Introduction to social justice / by William Ferree.




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Introduction to Social Justice

By

Rev. William Ferree, S.M.

THE PAULIST PRESS
401 West 59th Street

New York 19, N. Y.



Nihil Obstat

:

John M. A. Fearns, S.T.D.,
Censor Librorutn.

Imprimatur

:

© Francis Cardinal Spellman,
Archbishop of New York

.

New York, November 29, 1947.

Copyright, 1948, by The Missionary Society op

St. Paul the Apostle in the State of New York

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED IN THE U. S. A.

BY THE PAULIST PRESS, NEW YORK 19, N. Y.

^SSfdiflSd



PREFACE

rpHE most important thing to note about this pamphlet is
that it is only an introduction to the subject which it treats.

As an introduction, one of its functions is to attract attention

to a subject not too widely studied or understood. To do this,

it will deliberately emphasize only new and neglected aspects of

the truth.

This deliberate emphasis on the unusual, however, should

not blind readers to the fact that whatever was true in the past

is just as true in the present. In insisting, as this pamphlet

must insist, on the social nature and activity of man, there is

no intention of denying in any way his individual nature and

activity. It is only that this latter aspect of human nature

is not the subject of this pamphlet.

Confirmed individualists will not like what they read in

these pages. They will feel that their most cherished principles

are being denied at every step of the way. The sole purpose of

this preface is to point out to them, from the very beginning,

that their truths of the individual order are not being denied

—they are being completed.





CHAPTER I

THE WORK OF POPE PIUS XI

A Great Social Thinker

Pope Pius XI was one of the greatest social thinkers of
modern times, or, for that matter, of any time. One of his

greatest contributions to social thought was his doctrine of

Social Justice as explained in his Encyclicals Quadragesimo

Anno and Divini Redemptoris.

What he did in these Encyclicals was to complete an essen-
tial chapter of moral philosophy which had lain undeveloped,

and largely neglected, from the very dawn of philosophy. This

“unfinished chapter” has become steadily more important in

modern times because it forms the missing link between moral

philosophy on one hand, and the vast modern development

which is known as “Scientific Sociology” on the other.
The great struggle has raged over the radical instability of

social phenomena. The fact-biased Sociologist saw this in-
stability very clearly; and concluded very early in his science

that he would have to discard all “immutable” principles to

make room for it; while the principle-conscious moralist, faced
with so devastating a conclusion, resisted to the point of

ignoring, or actually fearing, the facts.

It is not surprising, therefore, that “Scientific Sociology”

has been so intensely seeularistic and even materialistic through-

out its whole development—neither the sociologists nor the
moralists have been able to see very clearly how their sciences
could be reduced to unity, or even to compromise.

The problem was to put forward a theory of society which
explained satisfactorily the countless fundamental changes of

social organization which history reveals; and still be able to

maintain, amidst this incessant and radical change, the un-

changing rule of law.

[S]



The Radical Instability of Human Affairs

First let us see what Pope Pius XI has to say about
the radical instability of human society. The best state-
ment of his views is to be found in a discourse delivered on
May 15, 1926, to a group which had been commemorating
the thirty-fifth anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical

Rerum Novarum (“On the Condition of the Working Classes”).
This discourse is in the direct line of Pope Pius XI’s own great
Encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno, which was written just five

years later, on the fortieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum .
As a matter of fact, the discourse is quoted (at paragraph 49)
in Quadragesimo Anno, and the reference given; so that it is

obvious that it should be studied with the latter document.

The importance of the Discourse is further emphasized by

the Holy Father’s statement at the beginning that it resulted

from some sort of divine inspiration.

The Holy Father thinks himself in conscience bound to these
dear sons who have come here in the expectation of some direction
relative to their role as leaders of Catholic Action. That is why
he will tell them in all confidence what the Lord inspired him to
say at the moment when, kneeling before Him, he had repeated the
beautiful prayer of St. Thomas: Da mihi, Donline, sedium tuarum
assistricem sapientiam. . . .

The first reflection bears upon the instability of human affairs,
and not only of the minor ones, but also of the great; not only of
those which are contingent circumstances of social life, but also those

which seem bound up with the very substance of things, and which
we are not in the habit of conceiving in any other way than as
unchangeable.

There is an instability from which no single thing can escape, for
that, precisely, is the essence of created things: they have not in

themselves the reason for their own being. Thus it happens that
even for the greatest things, for those that are closest to the sub-

stance of certain institutions, instability is possible, and sometimes
inevitable,—and it is even, in fact, commonplace, especially if we do
not stop at the consideration of each fact in particular, but extend

our view to the great considerations of history and of th^ road
travelled by the human race.

The fact is that precisely in those social elements which seem
fundamental, and most exempt from change, such as property,
capital, labor, a constant change ... is not only possible, but is real,

[ 6 ]



and an accomplished fact. It suffices to examine the course of

history.

Of course, the fundamental principle: “Thou shalt not steal,”
remains immutable, and in disregard of it there is only violation
of the divine precept. But what divers concrete forms property
has had, from that primitive form among rude and savage peoples,
which may be observed in some places even in our own day, to the
form of possessions in the Patriarchal Age, and so further to the

various forms under Tyranny (We are using the word “Tyranny”
in its classical sense)

;
and then through the feudal and, later,

monarchical forms, to the various types that are to be found in more
recent times! How many and how different attitudes in what con-
cerns not only the great collectivities, but even the family, and

individuals

!

Most of the last paragraph above is quoted in Quadragesimo
Anno. It will be noticed that besides indicating profound

changes in the concept and fact of property throughout the

ages, this passage also indicates, as the Pope himself is careful

to point out in the last sentence, equally fundamental changes

in the forms and ideas of the State and of the family, as well

as in the norms and limits of individual action. The quotation
continues:

It is the same with labor. From the primitive work of the man
of the stone age, to the great organization of production of our day,

how many transitions, ascensions, complications, diversities! . . .
What an enormous difference! It is therefore necessary to take

such changes into account, and to prepare oneself, by an enlightened
foresight and with complete resignation, to this instability of things
and of human institutions, which are not all perfect, but necessarily
imperfect and susceptible of changes. . . .

The most pragmatical of the modern “Scientific Sociologists”
could not surpass this statement of the radical instability “even

of those great institutions which seem bound up with the
very substance of things, and which we are not in the habit of
conceiving in any other way than as unchangeable.” The Pope
could venture so boldly into this “no-man’s-land” between the

moralists and the sociologists because he knew that he had
already found the answer to the unsolved problem of both sides:

how to maintain the reign of unchanging law if it is once
admitted that the “very substance of things” is subject to

change.

[ 7 ]



A Philosophical Detective Story

The principles which he had already clarified in his own
mind, and intended to apply to the rapidly changing drama of
modern history, were Social Justice and Social Charity. In this
view, all society is simply a habitual organization (technically:

an “institution”) of human actions; which is in constant and
necessary flux precisely because it is an organization of action

,

but which at the same time is kept constantly—we could even
say unchangeably—organized for the same end, human and
Christian perfection, by the Laws of Social Justice and Social
Charity.

Pope Pius XI seems to have invented the very term “Social
Charity” himself; but he picked up the term “Social Justice”
from a growing popular usage which began about 1850. Be-

fore 1850, “Legal Justice” or “General Justice” were the only

terms used to designate what we now call “Social Justice.”
The history of “Legal Justice” had been a long and none

too happy one; and when Pope Pius XI finally wrote the last
chapter, he solved a philosophical “mystery story” whose solu-

tion had eluded the world’s best thinkers from Aristotle on

down.

The Story: Aristotle

It was in the Fourth Century b.c. that the story began.

Then Aristotle discussed “Legal Justice”—and probably in-
vented the term—in the Fifth Book of his Ethics

;

but he left

the idea fuzzy and anemic. For him it wasn’t a special virtue
at all, but rather a name for all virtues insofar as the law
required their practice. It offered little help towards building

a good society beyond the rather obvious information that law-

abiding people made better citizens than gangsters.

Fifteen Centuries Later

There the matter stood until the greatest thinker of the

Middle Ages, St. Thomas Aquinas, took the idea up and made
something of it. What he did was to redefine it as a special
virtue which has the Common Good for its direct object . Of
course, the common good of society is so all-embracing that

[ 8 ]



every act of virtue done by the members of society will con-

tribute something to it. In this “indirect” way, Aristotle was

right. That was why legal justice, whose direct object is the
Common Good, was also called “general justice”:—for the
sake of that Common Good it could also (i.e. “indirectly”)
demand acts of every other virtue. Thus, in defense of the

Common Good of a country, it could demand bravery (“forti-
tude”) from a soldier. In this example the soldier’s virtue is

not only that of fortitude (facing death bravely), but also that

of Social Justice (defense of the Common Good); and every
other virtue whatever could also become an act of Social Justice

in the same way, i.e., by being done for the Common Good.
This is a great improvement over Aristotle’s imperfect

notion, but it still leaves a tremendous question unanswered:

If this social justice is now really a special virtue, does it have
any special and direct acts of its own? It is easy to see how
acts of the other virtues could all give the Common Good a
“lift” once this Common Good is already a “going concern”;
but is there an act of this special virtue which directly “makes”

the Common Good—starts it off and builds it up, or rebuilds it
if it happens to be destroyed?

The Suspense Drags On

Much as he did for Social Justice, St. Thomas, did not ask
or answer this crucial question, and for over seven hundred

years after him, few philosophers asked it and none gave the
answer. Of those few who did ask it, some denied that the
question was a good one, and the rest said, No! In fact, one
of the most recent of these, actually commenting on Pope Pius

XI’s teaching, was so blinded by his own training that he
could not see what the Pope was driving at, and ended his
discussion of Social Justice with the awful statement: “The
Common Good is not an object which can be directly attained.”
When it is remembered that the Common Good is the greatest
of natural goods, that only under its sway can individual goods
be attained or retained, that without it each individual’s share

of personal perfection is either limited or destroyed, one can

begin to realize what a mess society would be in if that state-

[ 9 ]



ment were true! It may even be that the status quo (“Latin,”
as the Colored Preacher said, “fo* de mess we is in!”) results,
as much as anything, from our widespread belief that it was
true.

The best that the social philosophers of the past could
manage was to teach that in every action social justice required
“a good intention” for the Common Good. But how uncertain
this “good intention” is when not backed up by a complete
theory of Social Justice, can be seen from the fact that the

high-priest of unrestrained individualism, Adam Smith, ap-
pealed to it constantly to justify his destructive theories! Few
books profess devotion to the Common Good more often or
more insistently than his Wealth of Nations.

It was left for Pope Pius XI to put the question clearly and
accurately—after twenty-three centuries!—and to answer it
right.

CHAPTER II

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND ITS DIRECT ACT

“The Encyclical on Social Justice”

The long-missing specific and direct act of Social Justice is

used as the title of the Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno : “On
the Reconstruction of Social Order.” This title occurs in the

heading of the Letter; the words “Quadragesimo anno,” being

simply the first two words of the Letter itself. This document

is a truly masterly treatise on the whole virtue of Social Justice,

though the applications of the theory are made mostly to the
economic order, which is only one aspect, though a “most

important” one, of social life.

The term “Social Justice” is used ten times in this Encycli-
cal, and there are many other passages where the same idea
occurs, but without the technical name. Yet very few com-

mentators seem to have realized that this is the subject, and the

most important point, of the Papal teaching. They discuss
the living wage, the family wage, property, labor, capitalism,

competition, monopoly, class war, Communism—all the details
[ 10 ]



that are used for explanation and illustration—but miss the
great subject of the whole Encyclical!

It would be a very salutary practice to refer always to the

Encyclical Quadragesima Anno as “The Encyclical on Social
Justice.” Thus attention would be drawn to the central idea,
instead of to the supporting details and illustrations.

A Common Misunderstanding

Let us give an example of how the Encyclical’s great mes-
sage can be misunderstood. In paragraph 71, the Holy Father

says:

Every effort must therefore be made that fathers of families receive
a wage large enough to meet common domestic needs adequately.
But if this cannot always be done under existing circumstances, Social

Justice demands that changes be introduced into the system as soon
as possible, whereby such a wage will be assured to every adult work-
ingman.

