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This is a textbook on the Social Teaching of the Roman Catholic Church for would-be business professionals. Part I does 3 things: provides (1) a history of moral discourse since the Enlightenment, (2) a history of economic thought from Aristotle and Aquinas to Ludwig Mises and Milton Friedman , and (3) a history of property. Part II provides a close reading of 3 major social encyclicals. Part III examines the tensions between Catholic social teaching and neoclassical economics. Part IV explores 5 case studies of the actual implementation of Catholic-like social teaching. The over-riding theme of the book is that the original unity of distributive and corrective justice that prevailed in both economics and moral discourse until the 16th and 17th centuries was shattered by the rise of an "individualistic" capitalism that relied on corrective justice (justice in exchange) only. The rise of individualistic business practice was paralleled by a movement in moral thinking from a discourse of virtue and the common good to a discourse of utilitarianism and "emotivism"; individual preference became all that mattered, and only the market is capable of correlating individual preferences. An economics that lacks a distributive principle will attain neither equity nor equilibrium and will be inherently unstable and increasingly reliant on government power (Keynesianism) to correct the balances. Catholic social teaching emphasizes equity in the distribution of land, the means of production, and a just wage.
Table Of Contents
Part I: Historical Background 1: Justice and Economics 2: The Modern Moral Dialogue 3. Justice in Economic History 4. The Disappearance of Justice 5. Property, Culture, and Economics Part II: The Social Encyclicals 6. Rerum Novarum: A Scandalous Encyclical? 7. Laborem Exercens: Work as the Key to the Social Question 8. Centesimus Annus: The Uncertain Victory Part III: Toward an Evolved Capitalism 9. The Social Teachings and Economics: Ideas in Tension 10. Toward an "Evolved" Capitalism 11. Marginal Productivity and the Just Wage 12. The Neo-Conservative Response 13. Distributivism Part IV: The Practice of Justice in the Modern Business World 14. Taiwan and the "Land to the Tiller" Program 15. Development and Globalization 16. Micro-Banking 17. The Mondragon Cooperative Corporation 18. ESOP's and Profit Sharing 19. The Just Wage in the Corporation 20. The Vocation of Business
Authors
John C. Médaille is a graduate student and adjunct instructor in theology at the University of Dallas, where he teaches "Social Justice for Business Students," a requirement for the Business Leadership Degree. He is a businessman with 31 years of experience in management at large corporations and as an independent real estate agent. He served 5 terms as City Councilman, City of Irving, and served as mayor pro tem in 1991.. He is delivering papers at 3 conferences in the fall of 2006: The Sixth International Conference on Catholic Social Thought and Management Education, Rome, Oct.; Conference on Catholic Social Teaching and Human Work, Villanova Univ., Sept.; 2006 Pruitt Memorial Symposium and Lilly Fellows Program National Research Conference, Baylor Univ., Nov. He's published one article in "New Oxford Review," "Power to the People Must Mean Property to the People," January 2000, and the entry on "Distributivism" in "Catholic Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy: An Encyclopedia" (Scarecrow, forthcoming).
Reviews
“A highly original, intriguing and challenging book…This book is so rich and wide-ranging that any brief synopsis easily dilutes its strengths. The Vocation of Business offers a feast to chew on.”--America
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