Ezekiel 18:7).

Yet, as Professor Geoffrey Brennan has argued, ⁽²⁴⁾ while all "rights" imply correlative obligations, not all obligations imply correlative rights.  The obligations of Christian charity go beyond any "right" of a person to agape -- to Christian love.  This is precisely what Jesus meant when he advocated going the "second mile" (Matthew 5:41) -- that is, going beyond what Roman law did command or any law could command.

"Yet surely Christians are obligated to do what they can to ameliorate destitution, and to identify, and if able, to destroy, the causes of destitution!"

Believers maybe are so obligated.  Yet that obligation does not imply a "natural right" of those upon whose behalf Christians make their sacrifices and efforts.  Maybe people who, unlike the Good Samaritan, pass by the wounded traveller, are subject to moral censure.  Yet to affirm that is not to posit some mysterious "right," enforceable by law, of the wounded traveller to his fellows' solicitude.

Aquinas insisted that not all moral precept could or indeed should be backed by positive laws.  The late Hispanic scholastics were utterly clear on two issues.  First, since wealth acquired without "fraud, lies or extortion" justly and rightly belongs to those acquiring it, any alleged positive right of the needy to a share of this wealth is precluded.  Second, what is not precluded is the moral obligation of those enjoying such wealth to exercise charity.

The irony is that classical liberals perceive many substantial incomes today enjoyed and much wealth today accrued as unjustly enjoyed and accrued.  Most governmental interventions in the market benefit the powerful and disadvantage the "marginalised."  Tariffs.  Quotas.  Price support schemes.  Agricultural subsidies.  Minimum wage laws.  Occupational licensing laws.  Egg, wool, and wheat boards.  An objective analysis of the "wealth distribution" influenced by such coercive governmental mechanisms has led many self-styled "socialists" to embrace the so-called "capture theory" of regulation defended by the Nobel Prize-winning economist, George J. Stigler. ⁽²⁶⁾  Hence the programmes of de-regulation being implemented by "socialist" governments in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere.

Yet further governmental intervention is not warranted.  A greater reliance upon the primary source of injustice to remedy injustice is absurd.  Inexorably, the growth of government leads to the emergence of the corporate state, reminiscent of the mercantilist economy against which Adam Smith and his successors so valiantly fought and which 20th century fascists lauded.

Yet a real problem exists.  Traditional Catholic social teaching from the encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) until Quadragesimo Anno (1931) has been critical of classical liberalism.  A compelling case can be made, however, for asserting that this opposition was largely caused by the bitter anti-clericalism of such French classical liberals as Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer.  A no less compelling case exists for noting that papal antagonism to a free market economy largely rested upon a failure extending from Leo XII to Pius XI to distinguish between laissez-faire capitalism and state capitalism. ⁽²⁷⁾

CONCLUSION

Urging the Catholic bishops of Australia to explore abstract conceptual distinctions about the nature of "justice" and of "rights" may seem almost blasphemous.  Poverty at home and abroad is an all too obvious reality.

Yet Jesus' parable of the "Judgement of the Nations" is terrifying in its implications.  One such implication is that those wishing to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the destitute, may not, by a sin of intellectual omission, opt and work for "solutions" which in truth exacerbate the problem.  Dove-like gentleness must be accompanied by serpentine wisdom.

Scripture demands that the Church listen to the victims of poverty and oppression.  They, and they alone, truly know their pain and uniquely can witness to their pain.  Yet it does not follow that such people can best identify the causes of, and prescribe the remedy for, their hurting.  Taking "this world" seriously demands taking "this-worldly" disciplines seriously.  The doctor who tells a person in pain that his or her pain is not real is a fool.  The hurting know their hurt.  Yet academic expertise has a place in identifying the causes of and cures for that hurting.

The Catholic Church enjoys an awesome heritage stressing the importance of conceptual clarity and subtle distinctions.  One can but hope and pray that the Australian bishops, in the spirit of that heritage, will listen to and learn from economists, economic historians and philosophers whose Christian commitment and academic expertise lead them to defend a socio-economic stance today honoured in many academic circles, but all too often caricatured and summarily dismissed by the Church.