Now if we were to hand this quotation to a number of
people, and ask each one of them what Social Justice demands

in it, almost every one of them would answer, “A family wage.”
They would all be wrong! Look again at the syntax of the

sentence: the direct object of the predicate “demands” is the
clause “that changes be introduced into the system.” The
Pope’s teaching on the family wage is that it is due in com-
mutative or strict justice to the individual worker;—what
Social justice demands is something specifically social : the
reorganization of the system. For it is the whole system which

is badly organized (“socially unjust”) when it withholds from
the human beings whose lives are bound up in it, the power
to “meet common domestic needs adequately.”

Very Clear Teaching

The Holy Father later summarized the teaching of Quad-
ragesimo Anno in several paragraphs of Divini Redemptoris
(“On Atheistic Communism”). In paragraph S3 of this latter
document he gives a very clear example for his teachings:

[ 11 ]



It happens all too frequently, under the salary system, that indi-

vidual employers are helpless to insure justice, unless, with a view

to its practice, they organize institutions whose object is to prevent
competition incompatible with fair treatment of the workers. Where
this is true, it is the duty of contractors and employers to support

such necessary organizations as normal instruments enabling them
to fulfill their obligations of justice.

Here the two levels of justice are clearly distinguished.

On the level of commutative or individual justice the employer
is helpless

,

and note that this happens “all too frequently.”

Now evidently, if he is really helpless to do full justice, he does
not sin when out of sheer necessity he falls short of justice.
In individual justice the case is closed, for the employer can do

nothing about it; and the injustice must be allowed to continue

out of sheer inability to stop it.

Above this field of individual justice, however, there is the

whole field of Social Justice, and in this higher field the case is

never closed. The “helplessness” of individuals comes from
the fact that the whole industry is badly organized (“socially

unjust”). Social Justice demands that it be organized rightly

for the common good of all who depend upon it for their welfare
and perfection. Therefore employers have the duty—the rigid
duty of Social Justice which they cannot disregard without sin

—to work together (socially) to reorganize their industry.
Once this reorganization (act of Social Justice) has been accom-

plished by group (social) action, then the employers will no
longer be helpless in the field of individual justice, and will be

under obligation to meet their strict duties in this latter field.

Something Solid

From the example given by the Holy Father, it will be seen
immediately that Social Justice is not at all the vague and fuzzy

“blanket word” that gets into so many popular speeches. It
is an absolutely clear and precise scientific concept, a special

virtue with definite and rigid obligations of its own.

But there is no use looking to anyone earlier than Pope

Pius XI for a definition and description of it complete enough
to include the specific act (organizing) by which Social Justice

[ 12 ]



is directly practiced. There are suggestions and partial glimpses,

of course, in every work that ever dealt with social problems;

but if anyone before Pope Pius XI ever put all the pieces
together in one coherent theory, he has succeeded in keeping

his secret remarkably well!

APPENDIX A TO CHAPTER II: QUOTATIONS FROM
QUADRAGES1MO ANNO

For the benefit of those who want to analyze more deeply
the teachings of the Holy Father in his own words, some per-

tinent passages of Quadragesima Anno are here transcribed

and commented upon. Each passage will be prefixed by its

paragraph number in the complete text to permit ready refer-

ence to the latter:

For the Common Good

56. . . . however the earth may be apportioned among private
owners, it does not cease to serve the common good of all. This same
doctrine We Ourselves also taught just above in declaring that the
division of goods which results from private ownership was established
by nature itself in order that created things may serve the needs of
mankind in a fixed and stable order. Lest one wander from the right
path of truth, this is something which must be continually kept in mind.

57. But not every distribution among human beings of property
and wealth is of a character to attain either completely or with a

satisfactory degree of perfection, the ends which God intended. There-
fore the riches which socio-economic development constantly increase

ought to be so distributed among individual persons and classes that
the common advantage of all, which Leo XIII had praised, will be
safeguarded; in other words, that the Common Good of all society
will be kept inviolate. By this law of Social Justice, one man is forbid-
den to exclude the other from sharing in the benefits.

58. To each therefore must be given his own share of good, and the
distribution of created goods, which, as every discerning person knows,

is laboring today under the greatest evils, due to the few exceedingly

rich and the unnumbered propertyless, must be effectively called back
to, and brought into conformity with, the norm of the Common Good,
i.e., Social Justice.

Commentary

Notice in the above paragraphs that Social Justice is expressly
directed towards the Common Good. This identifies it completely with
the traditional ‘‘legal justice,” and with no other virtue whatsoever.
In the technical language of the philosophers, “actions are specified by



their ends,” and both the traditional legal justice and the modern
Social Justice have identically the same end: the Common Good.
The fact that so much of the above paragraphs is taken up with dis-
tributive justice, does not alter this conclusion in the least. It is

Social Justice which directs the distribution in question towards the

Common Good; exactly as we have seen, in a former example, that
it can direct fortitude towards the Common Good. That is why
Social Justice is also called “general Justice”: it can demand an act of
any other virtue whatsoever for the Common Good.

A Question of STRUCTURE

70. Conclusions of the greatest importance follow from this two-
fold (individual and social) character which nature has impressed upon
human work, and it is in accordance with these that wages ought to be
regulated and established.

71. In the first place, the worker must be paid a wage sufficient
to support him and his family. That the rest of the family should also
contribute to the common support, according to the capacity of each,
is certainly right, as can be observed especially in the families of farmers,

and also in the families of many craftsmen and small shopkeepers. But
to abuse the years of childhood and the limited strength of women
is grossly wrong. Mothers, concentrating on household duties, should
work primarily in the home or in its immediate vicinity. It is an intoler-
able abuse, and to be abolished at all costs, for mothers, on account of
the father’s low wage, to be forced to engage in gainful occupations

outside the home, to the neglect of their proper cares and duties, espe-
cially the training of children. Every effort must therefore be made
that fathers of families receive a wage large enough to meet common
domestic needs adequately, but if this cannot always be done under

existing circumstances, social justice demands that changes be intro-
duced into the system as soon as possible, whereby such a wage will
be assured to every adult workingman.—And it will not be out of place
here to render merited praise to all who, with a wise and beneficent
purpose, have tried and tested various ways of adjusting the pay for
work to family burdens.

Commentary

The amount of futile discussion which has raged around this passage
on whether the family wage is due by social or commutative justice,
or even by distributive justice, is a brilliant vindication of St. Thomas
Aquinas’ name for the discursiveness of human reason: he called it
“defectus intellectus,

f, which could be freely translated as “lack of

vision” or “failure to see it whole.”

From the beginning of the above passage it is important to realize
that the thing under discussion is what we call “the wage structure,”

—

not any given wage for this man or for that. All the considerations

[ 14 ]



on the individual aspects of family life, on the functions, so to say,

of the various members, are introduced to show on what considerations
one must establish the norm for that structure. Then if the “existing
circumstances” (i.e., the whole industrial set-up, the “going concern,”

the present structure) fall short of that norm, Social Justice “demands
that changes be introduced”—not, be it noted, in the individual pay
envelop of each individual head of a family (for it is precisely that

which “cannot be done under the existing circumstances”), but in the

“going concern” itself, in the organization of the whole enterprise: the

procurement, financing, management, production, distribution, etc.,
so as to accommodate a wage structure adequated to the norm of Social
Justice. Once this new structure is established, it will be possible to
meet the demands of individual justice for all concerned.

In the little digression tacked on to the end of this paragraph

(“It will not be out of place,” etc.), the question of structure is still

further emphasized: the Pope would not “render merited praise” to

those who had “tried and tested various ways” unless he were dealing
with a complex problem of reorganization requiring great prudence and

perseverance as well as “beneficent purpose.”

Eternal Vigilance

74. Lastly, the amount of pay must be adjusted to the public eco-
nomic good. . . . Another point . . . especially vital in our times, must

not be overlooked: namely, that the opportunity to work be provided
for those who are able and willing to work. This opportunity depends
largely upon the wage and salary rate, which can help as long as
it is kept within proper limits; but which can be, on the other hand,

an obstacle if it exceeds those limits. For everyone knows that an
excessive lowering of wages, or their increase beyond due measure,
causes unemployment. This evil, indeed, especially as We see it pro-
longed and injuring so many during the years of Our Pontificate, has
plunged workers into misery and temptation, ruined the prosperity of
nations, and put in jeopardy the public order, peace, and tranquility
of the whole world. Hence it is contrary to Social Justice when, for the
sakfc of personal gain, and without regard for the Common Good, wages
and salaries are excessively lowered or raised; and this same Social
Justice demands that wages and salaries be so managed, through agree-
ment of purposes and wills, so far as can be done, so as to offer to the
greatest possible number the opportunity of getting work and obtaining
suitable means of livelihood.

Commentary

Note in the above passage that the term Social Justice is used
twice, and that there is an interesting difference between the two cases.
The first is what we might call an “open and shut case.”—one completely
disposed of once the solution is offered: “It is contrary to Social Justice
when, for the sake of personal gain and without regard for the Common

[IS]



Good, wages are excessively lowered or raised.” This is evidently a case

of what we call bad will or malice, and it is simply and always wrong.

But how about the men of good will—or, to put it more specifically,
how about that famous “good intention for the Common Good” which
was about all the philosophers of the past could demand in order that
an act be termed legal or social justice?

That “good intention” is no more than a starting point for this
Social Justice: What Social Justice demands—far beyond a mere
act of the will—is “management, through agreement of purposes and
wills, insofar as can be done, to offer the greatest possible number . . .
a suitable means of livelihood.”

Evidently, we are here face to face with something that can never
be a closed case in this world. If that is the nature of the demands of
Social Justice in this one small field, then it doesn’t take much thinking
to realize that a serious and constant preoccupation with social organiza-
tion, in all its forms, and at all its levels, is the duty, according to his

capacity, of every man living in society. This is a big order, especially
when it is further realized that such a duty (allowing, of course, for the
inescapable and all too evident limitations of discursive reason) binds

him in every exterior action of his life . It wll be interesting to see
how it is done!

What MAKES the Good Society—Conflict or Social Justice?
88. Attention must also be given to another matter. ... Just as

the unity of human society cannot be founded upon an opposition of
classes, so also the right ordering of economic life cannot be left to a
free competition of forces ... a truth which the outcome of the prac-
tical application of the tenets of this evil individualistic spirit has more
than sufficiently demonstrated. Therefore it is most necessary that
economic life be again subjected to and governed by a true and effective
directing principle. This function is one that the economic dictatorship
which has recently displaced free competition can still less perform, since
it is a headstrong power and a violent energy that, to benefit people,
needs to be strongly curbed and wisely ruled. But it cannot curb
and rule itself. Loftier and nobler principles—Social Justice and Social
Charity—must therefore be sought whereby this dictatorship may be
governed firmly and fully. Hence the institutions of peoples, and par-
ticularly those of all social life, ought to be penetrated with this justice;

and it is most necessary that it be truly effective, that is, establish
a juridical and social order which will, as it were, give form and shape

to all economic life. Social Charity, moreover, ought to be as the

soul of this order, an order which public authority ought to be ever

ready effectively to protect and defend.

Commentary

This passage, which has not been quoted here in its entirety, deserves

careful study. First of all, the Holy Father refuses three alternatives

[ 16 ]



to Social Justice as guides or norms of society. These alternative, but

vicious, “norms” of society are the following: (1) class warfare, (2)

free competition, and (3) economic dictatorship. The first, in parts

of the Encyclical not quoted here, is utterly condemned; the second

and third are admitted to have utility, but what is absolutely denied
to them is that they can ever be a directive principle, either of them-

selves or of economic life in general. Both of these latter, especially

the third one because of its extraordinary power, must be ruled by

Social Justice and Social Charity. The first is entirely vicious because
it is a direct negation of Social Justice and Social Charity.

All this can be summed up in a sentence: Not conflict in any form,
but only Social Justice (organization for the Common Good) is the
ultimate principle of society.

