The Catholic case against Excesses of Competition (original) (raw)

The Catholic case against unregulated competition: an essay for Catholic and other Educators

International Studies in Catholic Education, 2019

In an earlier essay (Sibley, Angus. 2016. "Can there be a Catholic economics?" International Studies in Catholic Education 8 (2), 211) I observed that 'the Church has a long record of consistently criticisng the obsession with competition that has such a dominant place in orthodox economic thinking and practice'. Inordinate emphasis on competition is so prevalent in current economic behaviour, and has so many adverse consequences, that a more detailed examination of this phenomenon, and of the Church's arguments against it, seems to be timely.

Conflicts and Contrasts: Economics and Catholic Social Teaching

In 1986, the Catholic bishops in the United States issued a pastoral letter call Economic Justice for All. It was criticized by professionals and economists as containing no valid economic thinking and ignored by many in the business community as not understanding the realities of the work place. Why? The Roman Catholic Church, since 1891, has weighed in on economic activity, economic affairs, and economic policy. Sometimes it is the Pope, other times the Bishops, and occasionally theologians speak to economic issues. Why is it their thinking generates controversy? Professional economists deride such statements as being without rigorous economics. Leaders in the business community, many of them Catholic themselves, assail such moral guidance as being out of touch with the realities of the marketplace. What is the Catholic layperson to make of this conflict between the Magisterium and respected economists and business leaders? Is the Church, their moral guide, stepping outside its area by trying to discuss economic activity? Is the Church as out of touch as academic economists and Wall Street leaders claim? Economics and Catholic Social Teaching: Understanding the Conflict and Contrasts explains why academic, orthodox economists and the Church so frequently differ. Unlike many similar books, this does not argue that orthodox economic theory is wrong and Catholic Social Teaching is correct, or vice-versa; it develops an understanding of the perspective from which each develops, a perspective that creates a difference in how goals are justified by each.

Economic Theory, Catholic Social Thought and the Common Good

in Empirical Foundations of the Common Good, Daniel K. Finn, editor (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 114-141., 2017

This paper is in response to the twofold question posed by the organizers of the conference on Empirical Foundations of the Common Good: "Given what you know empirically and theoretically from your disciplinary perspective, what is the common good and how do markets help or hinder it?" This was further clarified by the question: As an economist what aspects of your field are conducive or detrimental to achieving the common good seen as human flourishing? This is a complex task for a number of reasons. Any conception of the common good covers a wider area than just the economy; further, economics as a discipline has to be distinguished from the actual workings of the political economy. I will focus on three issues in this paper. First, I will outline the conception of the common good found in Catholic social thought and then as an economist try to flesh out its meaning to me. Second, I will explain some of the ways that economic theory can be useful to policy makers in attaining that common good. Third, I will suggest some practical changes to the way the actual economy operates.

Economic Theory, Catholic Social Thought and Labor Markets

Journal of Catholic Social Thought, 2014

In this talk I will first compare the philosophical foundations of economic theory and Catholic Social Thought. Then I will compare their views on two labor market issues--minimum wage laws and labor unions. Then, if there is time, I will look at the concept of gift in Pope Benedict XVI's new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, and show how it can be used to analyze wage behavior within firms.

The Catholic Spirit of Capitalism?

The Catholic Spirit of Capitalism? Contrasting Views on Profit-Making Through Capital Investment in the Age of Reformations, In: Law and Religion: The Legal Teachings of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations. Göttingen: V & R, 2014, 22-44 This paper intends to shed light on the attitude of Reformed and Counter-Reformed theologians, respectively, towards the rise of commercial capitalism in the early modern period. Particularly, the views of the Reformed theologian Wolfgang Musculus (1497–1563) will be contrasted with those of the Jesuit theologian Leonardus Lessius (1554–1623). Since those theologians did not write separate essays in which they revealed their opinion on the rise of a culture of financial investment strategies, the answer to the initial question must be obtained in an indirect way. Theologians in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, such as Musculus and Lessius, may not have produced manifests in favor of or against capitalism, but their writings on legal and moral problems abound with statements which reveal their approval or disapproval of the juridical devices and moral principles that form the legal backbone of a capitalistic economy. One such device is the triple contract (contractus triplex or contractus trinus). By means of a triple contract, which could be analyzed as a combination of a partnership (societas), an insurance (assecuratio) and a sale contract (emptio-venditio), capitalists could safely invest their money in commercial enterprises at a fixed annual profit rate. The triple contract developed into the juridical backbone of ‘commercial capitalism’ in the literal sense of the word: the investment of capital in commercial activities for the sake of making profit.

The relation between economics and theology in Caritas in Veritate

Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics

Caritas in Veritate is the latest in the series of papal 'social encyclicals' beginning with Rerum Novarum (1891). Like its immediate predecessor Centesimus Annus (1991), it presents a body of economic doctrine favourable to the market economy that is superimposed on an underlying body of older doctrine that is deeply hostile to it. This article investigates the possibility that this incoherence results from a corresponding incoherence in the theological framework of the recent encyclicals. The doctrine of the encyclicals is then contrasted with an eighteenth-century, Anglo-Scotch tradition of thought that showed the compatibility with Catholic moral theology of a privately owned, competitive economy driven by self-love. This tradition is the intellectual origin of modern economics, yet it has not been available to the Church of Rome because of an historical accident. The article concludes by speculating upon the reasons for this.