Hence the three pleas noted at the beginning of this submission.

• Draw attention to and clarify the nature of the significant visions of the "just" society today competing for the allegiance of Christians and other people of good will.
• Make clear to your flock, and straying Protestant and self-styled humanist sheep, the economic, historical, philosophic and theological arguments informing these diverse visions, and concede that these arguments are not easily resolved.
• Encourage and initiate a more intense but less rancorous discussion between Christians who agree that the doctrine of creation, and the reality of the Word becoming flesh, imply a commitment to take this world, and the material needs of humanity, seriously, but who honestly disagree as to how such a commitment is to be expressed.

One more plea.  A brilliant young US economist who takes both his discipline and his Christian commitment seriously, has stated, "I do not know what to do.  The economics of my Church's bishops is to serious economics as the "creation science" of fundamentalist protestants is to serious biology.  I'm hurting."  His "hurting" and that of other like-minded economists certainly takes a different form from that of the poor and oppressed.  It must not, however, cavalierly be dismissed.

The Anglican Archbishop William Temple once declared that "socialism is the economic realisation of the Gospel."  Many contemporary Christians echo that declaration.  Christians embracing classical liberalism make no such claim.  They argue merely that classical liberalism is congruent with the gospel.

Whether or not the Catholic bishops of Australia are convinced by the economic, historical, and philosophical considerations that have led many Christians to embrace classical liberalism is not important.  What is important is that their case be at least considered and their integrity respected.

---

FOOTNOTES

1.  The complete text of the letter is available in Gannon, T.M., (ed), The Catholic Challenge to the US Economy (New York:  Macmillan, 1987).

2.  For example, Gannon, T.M., (ed) ibid;  Rasmussen, D. and Sterba, J., The Catholic Bishops and the Economy:  A Debate (New Brunswick:  Transaction Books, 1987);  Block, W., The US Bishops and their Critics:  An Economic and Ethical Perspective, (Vancouver:  the Fraser Institute, 1986);  Freeman, R.A., Does America Neglect Its Poor? (Stanford:  Hoover Institution, 1987);  Toward the Future:  Catholic Social Thought and the US Economy -- A Lay Letter (Lay Commission on Catholic Social Teaching and the US Economy, 1984);  Royal, R., Challenge and Response:  Critiques of the Catholic Bishops Draft Letter on the US Economy, (Washington DC, Ethics and Public Policy Centre, 1985);  Heyne, P., Christianity and "the Economy", (This World, Winter, 1988), pp. 26-39;  Pavlischek, K.J., The Ethics and Economics of "Workplace Democracy":  A Response to the Catholic Bishops (This World, Spring 1988) pp. 46-58;  The Catholic Bishops' Pastoral and the American Economy:  A Symposium (This World, Winter 1985) pp. 9-117.

3.  Heyne, P., ibid, p. 26.

4.  Ethical Reflections on the Economic Crisis (Episcopal Commission for Social Affairs of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops:  5 January 1983).  For criticisms of this statement see, Economics and the Canadian Bishops:  A Symposium (This World, Spring/Summer 1983) pp. 122-145;  Block W., On Economics and the Canadian Bishops (Vancouver:  The Fraser Institute, 1983.)

5.  Rawls, J., A Theory of Justice (Cambridge:  Harvard University Press, 1971).

6.  Obviously the writings of Aquinas here are crucial.  Yet the economically sophisticated writings of Saint Bernardino of Siena, Saint Antonino of Florence, Joannis Gerson, Conradus Summenhart, and Sylvestre de Priero also merit close study.  The better known works of Cajetan (Cardinal Tomas de Vio) represent the bridge between these Scholastics and their later Hispanic followers.

7.  Heyne, P., op cit, p. 27.

8.  Nozick, R., Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York:  Basic Books, 1974).

9.  It may be objected that this description of Rawls' position overly simplifies a subtle and sophisticated case.  One problem, however, facing both a defender and critic of Rawls is that his position is remarkably opaque.