Here we can go a step further in considering the shortcomings of
any theory of Social Justice which makes it a mere “intention for
the Common Good.” The Holy Father is categorical in his statement
that Social Justice must enter into the practical order before it can be
said to exist. He says that all institutions, both those “of peoples”
(governmental) and those “of all social life” (semi-public and private)
must be penetrated with this justice. He insists further that “it is
necessary that it be truly effective.” Then, to explain this effectiveness,

he leads us back once more to the master-idea of organized and institu-
tion-building action, without which Social Justice is a mere bandying

about of words: “this Justice must establish a juridical and social order
which will, as it were, give form and shape to all economic life.”

This remarkable expression, “to give form and shape to life,” recurs
several times in Pope Pius XFs work, and will lead us later on in this
pamphlet to an explanation of the institutions of life as “social habits.”

Here also we might note the great breadth of Pope Pius XI’s vision.

The older “legal Justice,” both because of its imperfect beginnings in
Aristotle and because of the suggestiveness of its name, always tended
to be reduced to its narrowest possible meaning, for which we might
invent the term “courtroom justice.” There is evidence to support the

belief that Pope Pius XI recognized this tendency, and its almost com-
plete triumph in modem times, and deliberately decided to throw off
this weight of tradition from his own teachings. At the beginning of
his Pontificate, in the Encyclical Studiorum Ducem, occurs the phrase
“in re sociali et in jure recta principia ponendo de justitia legali aut
de sociali”:—'“both in social life and in jurisprudence laying down cor-
rect principles for legal justice as well as for social justice.” 1 After this

he abandoned “legal justice” entirely to the jurists and never used it
in his social teachings. The older theory did not recognize the con-

l For the benefit of Latin scholars who may be troubled by the translation of
“aut” by “as well as,” the above phrase is immediately continued by: “itemque
de commutativa aut de distributiva,” where “aut” cannot possibly have any other
meaning.

[ 17 ]



fusion in the term because, for it, legal justice was somehow bound
up with law; but in the completed theory of Pius XI, Social Justice,
far from playing any subordinate role to Law, actually makes the law
itself: “It is most necessary that it establish a juridical . . . order”

The Law in all its majesty is simply one of the institutions which Social
Justice creates for the Common Good!

Finally, this passage brings forcibly to our attention the concept of

Social Charity. This concept of Social Charity is very likely, as we have
already seen, original with Pius XI. The traditional virtue of “pietas
erga patriam” certainly touches some of the same values; but even
more certainly it is incomplete. The newer concept of Social Charity,
is not developed in the Encyclical to the extent that Social Justice is

developed; and thus a great field is opened up to the research of

philosophers and moralists to delineate clearly the meaning of this

Social Charity and its scope.

How to Fail Against Social Justice

101. With all his energy, Leo XIII sought to adjust this (capital-
istic) economic system according to the norms of right order; hence
it is evident that this system is not to be condemned in itself. And
assuredly it is not of its own nature vicious. But it does violate right
order when capital hires workers, that is the non-owning class, with a
view to and under such terms that it directs business and even the

whole economic system according to its own will and advantage, scorn-
ing the human dignity of the workers, the social character of economic
activity, and Social Justice itself, and the Common Good.

Commentary

In this description of the social injustice of which Capitalism has

made itself guilty, we may notice once more that the question at issue
is one of deliberate organization : “with a view to and under such terms
as to” capture the very system of economic life itself for private and
selfish ends. The Pope then analyzes the evil of such an act: In the
first place, it “scorns human dignity.” This is largely a failure against
Charity as we will see in Chapter III. In the second place, it “scorns
the social character of economic activity.” This is a failure against

both Social Charity and Social Justice, in that it disregards the fact
that the organization of the industry “takes so tight a grip on the human
life” of the workers that it largely determines whether and to what
degree “their share of human happiness will be even accessible to them.”
Thirdly, it “scorns Social Justice itself”; that is, it formally denies that

any obligation lies upon the industry to be so organized that each work-

er’s and the whole community’s “share of human happiness is accessible.”
Finally, it “scorns the Common Good.” It plunges the workers into
misery and temptations, ruins the prosperity of the community, and

puts in jeopardy the public peace and welfare.

[ 18 ]



Two Levels and Many Divisions

110. So as to avoid the reefs of individualism and collectivism, the

two-fold (i. e., individual and social) character both of Capital and

ownership, and of labor or work, must be given due and rightful weight.

Relations of one to the other must be made to conform to the laws of
strictest justice—commutative justice as it is called—with proper sup-
port, however, of Christian Charity. Then free competition, kept within

definite and due limits, and still more, economic dictatorship, must be

effectively brought under public authority in those matters which per-

tain to the latter’s function (i. e., the Common Good). These same
public institutions, moreover, ought to make all human society conform
to the needs of the Common Good, that is, to the norm of Social Justice.
If this is done, that most important division of social life, namely,

economic activity, cannot fail likewise to return to right and sound

order.

Commentary

Here we meet once more the two levels of justice: first, strictest
(“narrowest”) or commutative justice, which directly regulates the rela-

tionships of capital and labor to each other; and then, above them.

Social Justice, which by a proper organization of the whole industry,

of the whole going concern, makes the payment of just wages possible

in it. Some writers have tried to explain this in a popular way by
saying that when the business is in good shape and able to pay just
wages, it owes such wages in commutative justice; but even if it is

badly organized and in distress it still owes just wages, this time in

Social Justice. This is inaccurate and highly misleading. Even when in

distress, it still owes just wages in commutative justice—only it can’t
pay them! Social Justice does not give some sort of additional claim to

“a just wage anyhow, regardless of circumstances”—what it gives is
a direct and enforceable claim to have the business so organized that a

just wage is possible; and even after Social Justice has brought about

this happy state, it is still commutative justice which directly demands

that the just wage be paid.

Note in the last part of this quotation how the vast concept of
Social Justice goes far beyond the economic applications of the Encycli-

cal:—to “all human society” and “all social life,” of which economic
activity is only “a most important division.”

Notice finally, that the power to make all human society conform
to the norms of Social Justice is vested in institutions

,

in organizations

of men, not in men as isolated individuals. Social Justice is something
social.

[ 19 ]



APPENDIX B TO CHAPTER II: QUOTATIONS FROM
DIVIN1 REDEMPTORIS

Since, as we have seen, “not conflict in any form, but only Social
Justice can be the ultimate principle of society,” it is easy to under-

stand why the Holy Father returned to his teachings on Social Justice
in the Encyclical “On Atheistic Communism” (Divini Redemptoris)

.

But he had another good reason for repeating and insisting on his
former teachings: Six years had passed since he wrote Quadragesimo
Anno, and most people hadn’t caught on! Though the passage in this
second document is rather long, it deserves to be quoted in full.

Let’s Get This Straight!

51. In reality, besides commutative justice (which is strictly en-

joined in the preceding two paragraphs, 49 and 50, of the Encyclical),
there is also Social Justice with its own set obligations, from which
neither employers nor workingmen can escape. Now it belongs to
Social Justice to demand from each individual all that is necessary for
the Common Good.

Commentary

This is evidently an attempt by the Holy Father to silence some of
his fuzziest “Commentators,” who had been trying to “explain” Social
Justice as somehow “straddling” various traditional virtues, especially
distributive and commutative justice. Not only does he expressly rule
out commutative justice, but also, by implication, any kind of com-
bination or straddling of other virtues. What he says is that Social Jus-
tice has “its own set obligations.”

The Common Good and Individuals
51. But just as in the living organism it is impossible to provide for

the good of the whole unless each individual member is given what it
needs for the exercise of its proper functions, so it is impossible to care

for the social organism and the good of society as a unit unless each
single part and each individual member—that is to say, each individual
man in the dignity of his human personality—is supplied with all that
is necessary for the exercise of his social functions.

Commentary

Here the Holy Father shows how distributive justice does get into
the picture: it is not Social Justice, but Social Justice commands that
it (like all other virtues) be observed in so far as the Common Good
needs it. He could have used commutative justice or any other virtue
in this paragraph, because Social Justice can command them all in the
same way. That is why moral philosophers call all these other acts of
virtue “commanded acts” of Social Justice.

The Proof of the Pudding . . .

51. If Social Justice is satisfied, the result will be an intense activity
in economic life as a whole, pursued in tranquility and order. This

[ 20 ]



activity will be proof of the health of the social body, just as the health

of the human body is recognized in the undisturbed regularity and
perfect efficiency of the whole organism.

Commentary

Here once more the Holy Father is careful to point out that a mere

good intention for the Common Good is not enough. He makes it
clear that the only criterion he will permit as to whether Social Justice

is being observed is an actually good state of society.

This is a large order ! What it amounts to, in the world as we know
it, is simply a condemnation (if one insists on looking at it that way)

to ceaseless effort. Whether this “proof” that “Social Justice is satisfied”

ever was in fact realized, or will be in fact realized, is a problem for

history or prophecy; the only problem for social philosophy is that as

long as it is not in fact realized, there can be no excuse and no mercy

for lack of effort!

Let’s Get Down to Cases

52. But Social Justice cannot be said to have been satisfied as long

as workingmen are denied a salary that will enable them to secure proper

sustenance for themselves and for their families; as long as they are

denied the opportunity of acquiring a modest fortune and forestalling the

plague of universal pauperism; as long as they cannot make suitable pro-
vision for public or private insurance for old age, for periods of illness,

and unemployment.

Commentary

This paragraph adds nothing new. It simply applies the preceding

principles to practical details to make sure their full import will be
clear.

Thus far, in this passage from Divini Redemptoris the Holy Father
has limited himself to what was clear in the traditional teaching on
“legal justice”: that Social Justice has the Common Good as its object,
and that it can “command” the observance of other virtues for that
Common Good. Then he links this teaching with that of Quadragesimo
Anno by quoting from that Document:

To Sum Up

52. In a word, to repeat what has been said in our Encyclical Quad-
ragesimo Anno

:

“Then only will the economic and social order be soundly
established and attain its end, when it offers, to all and to each, all
those goods which the wealth and resources of nature, technical science,
and the social organization of economic life can furnish. And these
goods ought indeed to be enough both to meet the demands of necessity
and decent comforts, and to advance people to that fuller and happier
condition of life which, when it is wisely cared for, is not only no hin-
drance to virtue, but helps it greatly.”

[21 ]



Commentary

In the middle of this passage, it is interesting to note what might

be called the elements of economic life :

First, the wealth and resources of nature, secondly, technical science,

and thirdly, the social organization of economic life. The first of these
elements is fixed and stable, God’s gift about which man can do nothing
whatsoever since it is not in his power to annihilate or to create. The
second, which controls the first, is partly fixed, for there is such a thing

as “natural capacity” for science, which is not uniform and not readily

changed. Yet man enjoys a considerable control over it by that “social
organization” known as education. The third element, social organiza-
tion itself, is entirely under man’s control. Hence it appears that the

only fully controllable factor is this third, both in itself and in its in-

fluence on the two others. When this is clearly seen, it is easy to under-
stand why the act of Social Justice is the act of organizing.

It is this element of organization that the Pontiff then goes on to

deal with in the second part of the text, which will follow. It is in this

part of the quotation that Pius XI goes beyond his predecessors to
complete the theory of Social Justice.

Only Individualism Is Helpless: Social Justice Has An Answer

53. It happens all too frequently, however, under the salary system,

that individual employers are helpless to insure justice unless, with a

vdew to its practice, they organize institutions the object of which is to

prevent competition incompatable with fair treatment of the workers

Where this is true, it is the duty of contractors and employers to sup-
port and promote such necessary organizations as normal instruments
enabling them to fulfill their obligations of justice. But the laborers too
must be mindful of their duty to love and deal fairly with their em-
Dloyers, and persuade themselves that there is no better way of safe-
guarding their own interests.

Commentary

The two levels of justice as they are here outlined have already been
commented upon in this pamphlet. Here it will be sufficient to warn
the reader that the unjust competition mentioned in the paragraph is
only an example of what difficulties a business might face. The same
principles would apply if the difficulty came from outside pressure, as
in a “colonial economy,” or from lack of intelligence or energy within
the industry. This is clear in paragraphs 72 and 73 of Quadragesimo
Anno; and the general law covering all possible cases is stated in para-
graph 69 of that Encyclical, as follows:

Man’s productive effort cannot yield its fruits unless a truly social
and organic body exists, unless a social and juridical order watches ovei
the exercise of work, unless the various occupations, being interdependent

co-operate with and mutually complete one another. And, what is still

[ 22 ]



more important, unless mind, material things, and work combine and

form as it were a single whole. Therefore, where the social and in-

dividual nature of work is neglected, it will be impossible to evaluate

work justly and pay it according to justice.
This paragraph deserves study for its implications as to how helpless

an individual really is to secure his own perfection in an unjustly organ-
ized society.

Institutions Are the Key Idea

54. If, therefore, we consider the whole structure of economic life, as
we have already pointed out in our Encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno, the
reign of mutual collaboration between justice and charity in social eco-

nomic relations can only be achieved by a body of professional and

inter-professional organizations, built on solid Christian foundations,

working together to effect, under forms adopted to different places and

circumstances, what has been called the corporation.

Commentary

Thus, as this whole quotation which we have been examining clearly
shows, organizations and institutions furnish the key for the understand-
ing of Social Justice; and there will be no effective insight whatever into
Social Justice without this key. The last paragraph shows how pro-
foundly the idea of organization enters into this conception of justice,

as does also paragraph 69 of Quadragesimo Anno which was quoted in
the comments immediately preceding it. Both of these paragraphs make
it absolutely clear that without right organization, without good social
groups, without just institutions, there is no such thing as Social Justice,
and in such a state the perfection of human life becomes impossible.

CHAPTER III

THE DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN PERSONALITY:
BASIS OF A THEORY OF JUSTICE

In the Individual Order

For Pope Pius XI, the theory of justice is based squarely

upon the dignity of the human personality. His position is
that charity regulates our actions towards the human personal-
ity itself, that Image of God which is the object of love because
it mirrors forth the Divine Perfections, and in a supernatural

order shares those perfections. The human personality, how-
ever, because it is a created personality, needs certain “props”

for the realization of its dignity. These “props” or supports

[ 23 ]



of human dignity, which include such things as property, rela-
tives and friends, freedom and responsibility, are all the ob-

ject of justice. To attack a human person in his personality
itself, as by hatred, is a failure against charity; but to attack

him by undermining the supports of his human dignity, as by
robbery, is a failure against justice.

And in the Social Order

The same thing is true in the field of social morality. The
human community, as such, shows forth the perfections of God
in ways that are not open to individuals. This fact is very

clearly stated in paragraph 30 of the Encyclical Divini Re-

demptoris :

In a further sense it is society which affords the opportunities for

the development of all the individual and social gifts bestowed on

human nature. These natural gifts have a value surpassing the im-
mediate interests of the moment, for in society they reflect a Divine
Perfection, which would not be true were man to live alone.

Society itself, therefore, as thus revealing further the per-

fection of God in His creatures, is worthy of love: of a love
directed not only towards the individuals who compose the
society, but also towards their union with each other. This love

is social charity.

Moreover, as society thus makes available to man the
further perfection of his potentialities of mirroring the divine

perfection, it also is a support for these perfections, and hence

is an object of the virtue of justice. This justice, Social Jus-

tice, which is directed towards the Common Good itself, re-
quires that the society be so organized as to be in fact a vehicle

for human perfection.

An Improvement Over the Past

It seems evident that this view of justice as the virtue

which directly regards the supports of human dignity whether in
the individual or in the social order, is a more profound view

than the traditional one which was built largely around the

[ 24 ]



technical conceptions of “equality, otherness, and debt.” It is

true that it was always clear in justice that rights and duties

pertained only to persons; but the immediate link of justice

to the human personality was not clear.
Some strange things happened as the result of viewing jus-

tice in the more superficial way developed in pagan times.
Since in that view justice was determined by the three notions

of “equality, otherness, and debt,” it became quite common to
speak of individual or commutative justice as the “most per-

fect form of justice” since it most perfectly conforms to the

elements of the definition.

Yet if one examines the three great kinds of possession

which support human dignity—possession of things or prop-
erty, possession of persons or love, and possession of self in the

freedom to plan one’s own destiny and to work it out accord-
ing to one’s own responsibility—then it becomes evident that
the possession of things, the object of commutative justice,

is the lowest of these supports. Nowadays we would call com-
mutative justice not the “most perfect” form of justice but

the “strictest” (i. e. narrowest) form of justice; and this is
the terminology which Pius XI uses. The highest form of
justice is Social Justice because it directly regards that highest

natural good, the Common Good, without which other goods
of human perfection are unobtainable.

The Result of Past Thinking

It cannot be denied that at the present time the idea is

widespread, that obligations of individual or commutative
justice must always be met, but that obligations of Social Jus-
tice are not so rigid. This is totally false. The truth is that
the obligations of Social Justice are just as rigid and much more
weighty than the obligations of individual justice. It is true
indeed that these obligations of Social Justice are harder to
understand, harder to see; and that therefore the incidence of
invincible ignorance, which excuses from action, may be ex-
pected to be greater. But whenever the obligations of Social
Justice are understood and recognized, the duty of meeting
those obligations is both rigid and very serious.

[ 25 ]



Work to Be Done

It is not at all difficult to see that this will require a pro-

found readjustment of our appreciation of the nature and

extent of our duties and obligations.

Much work of investigation and research remains to be
done before these obligations of Social Justice can be made

as clear to the common man as the obligations of individual
justice have been made in the course of centuries of moral and

social thought; but one thing is already abundantly clear; in

the field of Social Justice we are dealing with serious matter—
with some of the greatest obligations of our lives.

CHAPTER IV

THE OBJECT OF SOCIAL JUSTICE,
THE COMMON GOOD

Putting Two and Two Together . . .

To deepen our understanding of Social Justice we must
get a clearer concept of its object: the “Common Good” or
“general welfare” as it is called. Let us start with two great

facts: (1) An isolated individualist cannot practice Social
Justice at all, he must associate himself with groups of various

kinds and work along with them before he can practice it; and

(2) Every human action whatever has some bearing on the
Common Good, and hence must conform to Social Justice or be
sinful.

. . . We Get . . . Surprised
If these two points are put together, a rather startling con-

clusion emerges: since every action must conform to Social

Justice or be sinful, and Social Justice can be practiced only

by persons associated in groups, the obvious conclusion is that
every action must be done in groups to be virtuous!

Two Kinds of Groups

At first sight, this looks weird indeed; until it is remembered
that man’s very nature is social, and then it is just what one

[ 26 ]



would expect. But it is not very clear how it is done. It

becomes clearer when we see that there are two kinds of
groups: informal or “natural”, ones like farm life, city life,

mining, slums, frontier life; and the formal or “planned” ones

like a stock company, a board of directors, a city government,

a labor union, a medical association, a university, a taxpayers

association, a baseball club, a monarchy.

In the language of Catholic Action—another invention of
Pope Pius XI—these two kinds of groups are called respectively
“Milieux” and “Institutions.” “Milieu” is a French word

meaning “medium” as in the sentence “water is the natural

medium of fish, and air is the natural medium of birds.”

Informal or Natural Groups: “The Milieu”

Now if you will look at the examples given above of a
“natural medium” of human life—farm life, city life, slums,
frontier life—you will notice that they actually produce differ-

ent types of people. The “hayseed,” the “city-slicker,” the
miner, the slum-dweller, the frontiersman, are different types

of human beings that anyone can recognize at a glance, whether
they occur in books or in real life. And then there is the
executive, the “jitterbug” (formerly the drug-store cowboy),

the clergyman, the hobo, the laborer, and so on through the
whole catalogue. These great differences in types of men all
bear witness to the fact that every concrete natural medium of
life exercises upon its members a continuous and powerful in-
fluence: an influence more or less confused, but very real.

Because of this continuous and powerful influence, the nat-

ural medium of life can largely determine the human perfection
attainable by its members. Thus Pope Pius XI could say
of our modern industrial system: “Bodily labor, which Prov-
idence decreed is to be performed for the perfection of man’s

body and soul, is being everywhere changed into an instrument
of perversion; for dead matter comes forth from the factory
ennobled, while men are there corrupted and degraded!”

This “grip” which the natural medium of life has on human
perfection is the source of the obligation to control it; and
since it is made up precisely of all the actions of the people

[27 3



in it, every one of these actions is under that obligation. It

might be pointed out that the whole theory of specialization,

inquiry method, and cell technique in Catholic Action is di-

rected towards control of each one’s own natural medium of

life; and the people who engage in this work or in work sim-

ilar to it are the ones who are discharging their duty of Social

Justice in their own sphere of life. All others, either delib-

erately or unknowingly, are failing.

Formal or Planned Groups: The Institution

But there is more to social life than these informal “natural

media.” There are also the formal “institutions.” We have
just seen one of these—Catholic Action—in its relation to the
natural medium of life; and that relation is one of direct

control. The natural medium of life is in itself too informal,

too complex, too vast, too fluid and changing, too much sub-

ject to the will and shortcomings of thoughtless people, ever

to be controlled directly by individual persons in it, for these

individuals are helpless when, standing alone, they face its vast

collective weight and pressure.

Pope Pius XI pointed this out clearly insofar as the nat-
ural medium of the industrial employers is concerned; and the
same principle is of universal application. We have already
seen on several occasions the text in which he indicates this

truth: “It happens all too frequently, under the salary system

that individual employers are helpless to insure justice, un-

less, with a view to its practice they organize institutions, etc.”

As was already said, the application of this principle is uni-

versal, and it applies to every level of social life: to the family,

the neighborhood, the school, the professions, the parish, the

state, the city, inter-state commerce, the nation, international

relations, the United Nations, the World Court, the Church, the
whole of human society. Every one of these things is an
institution controlling some aspect of human life and made
up of a whole network of subordinate institutions, each one
controlling smaller aspects of human life.

[ 28 ]



Duty and Disorder

The Holy Father points out a three-fold duty to these in-

stitutions: to organize, to promote, and to support. These are

specific acts of Social Justice; and anyone who would refuse
to perform them at his level of the institutional hierarchy would

thereby fail against Social Justice; for institutions are, as the

Pope so clearly points out, “necessary instruments, enabling

men to fulfill their obligations.’’ Without them the individual
is “helpless to insure justice” and his natural medium of life,
his level of society, is in disorder, is socially unjust. When
this disorder reaches up into higher and higher levels of so-

ciety, it becomes a world disorder, a true crisis of civilization,

such as we are experiencing today.

The Nature of the Common Good

Every higher institution depends on all those below it for

its effectiveness, and every lower institution depends on those

above it for its own proper place in the Common Good. It is
precisely this whole vast network of institutions which is the

Common Good, on which everyone of us depends for the real-
ization of our personal perfection, of our personal good.

It is wrong to conceive of the Common Good as a sort of
general bank account into which one “deposits” when, for

instance he pays his taxes to the state; and “withdraws” when
he is appointed public coordinator of something or other at a

hundred and fifty dollars a week, or when the state builds a
road past his farm and thus raises its value. It is surprising

how many people think that distributive justice is the virtue
that assesses taxes and Social Justice is the virtue that pays

them. Both of these actions are distributive, that is, individual,

justice; and become Social Justice only in a secondary way as
they promote the Common Good.

Nor must we think of the Common Good as something which
we can “share with another” like a candy bar pr an auto-
mobile ride. Rather it is something which each of us pos-

sesses in its entirety, like light, or life itself. When the Com-
mon Good is badly organized, when society is socially unjust,

[ 29 ]



then it is each individual’s own share of personal perfection
which is limited, or which is withheld from him entirely.

Everyone Can Do It

When it is realized that the Common Good consists of
that whole vast complex of institutions, from the simplest “nat-

ural medium” of a child’s life, to the United Nations itself,
then a very comforting fact emerges: Each of these institu-

tions from the lowest and most fleeting “natural medium” to
the highest and most enduring organization of nations is the

common good at that particular level. Therefore everyone
,

from the smallest and weakest child to the most powerful ruler

in the world, can have direct care of the Common Good at his
level. This is a far cry indeed from those social philosophers

who before Pius XI could say with complete sincerity and
conviction, “the common good is not something which can be
directly attained.”