10.  Raymond de Roover, perhaps the most knowledgeable authority in his day on the subject of medieval scholastic economics, reached a different conclusion.  Yet de Roover was in error.  He ascribed the term "social justice" to the scholastics, even though no expression they used can be so translated.  He asserted that the schoolmen utilised the concept of "distributive justice" in their discussions of the distribution of wealth and of income, of wages (stipendium), of profits (lucrum) and of interest (usaris).  They did not.  Such economic concepts they analysed under the heading of "commutative justice" -- that is, the fairness or otherwise of voluntary exchanges between consenting and informed adults.  See de Roover, R,, "Monopoly Theory Prior to Adam Smith:  A Revision" (Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1951) p. 495.

Aquinas insists that "distributive justice" relates only to "common goods" and, in democracy, is effected "according to liberty" [Summa Theologica, Latin text and English translation (London:  Blackfriars, 1975), II-II, qu. 61, art. 1.]  The distribution of wealth or of income typically comes under the heading of commutative, not distributive, justice.  Distributive justice relates merely to "common goods" -- and, be it noted, Aquinas and his late Hispanic successors did not primarily mean by that term "state-owned" goods.  Indeed, the late Hispanic scholastics anticipated several arguments against the economic wisdom of "state-owned" goods proffered by so fervent a defender of the free market economy as Rothbard, M.N., Man, Economy and State (Los Angeles:  Nash, 1962), pp. 883-889.  Usually by "common goods" the scholastics referred to goods owned by a family or a voluntary association.

By "commutative justice" Aquinas and his successors signify exchanges "freely taking place between two persons" (Aquinas, op cit, II-II, qu. 61, art. 3).  Since profits fall under the heading of commutative justice, such profits are "just" when they are the outcome of buying and selling at "just prices," these prices being those realised when exchanges are effected between buyers and sellers acting voluntarily -- id est. realised in the absence of coercion, fraud or monopoly.  Duns Scotus attempted to modify this free-market stance, arguing that although manufacturers and tradesmen might "justly" acquire profits, the "good prince" -- government -- should coercively act to correct any "unjust" profit (Cuestiones sutilisima sobre las Sentencias (Antwerp:  1620), p. 509.  Mercilessly, however, Scotus' successors employed powerful arguments against this opening for governmental intervention, insisting that the "just" price is and can only be determined by uncoerced market exchanges of goods and services.

Even the "Dries" of Australian politics might well gag at the conclusions the late scholastic philosophers drew from their careful uses of words translated by the English word "justice" and its cognates.

According to Domingo de Soto, "every individual has the right to transfer his property through gambling."  The gambler's profits derive from commutative justice -- voluntary contract.  The gambler's "profits" and resultant wealth are thus "justly" derived.  "Do ut des meaning:  I risk my wealth so that you in turn, will chance yours ... An economic action should not be condemned because its results depend on good fortune (and only known to God ...)  [M]any licit businessmen are trusted to the uncertainties of fortune" (cited by Chafuen, A.A., An Inquiry into the Medieval Doctrine of the Just Price, Ph.D. Thesis, (Los Angeles;  International College, 1984).

Wage determination, for the late scholastics, is also a matter of commutative justice.  After reading some of their writings on this subject, one finds oneself regarding the proceedings of the inaugural meeting of the H.R. Nicholls Society 28 as extremely restrained.

Discussions of this vexed question are usually found in the medieval schoolmen's discussions of "rent" (lacotiane).  Luis de Molina argues that "[in] addition to renting his belongings and the things someone gave him to rent, one can also hire himself out ..." (De Iustitia, Disp. 486, col. 1064).  The "just" wage is typically equated with the "just" price -- that is, the wage established between consenting parties.  Aquinas argued that wages are the natural remuneration for labour "almost as if it were the price of same" (Quasi quoddam pretium ipsius, Summa Theologica, I-II, qu. 114, art. 5, 4 resp).  De Molina insisted that relating a "just wage" to a worker's "needs" involved injustice:  "[A wage is not] unjust ... even though the servant may barely support himself and live a miserable life with this wage ... [The employer] is obligated to pay only the just wage for his services ... not what is sufficient for his sustenance and much less for the maintenance of his children and family" (De Iustica et lure, col. 1147).