CHAPTER V

THE ORGANS OF THE COMMON GOOD:
SOCIAL HABITS OR INSTITUTIONS

In our attempt to understand the Common Good we have
dealt with what we called “social habits,” which were of two
kinds: first, “natural media of life”; and, secondly, “formal

institutions.” We must now examine these ideas a little more
closely if we are to get a real grasp of our subject.

Surprised Again

Let us start with a simple affirmation: all social acts what-

ever are highly organized. To some this may come as a shock,
but let us take the simplest sort of act in the most material

aspect of life; the act of buying and selling.

Some people might think that this requires no prolonged and
arduous training—but it does. What a difference in procedure

[ 30 ]



from such an act in a “bargaining tradition/’ to the same

act in a “fixed price tradition”! So great is this difference

that it may take years for a man to make the transition from
one to the other, even under the grinding force of daily eco-

nomic losses. Perhaps the easiest way to bring home this

truth quickly, is to transcribe a few paragraphs from a report

of a missionary in China: “In business, one Chinese is sup-

posed to be able to get the best of ten Westerners. Mission-

aries in China have, naturally, a great deal of business to do

with the people, and their presence in a neighborhood is wel-

comed as much as a fox might welcome the advent of a chicken
fancier. After a few years the stupid foreigner learns to take

care of himself, and often achieves the honor of paying less

than two or three times the price of an article.

“The first thing any new missionary must do in a new
area is to secure a piece of land. He looks about for a suit-
able location which the owner is willing to part with. I don’t

remember the procedure in America. Quite possibly the buyer

might even approach the owner and ask him the price. Such

a step in China would be ridiculous and disastrous. One fine
morning the missionary sends one of his friends down to look
over That barren waste just north of the woods.’ He occa-
sionally makes slighting remarks about the property’s being
unfit for his purpose. Finally he might confide (under pledge

of great secrecy) to his number-one man, that he would take

the property if the owner would sell it for five dollars an acre.

All these harmless machinations are unknown to the world at
large except for the few thousand people in the surrounding

villages.

The owner of the property carries out his part of the deal
in much the same way as the missionary. This may continue
for as long as two years until everyone is perfectly satisfied
that everyone else knows his intentions. As soon as it is clear
that the missionary will not take the land at any price, not even
as a gift, and that the owner will never part with his property,
not even at the price of 10,000 yuan ($3,000.00) an acre, the
way is open for the transaction, which may be carried through
with remarkable ease.”

[31 ]



Deceptive Simplicity

To the Westerner of this quotation such bargaining tech-
nique must be highly incomprehensible at the start, even

though, perforce, he must submit to it—but it cannot be
nearly so incomprehensible as our “fixed price technique” is

to those who bargain. The idea of a just price is a much more
highly organized social phenomenon than the apparently more
complex and devious procedures of bargaining. The apparent
simplicity of the former is in reality only the facility of ac-

quired habit .

If we were to examine instead of a simple exchange, the
systems of property tenure, we would find incomparably more
extensive and complicated institutions giving “form and shape”

to human activity:

What diverse forms has property had, from that primitive form
among rude and savage peoples, which may be observed in some
places even in our times, to the form of possession in the patriarchial
age; and so further to the various forms under tyranny,—we are
using the word tyranny in its classical sense,—and then through the
feudal and monarchal forms down to the various types that are to
be found in more recent times. ( Quadragesimo Anno

,

paragraph 49.)

Necessary to Life

And in every one of these forms the individuals within them
had to conform to the institutional pattern (exactly as the mis-

sionary in China had to conform), if they wanted to par-

ticipate in the common life. For this is what it means to
“participate in the common life”—without a common ex-
pectation of a certain pattern of activity during transactions,

no social intercourse is possible at all; just as individual life

becomes impossible, except inasfar as it is sustained by outside

help, in a certain strange disease in which all the common
habits become somehow jumbled in the mind’s control of
them. Thus a victim of this disease, in picking up a tele-
phone receiver, has no assurance at all that his hand will carry

it to his ear—it will just as likely go through the motions of
brushing his teeth; and an attempt on his part to correct the

[ 32 ]



action may result in motions of combing his hair or sticking
the receiver in his tie. On the other hand, when he grasps a
glass of milk, his hand may upset it against his ear like a
telephone receiver. With all expectation of normal response

removed, he is no longer able to meet the necessities of life.

Two Levels of Habit

This profound derangement of normal processes reveals two

orders of individual habits: that fundamental order which deals

with the normality and abnormality of action itself; and then,

built upon the normality of this order, another order of per-

fection,—of facility or difficulty of operation,—which is the
world of art and virtue and their opposites.

It is much the same in the social order: there is one level
of social habits (that we have called natural media of life)
which by offering expectation of normal response make social
intercourse possible; and another level (institutions in the

strict sense) which is built upon this first level, which make
that social intercourse in fact good or bad; and this last is

the order of social justice.

Virtue is the Habit of Doing Good

Now this suggests a very interesting and very fruitful
parallel: just as an individual is called “good” without qual-

ification, not because of a single good act or good quality, even

though it be of heroic proportions, but because of his good

habits, that is, his moral virtues; so a society is not to be called

“good” without qualification for the good individuals in it or

for some great collective act of generosity or valor, but only

for its good institutions, that is its social justice .

And just as vice is as much a habit as virtue; so bad in-
stitutions are as much organized as good ones. The only
difference is in the kind of organization and that is deter-

mined by its end: the good to secure the development and
perfection of the full human life, and the bad to grasp some
sort of immediate advantage regardless of the consequences.

[ 33 ]



CHAPTER VI

THE LAWS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

In paragraph 57 of Quadragesimo Anno, Pope Pius XI
speaks of “Laws of Social Justice.” Throughout the Encycli-

cal, he has set forth certain of these laws. Without trying to

be exhaustive in the matter, let us pick out a few of them

for comment. It will be necessary sometime to make a com-

plete analysis; but for an introductory pamphlet like this a

mere selection will do
;
for the ones chosen will give us a good

idea of what the others might be.

First Law: That the Common Good Be Kept Inviolate

The first great law, the one mentioned in paragraph 57 it-
self, is “that the Common Good of all society be kept in-
violate.” The meaning of this law is that in all private deal-
ings, in all exercise of individual justice, the Common Good
must be a primary object of solicitude. To attack or to en-
danger the Common Good in order to attain some private end,
no matter how good or how necessary this latter may be in
its own order, is social injustice and is wrong. The Common
Good is not a means for any particular interests; it is not a
bargaining point in any private quarrel whatsoever; it is not

a pressure that one may legitimately exercise to obtain any
private ends. It is a good so great that very frequently pri-

vate rights—even inviolable private rights—cannot be exer-
cised until it is safeguarded.

Thus, in a time when the Common Good of a whole nation
is threatened by military attack, every man in it has an in-
violable right to live in his own home with his wife and
children—and none of them who are drafted can do it.

Second Law: Cooperation, Not Conflict

“The unity of human society,” says Pope Pius XI in
paragraph 88 of Quadragesimo Anno, “cannot be founded upon
opposition.” The only alternative to building a society upor
the Common Good, is to try to build it upon some particulal

[ 34 ]



good. But the particular good of each individual is different,

and any particular good which is falsely made into an ulti-

mate principle must necessarily be in conflict with every other

particular good.

Two kinds of such conflict are possible: free competition

,

which doesn't care if others are wiped out; and dictatorship

,

which makes sure they are wiped out. Free competition as a

principle of society can only lead to greater and greater con-

flicts of interests, until finally the society itself is destroyed.

Dictatorship is a refinement of the same system, by which one

kills off one's competitors at the beginning instead of at the

end, thus making sure (it is hoped) that one at least will sur-

vive.

People who advocate such courses have missed the great law
of Social Justice that not conflict in any form, but only co-

operation, organization for the Common Good, can make a
real society.

Third Law: One’s First Particular Good Is One’s Own
Place in the Common Good

The first particular good of every individual or group is that
that individual or group find its proper place in the Common
Good. This is readily seen in paragraph 85 of Quadragesimo

Anno:

It is easily deduced from what has been said that the interests
common to the whole industry or profession should hold first place
in these guilds.

Notice that what is here under consideration is what we

would call a “particular” good, even though it is “common to
the whole industry or profession.” It is indeed common to the
individual members of the industry or profession, but in relation
to the great Common Good of the country, it is a good only of
that particular group, therefore a “particular” or private good.

Now the Holy Father goes on to explain what the first and
most important “particular” good for that group is:

The most important of these interests is to promote the co-operation
in the highest degree of each industry and profession for the sake
of the Common Good of the country.

[35 ]



This is an interesting statement: The first particular good

of any group is the Common Good above it. But is this really
surprising? Haven’t we already seen that every single action

of every person is social and must be directed towards the

Common Good? This simply says the same thing for groups.
In the light of this principle, the first interest of every labor

union should be the Common Good of the whole country; the
first interest of the National Association of Manufacturers

should be the Common Good of the whole country; the first
interest of the Farm Block should be the Common Good of the
whole country; the first interest in any industry, in any fac-

tory, in any department, at any bench; is the Common Good.

And, to enter a larger field and give our “isolationists” the

most unkind cut of all, the first of those “national interests”

they are continually telling us to safeguard should be the

Common Good of the world!

It must be admitted that this is not the way most of us

think at the present time, but that is because we have been
badly educated.

It must be admitted also that to carry out such a principle

in practice looks like too big a job for human nature as we know
it; but that is because we are individualists and have missed

the point. Of course it is too big a job if each one of us and

each of our groups is individually and separately responsible

for the welfare of the human race as a whole. But the point is

that the human race as a whole is social. Its welfare is pre-

served by the fact that it is the first interest of every single

nation of which it is composed. Those nations are preserved

by the fact that they are the first interest of every group: civic,

political, social, industrial, religious, cultural, etc., of which

they are composed. And these groups are safeguarded by the

fact that they are the first interest of every subordinate group

of which they are composed. And finally, these subordinate

groups are safeguarded by the fact that they are the first inter-

est of every individual who makes them up.

[ 36 ]



Fourth Law: Each Directly Responsible

This brings us to the next great law of Social Justice. Every

individual, regardless of his age or occupation or state of life,

is directly responsible for the Common Good, because the Com-

man Good is built up in a hierarchical order . That is, every
great human institution consists of subordinate institutions,
which themselves consist of subordinate institutions, on down
to the individuals who compose the lowest and most fleeting
of human institutions. Since every one of these institutions is
directly responsible for the general welfare of the one above

it, it follows that every individual is directly responsible for

the lower institutions which immediately surround his life, and

indirectly (that is, through these and other intermediate insti-

tutions) responsible for the general welfare of his wboio coun-

try and the whole world.

This is a far cry from older ways of thinking that did not

see the common good was made up of this vast network of
institutions. Especially in economics the theory was prevalent

that each person should make his living as best he could and
let the Common Good take care of itself, or at best let the
state take care of it.

Fifth Law: Higher Institutions Must Never

Displace Lower Ones

Another law of Social Justice which stems from the institu-

tional character of the Common Good is that no institution
in the vast hierarchy which we have seen can take over the
particular actions of an institution or person below it. This i c

well stated in paragraph 80 of Quadragesimo Anno :

The supreme authority of the state, ought, therefore, to let sub-
ordinate groups handle matters and concerns of lesser importance,
which would otherwise dissipate its efforts greatly. Thereby the
state will more freely, powerfully, and effectively do all those things
that belong to it alone because it alone can do them. . . . There-

fore those in power should be sure that the more perfectly a grad-
uated order is kept among the various associations, in observance
of the principle of “subsidiary functions,” the stronger social au-

thority and effectiveness will be and the happier and more prosperous
the condition of the state.

[ 37 ]



In his Encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, Pope Pius XII ap-
plies this principle to the state both as regards its subordinate

institutions, and as regard the whole human family of which
it is a part.

If, in fact, the state lays claim to and directs private enterprises,

these, ruled as they are by delicate and complicated internal prin-
ciples which guarantee and insure the realization of their special aims,
may be damaged to the detriment of the public good, by being
wrenched from their natural surroundings, that is, from responsible

private action.

Then again, to show the relation of the state to the whole

human community:

The idea which credits the state with unlimited authority is not
simply an error harmful to the life of nations, to their prosperity,

and to the larger and well ordered increase in their well-being, but
likewise it injures the relations, between peoples, for it breaks the

unity of supra-national society, robs the law of nations of its founda-
tion and vigor, leads to the violation of others’ rights, and impedes

agreement and peaceful intercourse.
A disposition in fact of divinely sanctioned natural order divides

the human race into social groups, nations or states, which are
mutually independent in organization and in the direction of their
internal life. But for all that, the human race is bound together by
reciprocal ties, moral and juridical, into a great commonwealth di-
rected to the good of all nations, and ruled by special laws which
protect its unity and promote its prosperity.

Sixth Law: Freedom of Association

Another great law of social justice is that of freedom of

association. This derives from the hierarchical organization

of the institutions of society which we have already examined.
If every natural group of individuals has a right to its own
common good and a duty towards the next highest common
good, it is evident that such a group has the right to organize

itself formally in view of the common good. In times past,
as both Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius XI pointed out, capital
tried to deny this right of association to labor. In our own
lifetime, we have seen governments deny this right of associa-
tion to large groups of their citizens. Totalitarian systems of

[ 38 ]



government, whether fascist or communist in character, live by

the denial of the right of association to anyone but the party in

power.

It is interesting to see how Pope Pius XI insists upon
the word “free” in the following passage of Quadragesimo Anno

which sets forth this principle:

87. Moreover, just as inhabitants of a town are wont to found

associations with the widest diversity of purposes, which each is quite

free to join or not, so those engaged in the same industry or pro-

fession will combine with one another into associations equally free

for purposes connected in some manner with the pursuit of the calling
itself. Since these free associations are clearly and lucidly explained

by Our Predecessor of illustrious memory, we consider it enough to
emphasize this one point fully. People are quite free, not only to

found such associations, which are a matter of private order and

private right but also in respect to them “freely to adopt the organ-
ization and the rule which they judge most appropriate to achieve
their purpose. The same freedom must be asserted for founding as-
sociations that go beyond the boundaries of individual callings. And
may these free organizations now flourishing and rejoicing in their
salutary fruits, set before themselves the task of preparing the way,
in conformity with the mind of Christian social teaching, for those
larger and more important guilds, industries and professions, which
we mentioned before, and make every possible effort to bring them
to realization.

Social Justice demands this freedom not only in order that
each social group may be properly organized to make its own
unique and necessary contribution to the general common
good, but also so that the group may constantly safeguard the
welfare of those who make it up. If effective control of any
group ever escapes from its members, then that group no longer
is responsive to the needs of its members. Rather it satisfies

the ambitions and the plans of the individuals who have “cap-
tured” the group for their own private ends. The well known
“boring from within” tactics of Communists who seek control
of organizations in order to use them for their own political
ends, are examples of such usurpation of groups for purposes

other than their natural ones.

Any group which would find itself thus “taken over” by
agitators or gangsters for their own ends, would have an obliga-

[39 ]



tion in Social Justice to shake off such leadership and make the

group once more representative of its members’ common in-

terests.

But it is not only by such usurpation from without that

groups can fail to perform their proper function of safeguarding

the interests of all their members. Since all human institutions

are in constant flux, as we have seen, it is essential that their

members keep constantly on the alert to make the changing

organization of the group correspond to the changing circum-

stances as time goes on. If this is not done, then every change

which disturbs the balance of the common good, will throw
unwarranted advantage to some individuals or groups within

the institutions, and by the same fact will withhold their proper

share of the common good from the others. This state of things
is another reason why groups must be jree, for without such
freedom they cannot readily adapt themselves to new situations.

Seventh Law: All Vital Interests Should Be Organized

The last law of Social Justice which we will consider is that
all real and vital interests of life should be organized, that is,

should be deliberately made to conform to the requirements of
the common good. Here is where the individualistic thinker
rebels at the doctrine of Social Justice. Seeing the great com-

plexity of life and the vast number of vital interests of which
it is made up, he maintains that one who would try to organize
every vital interest could do nothing else during his whole

life since this alone would be a full-time job that would never

end.

In one sense he is right—it is a full-time job that never
ends. But he is wrong in thinking that one would somehow
have to take “time out” from his ordinary life in order to do this

job. The vast and complex institutions of human life can be
controlled and directed only by those who live in them, and
only while they live in them.

Here we meet Pope Pius XPs great principle “The first
apostles to the workers ought to be workers.” This is the prin-

ciple which in Catholic Action has become known as “Milieu

[ 40 ]



Specialization,” specialization according to the “natural

medium” of each one’s ordinary daily life.

The theory is that each one’s own life is so complex and so

specialized, that he alone is a “specialist” in that life. In the

same way, each group’s own interests are so complex and so

particular to it, that only its members are specialists in the

needs and aspirations and hopes and fears of that group.

Anyone who would try to run such a group “from outside”
would evidently be a rank amateur who would not know the
score. Therefore the group must be run by those who are in it,
and in order to run the group they must get together and decide

in common the means they will adopt, in other words they must
organize their life.

However when we say they must organize their life we do

not mean that they can do anything else. The “organization”
of life which we speak of here is specifically “organization for
the Common Goody If the people in a group are not conscious
of this necessity of organizing for the Common Good, it is not
true that they do not organize; what is true is that they

organize against the Common Good. For it must be remem-
bered that since man is a social being every one of his actions
is social, that is it is bound up with the lives of others. When
he neglects to see to it that his social actions contribute to the

Common Good of those others with whose lives they are bound
up, it is evident that he does not change his social nature. He
still remains a social being, and his actions are still bound up
with the lives of those around him. The difference is that those
actions, being undirected towards the Common Good, may or
may not now contribute to that Common Good—in fact, most
usually will not so contribute. These actions become habitual
within the group and gradually the whole group becomes dis-
organized; the Common Good is destroyed and the individual
perfection of those who are in the group is lessened or destroyed.

It is not true to think that man has a choice between or-
ganization or no organization within his life which is essentially
social. The only choice he has is between organization that
takes care of the Common Good, and organization which docs
not take care of the Common Good. Either way his actions

[ 41 ]



will be organized, will be social; but in the first case they will

be socially good and in the second they will be socially bad.

In view of all this it is evident that the principle pronounced

above—that every vital and real interest of life must be
organized for the Common Good—does not impose a new way
of life upon anyone, but does impose a new purpose in life
upon all

;
namely, the purpose of promoting the Common Good

of one’s neighbors, of those with whom one’s life is bound up.
Once more, this list of seven “laws of Social Justice” does

not pretend to be complete. Others would have to be added in

a more complete discussion.

CHAPTER VII

CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

First Characteristic: Only By Members of Groups

It might be good in order to make the notion of social justice
clearer, to compare its characteristics with those of individual

justice which are already well-known. The first great mark
of social justice is that it cannot be performed by individuals
as individuals, but only by individuals as members of groups.

Let us give an example. When John Jones pays a debt to
Bill Smith he is acting as an individual. He contracted the
debt and he is paying it. We would be tempted to say it is
nobody else’s business.

Example of Indirect or “Commanded” Act of
Social Justice

But there is more to it than that. When he pays his debt,
he is continuing a laudable tradition in his society, that debts

are paid when they come due. By paying it promptly he
contributes to the conviction which is prevalent in his society,

that debts are to be repaid promptly. He not only furnishes
a payment for his private debt, which is whatever sum of money
he happens to owe, but he also contributes payment of a debt

[ 42 ]



which he owes to his society, namely, support of the principle

that at the proper time debts are to be paid. Moreover, when

Bill Smith gets paid, he is in a position to pay his own debts to
somebody else; and thus the healthy tradition of debt paying

is still further strengthened. Moreover, the confidence which

men have in each other’s integrity, a confidence upon which
all our social living together is built, is certainly promoted by

the fact that both men discharged their obligations when those
obligations became due.

Now this “tradition,” this “confidence” are social things,
marks of the society as a whole, which set off that society of

honest men from other societies of thieves or cheats or con-
fidence men. These acts then, insofar as they contribute to the

health of that society, are indirect acts of Social Justice (pro-

moting the Common Good) although they are directly acts of
individual justice. Now notice that the individual justice is
done as an individual. It is John Jones or Bill Smith who pays
the debt of John Jones or Bill Smith. But when by their
action they contributed to the health of the whole society, it

was not merely as John Jones or Bill Smith that they acted
but as members of that society.

Example of Direct Act of Social Justice

This is even more clear if we were to describe not an indirect
act of Social Justice but a direct one. Suppose for instance,
that John Jones’ and Bill Smith’s society have a long tradition
of not paying debts. As a result of this fact that nobody ever
pays debts, everybody is suspicious of everybody else, and no
one will let out money or goods even in an emergency of his
neighbor.

Emergencies, however, have a habit of coming up, and
people suffer. Likewise, all jobs that are too big financially

for one person, go undone, because no one will trust another
sufficiently to go into partnership. The consequence is that the
economic life of the community as a whole is suffering more
and more; and the people are gradually being reduced to desti-
tution.

We will suppose that John Jones notices this condition, and
[ 43 ]



sees what the cause of it is: the whole group is not honest. He
sets out, then, to change the group—to reorganize it into an
honest community.

The Wrong Way: Individualistic

The question is: What can John Jones do as an individual?
He might, for instance, decide to give the community “a good
example” of honesty. That is, he might lend out all his money
to others, thus showing that he trusts them, and undertake

always to pay his debts exactly on time. It sounds good; but,

remembering that what is wrong with that community is that

everyone considers it normal to be dishonest, we might readily
calculate the chances that John Jones’ heroic honesty and trust

would have of reforming the community. When he starts hand-
ing out his money freely, it is rather obvious that most of his
neighbors will try to grab off as much of it as they can while
the grabbing is good. When he is finally reduced to poverty,
it is unlikely that his example will attract many followers.

His mistake was to attack a social evil with only individual

means.

The Right Way: Social

How should he have gone about it?
First of all, he should recognize frankly that he, as an

individual
,
is helpless before the accumulated evil of the unjust

system in force. Then he should go out for help. If he is wise
he will not tackle the whole community at once, but will look
around among his friends or acquaintances and try to find
other people who are as dissatisfied as he himself is with the
poverty ridden condition of their community.

With these chosen souls he would sit down to study the sad
condition of their community and to see what could be done

about it. When it became clear that dishonesty was the big
obstacle in the way of a good life in the community, they could
very well begin to study the necessity of honesty in their own
relations, especially with each other. When all of them are
convinced that honesty is absolutely essential to a good life

together, it will become possible for them to agree among

[ 44 ]



themselves that they will trust each other. Furthermore, they

can agree to stand together against anyone of their number

who goes back on his promise to be good. Once this is accom-
plished they can begin helping each other out, lending money

when necessity arises, or joining forces when big jobs come

along that they cannot handle individually. Furthermore, since

they recognize that it is a social problem which affects the whole

community they will be careful not to help anybody outside

their “reform” group (which can be trusted to be honest), un-

less this outside person joins the group and himself takes the

obligation to meet his just debts.

And since they know very well what false ideas the com-
munity has on honesty, they will make it a condition of joining
their group that the newcomers study the necessity of honesty

as much as they themselves studied it when they started out

—

in other words, they will attempt to form their new members
to honesty. Actually they are setting up a new “social con-
science” to take the place of the old falsified “social conscience”

which had made dishonesty a normal thing.
Without going further into this example, it is already evi-

dent that in this social way of action—this organization of the
community—something can really be done. These organized
men are going to show to their disorganized community an
example, not of going heroically broke as a testimony to hon-

esty, but of arriving at economic security by the operation of
honesty.

This example will attract imitators—in fact, the smaller
group will deliberately go out to look for imitators and train

them to imitate.