Domingo de Soto tersely states that an employee receiving a wage insufficient for his and his family's well-being has one remedy at hand:  Et ideo si non vis illo pretio servire, abi ("If you do not want to serve for that salary, leave!" (De Iustitia et lure, book V, qu. III, art. 3, fol. 150.)

It is little short of tragic that the Catholic bishops of Canada and the USA seemingly have, like Esau of old, bartered away their scholastic birthright.  Keynesian bread and Rawlsian lentils are a sorry substitute for an awesome and insightful tradition.

11.  Chilton, D., Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators (Tyler:  Institute for Christian Economics, 1985).

12.  Rescher, N., Distributive Justice, (New York:  Bobbs-Merril, 1966).

13.  Hayek, F.A., Law, Legislation and Liberty, volume two, The Mirage of Social Justice (Chicago:  Chicago University Press, 1976).  Cf. Gray, J., Hayek on Liberty (Oxford:  Basil Blackwell, 1984);  Butler, E., Hayek:  His Contribution to the Political and Economic Thought of Our Time (London:  Temple Smith, 1983);  Walker, G., The Ethics of F.A. Hayek (Lanham:  University Press of America, 1986).  Cf. Dietze, G., Two Concepts of the Rule of Law (Indianapolis:  Liberty press, 1973);  Leoni, B., Freedom and the Law (Los Angeles, Nash Publishing, 1972);  Coleman, J. and Paul, E.F., Philosophy and Law (eds) (Oxford:  Basil Blackwell, 1987).

14.  Gray, J., "F.A. Hayek and the Rebirth of Classical Liberalism" (Literature of Liberty, Winter 1982), pp.  52f.

15.  Peter Rutland, a self-styled socialist, argues that only a "Hayekian" free market "socialises" information:  see The Myth of the Plan (La Salle:  pen Court, 1985).  Cf. Lavoie, National Economic Planning:  What is Left? (New York:  Harper and Row, 1985).

16.  Xu, D., et al, (eds) China's Search for Economic Growth (Beijing:  New World Press, 1982).

17.  Rosenberg, N. and Birdzell, L,, How the West Grew Rich:  The Economic Transformation of the Industrial World (New York:  Basic Books, 1986).

18.  Braudel, F., Civilisation and Capitalism:  15-18th Century, three volumes, trans Sian Reynolds (New York:  Harper and Row, 1984).

19.  Baechler, J., The Origins of Capitalism, trans, B. Cooper, (Oxford:  Basil Blackwell, 1975).

20.  Himmelfarb, G., The Idea of Poverty:  England in the Early Industrial Age (New York:  Random House, 1985).

21.  Rydenfelt, S., A Pattern for Failure (New York:  Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984).

22.  Gerwirth, A., Reason and Morality (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1981);  Nozick, R, Anarchy, State and Utopia (Oxford:  Basil Blackwell, 1974);  Veatch, Henry R., Human Rights:  Fact or Fancy? (Baton Rouge:  Louisiana State University Press, 1986);  Finnis, J., Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1980);  Thompson, Judith J., Human Rights:  Restitution and Risk (Cambridge:  Harvard University Press, 1986).

23.  See, for example, Regis, H., Gewirth's Ethical Rationalism:  Critical Essays (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1984);  Paul, F., Miller F., and Paul, J., (eds), Human Rights (Oxford:  Basil Mitchel, 1984).

24.  Brennan, G., The Christian and the State, (St Leonards:  Centre for Independent Studies, 1983).

25.  Leube, K.R., and Moore, T.G., The Essence of Stigler (Standford:  Standford University Press, 1986).

26.  Sadowsky, J., Classical Social Doctrine in the Roman Catholic Church, (Religion, Economics and Social Thought:  Proceedings of an International Symposium, ed. W. Block and I. Hexham (Vancouver:  The Fraser Institute, 1986) pp. 3-22;  Novak, M., Freedom with Justice:  Catholic Social Thought and Liberal Institutions (New York:  Harper and Row, 1984).

27.  Arbitration in Contempt:  Proceedings of the H.R. Nicholls Society (Melbourne:  The H.R. Nicholls Society, 1986).