Here you have the difference between individual action and
social action and it is clear that Social Justice is never done
by an individual xs an individual, but only by an individual
in cooperation, in organization with others.

Second Characteristic: It Takes Time

A second characteristic of Social Justice (which comes di-
rectly from the fact that it can be done only by groups) is that
it moves slowly and gradually. When John Jones owes Bill

[ 45 ]



Smith fifteen dollars on January 2nd, he must pay Bill Smith

fifteen dollars on January 2nd or be doing wrong. Individual

justice is done all at once at a definite time. But not so with

social justice. In the example above of the change from a

dishonest to an honest community it is clear that the process

took some time—probably a long time.
An even better example is the one that Pope Pius XI

proposed; namely, that of an individual employer who was
helpless to insure justice. The remedy which the Pope sug-
gested was that this employer had the duty to organize with

the other employers so as to prevent unjust competition and

permit fair treatment to the workers.

Here is an interesting point: When the process of organiza-
tion begins it is clear that the employer in the Holy Father’s

example is not paying a living wage. Furthermore, and this

is important, he will not pay a living wage until he has suc-

ceeded in reorganizing the industry in cooperation with the

other employers. For only in the measure in which that re-

organization succeeds, will his helplessness to pay a living

wage disappear. Yet from the very moment that he begins
reorganizing that industry with his fellow employers, and all

during the time which it takes to reorganize it, he is practicing

Socal Justice.

When he hears such doctrine, an individualistic moralist
will howl to high heaven. He will say that the payment of a
sub-living wage is unjust, is wrong; and that the employer is
not allowed to cooperate in that injustice. Direct cooperation

in evil, he will say, is wrong in all circumstances, and cannot be

permitted. Either the employer must pay a living wage, or get

out of the dirty business.

Evidently a man who would maintain so intransigent an
opposition to evil would have a thirst for justice, but if he

should succeed in driving out of that business the only employer

who wants to reorganize it, it is difficult to see what good he has
accomplished.

Pope Pius XI, in the same discourse on the fundamental
instability of human institutions which was quoted earlier, has
this to say about the necessary time lag in social work: “To

[ 46 ]



tend to perfection, but to do what is possible: there you have

the program to which human forces are permitted to pretend.
If God demands something more, then He does it Himself. . . .”

This compromise with reality, this willingness to accomplish

one’s end slowly and painfully, this “collaboration” in an evil

institution until the change can be accomplished, this “remain-

ing in a dirty business” in order to clean it up,—all this is hate-
ful to good people who have not grasped the essence of Social
Justice.

In the past, these individualists, or “radical non-participa-

tionists” as they like to call themselves (from their doctrine

of “radical non-participation in evil”) could be excused for their

attitude, because no one was very clear on how a social problem
could be attacked anyhow; and their theory of heroic resistance

and even martyrdom was about as good as any. Now, however,
that the doctrine of social justice has been completed under the

inspired pen of Pope Pius XI, many of these good people are
going to have to change their fundamental assumptions and

ideas. If they do not, they will find themselves willy-nilly

'collaborating in evil”—the great evil of social injustice.
Third Characteristic: Nothing Is Impossible

Another characteristic of Social Justice, which was already
pointed out in Chapter Two, is that in Social Justice there is
never any such thing as helplessness. No problem is ever too
big or too complex, no field is ever too vast, for the methods
of this Social Justice. Problems that were agonizing in the
past and were simply dodged, even by serious and virtuous
people, can now be solved with ease by any school child. Lest
this statement seem too extreme, let us take an actual example
of such an insoluble problem of the past.

A Common Problem
The following problem was proposed on a national radio

hookup:

I know many businessmen, lawyers, physicians, who lament the
trend to the unethical in the special worlds in which they operate.
They tell me that the tide is running against them, that too many of

[ 47 ]



their rivals have reduced business ethics and professional ethics to
three principles: 1. Everybody is doing it; 2. If you don’t do it,
someone else will; and 3. You can’t do business nowadays with old-
fashioned principles. Especially in the metropolitan cities, they say,

the degeneration is obvious. They blame this set of persons and
that, but they all seem agreed that decline, if not actual decay, is
upon us.

“It’s easy enough,” they add, “for you preachers to tell us to stand
firm, to hew to the line, and all that. But we have families to
support, homes to maintain, food and clothing to buy. . . . We must
do what the others do or be sunk. The crowd is running all one way

;

we cannot forever buck the stream!”

This is a sincere and straightforward statement of a problem

as common as any to be met at the present time. In fact, it is
an understatement: to complete the picture we should add that
the laws of our secularized society are usually in favor of the

crowd which is running all one way! It is not too hard to see

that this is identically the same problem which Pope Pius XI
presented in a passage which we have quoted several times:
“It happens all too frequently, under the salary system, that

the individual employer is helpless to insure justice.”

The radio preacher happened to be a rather pronounced
individualist, and the best answer he could give to his own
problem was the following: “Right is right if nobody does it.

Wrong is wrong if everybody does it. What the businessman
needs, and what the professional man needs is a new declaration
of independence.”

No Solution

Notice that the first part of this answer dodges the question.

The businessman had said in effect, that he as an individual was
helpless to insure justice. He knew the system was wrong,
but he did not know how to buck it. The only information
contained in the answer was that there is such a thing as right

and wrong. If the businessman had not known that perfectly
well before he stated his problem, he certainly would not have

called his system wrong!

The second part of the reply is more to the point; but that
“new declaration of independence” which sounds so nice in a
speech, is precisely what the businessman meant by the last

[48]



three words of his complaint: “We must do what the others do
or be sunk” This certainly is not much help!

It is difficult to see what other answers could have been

given from an individualistic point of view; The speaker could

of course have told the businessman to “use his own judgment/’
or to “do the best he can/’ but this once more is not much
help; and the businessman is looking for help. The only other
solution would be to tell the businessman that since he has to

make a living, and has to pay his debts and meet his other
obligations, he should go ahead with his business, since its

injustice is something which he cannot help, and which is only

indirectly willed. This may indeed offer the businessman a
chance to save his individual soul while precariously balancing

on a “good intention” in the midst of evil, but it certainly does

nothing to remedy the evil.

The Right Answer

No other answer, except a frank admission that the prob-
lem is insoluble, could be given from an individualistic point
of view. The answer which Pope Pius XI gave to his own
statement of the same problem was not individualistic at all

—

it was social; namely, that the employer who found himself thus
helpless to insure justice had a duty to organize

,
among the

employers
,
institutions which would make the practice of justice

possible. How this organization would be carried out we have
seen in the simple example of social action above (the unjust

community )

.

Once more notice how directly and clearly the Pope solved
that problem which was absolutely insoluble to the radio
speaker who had an individualistic philosophy. That is why
individualists, at least from now on, will not be very bright.
Not only that, but they will be downright wrong—failing
against Social Justice.

Fourth Characteristic: Eternal Vigilance

Another characteristic of Social Justice is that its work is
never finished. This goes beyond what was said above about

L 49 J



the time-lag, about the slowness, with which Social Justice is

accomplished. The point is that human institutions are
always changing, even the most fundamental ones, in the words

of Pope Pius XI already quoted, and these changes must always
be directed to serve the Common Good. We, as human beings,
cannot possibly foresee all the consequences of our actions. The
inevitable result is that many of these consequences bring about
unforeseen evil results; and as we go through life, acting always
without ultimate realization of the consequences of our actions,

these evil results pile up, one on top of the other, until many
aspects of our social life are disorganized—have become un-
just. When we try to correct that injustice even by social
action it is clear that our actions once more will have conse-
quences which we cannot foresee, and that many of those new
consequences will also be evil.

Besides that, there are a lot of other people who are not even
trying to be good; and the evil consequences of their acts also

are continually piling up in all the institutions of life. The
result is that Social Justice is not only a full-time job as we
have seen before, but it is also an all-time job.

A Digression

Here we ought to digress a little bit to show how Pope Pius
XI, who brought the theory of Social Justice to completion,
provided also an instrument whereby the Christian world could

perform this full-time, and all-time, job.

This instrument, which Pope Pius XI called Catholic Ac-
tion, was both world-wide, in order to be able to face the

greatest and most widespread of the modem evils, and at the
same time was specialized in every walk of life so that in all that

vast organization, not a single “amateur” would be at work.

When a doctor for instance, or a banker talks to a hall full of
workers on the dangers of Communism, we may safely presume
that all he knows about his subject is what he read in the

papers; but when a worker himself talks to fellow-workers
about the dangers of Communism, he knows the hopes and
fears, the injustices, the resentments that have made Com-
munism so attractive to the working masses of the world.

[SO]



Communism is only one example of such widespread evils.

The institution of birth control, to take only one more example,

is every bit as widespread, and probably as devastating in the

damage which it is doing to Christian civilization.

Many older Catholic organizations have not seen what Pope
Pius XI was trying to do with Catholic Action, and they spend
a great deal of their time trying to get themselves called “ Cath-

olic Action” without having the means to accomplish its pur-

poses. If they wrould keep their eyes upon the two extremes
pointed out here, namely a world-wide organization capable

of attacking directly the greatest evils of the present day, and

at the same time a movement which has specialized competence
inside every natural medium of life, they would not make this
mistake.

It can be seen at a glance that if Catholic Action were

organized according to the directions and norms which Pope

Pius XI laid down, and which the present Holy Father is con-
tinuing, then the work of organization of every aspect of life,

whose sheer vastness terrorizes or discourages the individualist,

would be greatly facilitated.

Not, however, that Catholic Action works directly in the

social order or the “temporal order” as it could better be called.

It does not. What it does is to organize all Catholics and keep
them formed and ready

,

so that when the time comes for them
to enter into the reorganization of any aspect of social life,
they have the practical unity, and they have the specialized

competence, to do it, and to do it well.

No one who appreciates the concept of Social Justice, as it
has come from the pen of Pope Pius XI, can afford to neglect
his other concept of Catholic Action. They complete and
explain each other.

Fifth Characteristic : Effectiveness

A kind of corollary of the characteristic of Social Justice
which we have just seen—namely, the characteristic that it is
never finished—is that one’s work for the Common Good must
be effective. It is not enough to do something with “a good
’ntention” for the Common Good, and then to turn onev back.

[Si ]



One must “keep his eye on the ball,” and whenever the ball is
not in the best position, one must work to put it there. This

means that the final criterion of whether or not Social Justice
is being practiced, is whether or not society is good. To put it
in Pope Pius XI’s own words, from Paragraph SI and 52 of
the Encyclical Divini Redemptoris:

If social justice is satisfied, the result will be an intense activity

in economic life as a whole, pursued in tranquility and order. This

activity will be proof of the health of the social body, just as the

health of the human body is recognized in the undisturbed regularity
and perfect efficiency of the whole organism.

But social justice cannot be said to have been satisfied as long
as workingmen are denied a salary that will enable them to secure
proper sustenance for themselves and for their family; as long

as they are denied the opportunity of acquiring a modest fortune
and forestalling the plague of universal pauperism; as long as they
cannot make suitable provision through public or private insurance
for old-age, for periods of illness, and for unemployment.

Sixth Characteristic: You Can’t
“Take It Or Leave It Alone”

Another corollary of this characteristic of Social Justice

(that it is never finished) is that it embraces a rigid obligation .

In the past when it was not seen very clearly how the duty
of reform would fall upon the individual conscience, the idea
became widespread that reform was a kind of special vocation,

like that to the priesthood, or the religious life. It was all very
good for those people who liked that sort of thing, but if one
did not like that sort of thing, he left it alone.

All that is changed! Since we know that everyone, even the
weakest and youngest of human beings, can work directly on
the common good at the level where he lives, and since each one
“has the duty” to reorganize his own natural medium of life
whenever it makes the practice of individual virtue difficult or

impossible, then every single person must face the direct and

strict obligation of reorganizing his life and the life around

him, so that the individual perfection both of himself and of

his immediate neighbors will become possible. This idea should

[52 ]



not be taken alone, it should be held only in conjunction with

the characteristics we have already seen, namely, that one

cannot practice Social Justice alone as an individual, but only

with others; and that the realization of Social Justice takes

time.

A Footnote to a Chapter of Ethics

Now for a final remark, which is not exactly a characteristic
of Social Justice, but rather a consequence of our present under-

standing of this virtue. In the past, when the way in which

Social Justice could be realized was not too well understood,

what is known to moralists as “the principle of double effect”

was applied to the social order as well as to the individual order.

This principle runs about as follows: “It is permitted to perform

an action in itself good or indifferent, which has a double or

multiple effect, namely, one or the other good effect and one or

the other bad, on condition: first, that the good effect is im-

mediate; secondly, that the end of the agent is honest; and

thirdly, that there exists a proportionately grave cause.” This

principle is necessary to free the individual conscience from

responsibility for evil effects which are thus “indirectly” willed,

and so permit the accomplishment of the normal and necessary

duties of life. Its ultimate basis is, of course, the absence of

power to impede the evil effect: “No one is held to the im-
possible; hence, no one, if he does not do that which he cannot

do, sins by omission.”
When for example a doctor can stop an otherwise fatal

hemorrhage only by ligating a blood vessel which at the same

time sustains the life of a non-viable fetus, the fact of the

matter is that the life of the un-born child is then simply

beyond his control and hence outside his responsibility; so that

when he ligates the blood vessel to stop the hemorrhage, and
the un-born child dies as a consequence, there is nothing more

to be said or done. If some means were open to his art to
preserve that life after the ligature, the responsibility of the

surgeon would still be engaged and he would have to try to save
that life.

[S3]



How About the Social Order?

Now comes the crucial question: Is this absence of power
to impede the evil effect, ever verified in the social order?

We have seen the answer above: no problem can ever be too
big, too complex, too widespread, too vast for Social Justice

to tackle. There is in the field of Social Justice no such thing

as an impossible situation. The conclusion is that that prin-
ciple “of double effect” does not belong in the social order

in the same way that it belongs in the individual order. We
have seen this already in the example of Social Justice which

Pope Pius XI cited. His “individual employer” was “helpless
to insure justice.” In the field of individual justice, therefore,

that is the end of the story. Nothing more is to be said. The
employer simply goes on paying an unjust wage ( materially

unjust) for the very simple reason that he is helpless to do

anything else. But how about the social problem, the fact
that his industry is badly organized and thus forces this help-

lessness upon him. In this social field there is no helplessness

whatever. He can change the industry (by social, organized
action) whenever he wants to start organizing, and he had

better not wait too’ long because the words of the Sovereign

Pontiff are explicit: “He has the duty ”

Another example: Suppose a senator is faced by a bill which

he judges necessary for the Common Good, but which has a
“rider” attached to it which he thinks to be unjust.

In individual justice he is permitted to vote for that measure

which he has judged necessary, despite the fact that in so doing

he also permits the unjust rider to become law. This latter

effect is willed by him only “indirectly” insofar as he cannot

safeguard the Common Good without permitting it. Formerly,
we would have thought that that, too, was the end of the story,
as for the surgical operation outlined above. He need give
the unjust effect no further thought, because he was helpless

to prevent its occurrence.

Now, however, we know differently. He can vote for the
necessary bill as before, but it was a social organization (legis-

lative proceedure) which linked together that necessary bill

and the unjust rider. It was this social organization, this sys-

W



tem of law, which prevented him from doing full justice—that
is from safeguarding the Common Good completely by the
exclusion of the rider from the bill which was necessary. Faced

with this helplessness, he has the duty to organize socially

against it. That is, he must after the passage of the bill, or

even before it, if that is possible, round up sufficient support
among the other senators to defeat the rider or to repeal it.
This process may take a long time, but he must keep working at
it to be just .

155 ]



CONCLUSION

The theory of Social Justice which has been outlined in this
pamphlet is tremendously important and far-reaching. No mere
pamphlet could hope to outline the whole theory or to explore

all its consequences. That is why this pamphlet is called
only an introduction to Social Justice.

The completed doctrine of Social Justice places in our
hands instruments of such power as to be inconceivable to
former generations.

But let us be clear about what is new and what is old. None
of the elements of this theory are new. Institutions, and insti-

tutional action, the idea of the Common Good, the relationship
of individual to Common Good,—all these things are as old
as the human race itself. There is nothing more new in those
things than in the school boy’s discovery that what he has

been speaking is prose; nor must we ever believe that God
made man a two-legged creature, and then waited for Aristotle
to make him rational. Moreover, much of the actual applica-
tion of these principles to practical life is to be found in older

writers under the heading “political prudence.”

When all that is admitted, there is still something tre-
mendously new and tremendously important in this work of
Pope Pius XI. The power that we have now to change any
institution of life, the grip that we have on the social order as a
whole, was always there but we did not know it and we did
not know how to use it.

Now we know.
That is the difference.

[ 56 ]



QUESTIONS ON

INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL JUSTICE

CHAPTER I

1. What two Encyclicals of Pope Pius XI show most clearly
his greatness as a social figure?

2. How did the “scientific” sociologists try to explain the
radical instability of social phenomena? How did the
moralists react? Did these tendencies have bad effects?

3. What was the real problem?

4. What is Pope Pius XFs opinion on the instability of hu-
man institutions?

5. Did this opinion extend even to the most fundamental

institutions? Was this the usual way of seeing the prob-
lem?

6. Why could the Pope venture so boldly into the “no man’s
land” between the moralists and the sociologists?

7. What are the great principles which Pope Pius XI in-
tended to apply to the social problem?

8. What was Social Justice called before about 1850?

9. Outline the history of the development of the doctrine of

Social Justice.

10.

In what way was St. Thomas’ doctrine of Social Justice
superior to Aristotle? What important question however
did he fail to ask concerning Social Justice?

[57]



CHAPTER II

1. What do most commentators miss when reading Quadra-

gesimo Anno?

2. What is usually misunderstood in Paragraph 71 of Quadra

-

gesimo Anno ?

3. Is it ever impossible to meet the demands of individual

justice? Is the one who finds himself in this circumstance
morally guilty?

4. In such an impossibility, is the solution to be sought in

individual justice, or in social justice?

5. Why is it certain that social justice is the same thing as the
traditional “legal justice.”

6. In paragraph 71 of Quadragesimo Anno what must be

done if existing circumstances do not permit a living fam-

ily wage? What is the common misunderstanding of the
demands of social justice as set forth in this paragraph?

7. In the past about all that has been demanded for social

justice was a “good intention” for the common good. Is
anything more demanded by Pope Pius XI’s doctrine of

Social Justice? Show how this demand is set forth in

paragraph 74 of the Encyclical.

8. What three alternatives to Social Justice does Pius XI

condemn as guides or norms of society? Why?

9. What does Pius XI mean by the statement that Social
Justice must give “form and shape” to social and eco-

nomic life?

10.

In adopting the new term Social Justice, what meaning did

Pope Pius XI seem to leave for the traditional term legal
justice? Was this an acceptance of popular understand-
ing?

[ 58 ]



11. Did Pope Pius XI develop the doctrine of Social Charity
with the same fullness of detail with which he developed

that of Social Justice? What work therefore remains to

be done?

12. What is the evil of trying to capture the very system of

economic life itself for private and selfish ends?

13. We have seen that in individual justice an employer may
be helpless to pay a just wage. Is it right to look on So-

cial Justice as some kind of additional claim on the em-

ployer by which he must pay a just wage anyhow? If this

is the wrong idea, what is the right one?

14. Outline the summary of his own teaching on Social Jus-
tice which Pope Pius XI inserted into the Encyclical Divini
Redemptoris.

CHAPTER III

1. How does Pope Pius XI base the theory of Justice on the
dignity of the human personality?

2. What are the “props” or supports needed for realization
of human dignity?

3. Distinguish between a failure against charity and justice.

4. What is Social Charity and on what is it based?

5. What does Social Justice require of society? Why?

6. What was the traditional view of justice, and how has
Pope Pius XI improved upon it?

7. Why isn’t commutative justice the “most perfect” form of
justice? Could the same be said about charity?

8. Could you give any reason why “other goods of human
perfection are unobtainable without the Common Good”?

[ 59 ]



9. The duty of meeting the obligations of Social Justice, once
they are understood and recognized is “both rigid and very

serious.” Why?

10. What has the result of past thinking done for Social Jus-
tice? Why?

CHAPTER IV

1. Why must every act conform to Social Justice, or be sin-
ful?

2. Can an isolated individual practice Social Justice? What
does this imply?

3. Give a definition of milieu. Of institution. How do they
differ?

4. How are people to discharge their duty of Social Justice?

5. Give Pope Pius XI’s reason for the necessity of institu-

tions.

6. What is the three-fold duty of institutions?

7. What is the relationship existing between the Common
Good and every individual?

8. What is the Common Good? What is it not?

9. Why can each individual have direct care of the Common
Good at his level?

CHAPTER V

1. Show by an example how buying and selling are highly

organized.

2. Why is the “fixed priced technique” apparently more sim-
plified than bargaining?

What is meant by “participating in the common life”?

[ 60 ]

3 .



4. What is the function of the first level of social habits?

What is the function of the order of Social Justice?

5. What makes society “good”?

6. What determines the “kind of organization”? Why?

7. When is an organization “bad”?

CHAPTER VI

1 . Can it be stated dogmatically that there are seven and only

seven laws of Social Justice?

2. At what cost must the Common Good be kept inviolate?
Why?

3. If society is not founded upon the Common Good, what
other good can it be founded upon? What, then, logically

follows?

4. What advantages does co-operation (common good) have
over dictatorship or free competition (particular good)?

5. With regard to the third mentioned law, what is your big

job for Social Justice?

6 . You are responsible for the general welfare of your coun-

try and further of the WHOLE WORLD. Why?

7. What reason does Pope Pius XI give for the fifth men-
tioned law?

8. Give three reasons why there must be such a thing as
“freedom of association.”

9. In the seventh law, what is meant by the word “organized”?

List a few “real and vital interests” and show how they
could be “organized.”

[61 ]



10. What reason can you give for this statement: “The vast
and complex institutions of human life can justly be con-
trolled and directed only by those who live in them, and

only while they live in them.”

11. Why can there be NO alternative in the question of
“organizing”?

CHAPTER VII

1. What are the six characteristics of Social Justice? Which
do you consider the most important? Why?

2. Is there any distinction made between an Indirect or

“Commanded” act of Social Justice and one that is Direct?
What is it? Is it a “real” distinction?

3. What two ways of action are mentioned in connection
with the reorganization of a community? Which is the

Right Way? Why?

4. What connection does the first characteristic have with
Catholic Action?

5. Why can there not be such a thing as one precise act of
Social Justice?

6. Why does the individualistic moralist “howl” at such a
doctrine as Social Justice? Is he justified?

7. What changes will the ‘individualist” have to make in his
thinking since Pope Pius XI has definitely stated his view
on Social Justice?

8. What is the Holy Father’s view of organization for the

betterment of social conditions?

9. Why is the individual evidently helpless in going against
the so-called principles of business and professional ethics?

What must he do if he wishes to counteract these prin-

ciples? Must he try to counteract them? Why?

[ 62 ]



10. Why do human institutions demand eternal vigilance on
the part of social-actionists? In what direction must the

social actionist always tend?

11. Why can Catholic Action face all problems ( world-wide
and local) effectively?

12. Does the world-wide view of Catholic Action demand too

much from the individual? What other element does
Catholic Action consider?

13. Does the Holy Father’s concept of Social Justice conse-

quently demand Catholic Action groups?

14. Why is “a good intention” for the betterment of the Com-
mon Good insufficient? Does Social Justice demand more
than good will? If so, what?

15. What is the final criterion as to whether or not Social

Justice is being practiced? What does Pope Pius XI say
about this?

16. Is there any difference in the method of reform as prac-

ticed in the past in comparison to the method demanded

by Social Justice today? Why must it be different to be
effective?

17. Why does not the principle of “double effect” belong in
the social order as it does in the individual order?

18. Is the theory of Social Justice of recent origin? What do
we know about Social Justice that has been neglected till

now? What are the consequences of this knowledge?

[63 ]