Question Two: Concerning the Procuration of the Common Good

S. Th. I-II, q. 96, a. 1, 2, 3.

267. The common good is composed of many things.¹ — Principally it is the intellectual and moral good of virtue; instrumentally, the sufficiency of exterior goods whose use is required in a well constituted society for the exercise of virtue. Hence legal justice assumes as its proper matter all things which conduce to the exercise of virtue and to a due abundance of goods.

¹ I-II, q. 96, a. 1.

Hence the office of the republic is not merely negative: order to be preserved, rights, goods, and liberty to be protected, existing or imminent evil to be warded off; but also positive: the common good to be promoted, by a certain general action by which the prosperity of the collectivity arises and, as it were, spontaneously flows out to all. "Therefore," says Leo XIII, "those by whom the city is ruled ought first to contribute their labor generally and universally by the whole plan of laws and institutions, namely, by bringing it about that from the very conformation and administration of the republic prosperity, both of the community and of private persons, freely blossoms forth."²

² Which Pius XI again inculcates in the encyclical Quadragesimo anno, May 15, 1931, I, 2.

Let St. Thomas be heard:³ "The king, therefore, instructed in the divine law, ought to direct his chief study to this: in what way the multitude subject to him may live well. This study indeed is divided into three things: first, that he institute a good life in the subject multitude; second, that he conserve it once instituted; third, that he lead it, once conserved, on to better things. For the good life of one man two things are required: one principal thing, which is operation according to virtue, for virtue is that by which one lives well; but another secondary and, as it were, instrumental thing, namely, the sufficiency of bodily goods, whose use is necessary for the act of virtue. Yet the unity of man himself is caused through nature; but the unity of a multitude, which is called peace, must be procured through the industry of the agent. Thus, therefore, for instituting the good life of a multitude, three things are required: first, that the multitude be constituted in the unity of peace; second, that the multitude, united in the unity of peace, be directed to acting well...; third, that by the industry of the king there be present a sufficient abundance of things necessary for living well...

³ De Regimine principum, l. I, c. 15.

"Therefore, for the institution of a good multitude... there remains, pertaining to the office of the king, that he be solicitous about promotion; and this is done when, in the several things which have been premised, if anything is disordered, he studies to correct it; if anything is lacking, to supply it; if anything can be done better, to perfect it."

268. The material object of legal justice, considered generally,* is the good of any virtue whatever, insofar as it is ordered to the common good; as St. Thomas shows, q. 58, a. 5:

"All who are contained under some community are compared to the community as parts to the whole; but the part is that which belongs to the whole; whence also any good of the part is orderable to the good of the whole. According to this, therefore, the good of any virtue whatever, whether ordering some man to himself, or ordering him to certain other singular persons, is referable to the common good, to which justice, namely legal justice, orders. And according to this the acts of all virtues can pertain to legal justice." "And because it pertains to law to order to the common good,... through this justice man agrees with the law ordering the acts of all virtues to the common good."⁴

⁴ From this it is clear that the legislator can also command acts of beneficence toward the poor.

From these things it is inferred:

1. that it pertains to the legislators of the republic to establish not only those laws which pertain to justice as a cardinal virtue (as many present-day economists think), but also those which look to the other virtues, namely fortitude and temperance and the rest;

2. that the axiom, The State is the guardian of the just, is false and contrary to the whole tradition of the scholastics if it is understood in an exclusive sense of particular justice alone, namely commutative or even distributive justice; but it must be understood of legal justice, whose matter is the matter of all virtues, whose acts nevertheless are not commanded except under the aspect of the just, or of what is due to the common good;

3. consequently, that all vices also can be prohibited;

4. nevertheless, just as law cannot command all the acts of the individual virtues, so it is not expedient to restrain all the acts of individual vices; but in the matter of any virtue whatever it can command, and in the matter of any vice whatever it can prohibit, those things which are required by the common good, according as in determinate circumstances, in proportion to the condition of the people's weakness and virtue, it is possible (I, n. 280).⁵

⁵ Cf. I-II, q. 96, a. 3, ad 1, and a. 2.

269. The material object of legal justice, considered more specifically in present-day necessities, is indicated by Leo XIII in the encyclical Rerum novarum:

"Therefore those by whom the city is ruled ought first to contribute their labor generally and universally by the whole plan of laws and institutions, namely, by bringing it about that from the very conformation and administration of the republic prosperity, both of the community and of private persons, freely blossoms forth. For this is the duty of civil prudence, and the proper office of those who preside.

"Now those things especially make cities prosperous: uprightness of morals; families rightly and orderly constituted; the guardianship of religion and justice; the moderate imposition and equitable distribution of public burdens; the increase of arts and commerce; flourishing cultivation of the fields; and if there are any other things of the same kind, the more diligently these are promoted, the better and happier the citizens will live."

According to the doctrine of the Pontiff, the matter of legal justice is:

1. Those acts which, ordered through laws and institutions, procure such a conformation and administration of the republic that the prosperity both of the community and of private persons may freely blossom forth. But since the task of the city is not that it substitute itself for the citizens and take away their activity, but rather that in exercising their own energy and power of acting they be helped in such a way that they obtain from themselves the full and perfect development of their faculties; hence in those things in which men or families suffice for themselves, the republic ought not to intervene. For the individual person and the family, since they have being and operation independently from civil society, have their own end independent from it; whence "man is not ordered to the political community according to his whole self and according to all his things."⁶ Hence civil society:

⁶ I-II, q. 21, a. 4, ad 3.

a) ought to acknowledge and protect the rights and suitable liberty of individuals and families: "it is not right for the citizen or the family to be absorbed by the republic; it is equitable that the faculty of acting with liberty be permitted to each, as much as can be done with the common good unharmed and without injury to anyone";

b) likewise ought to acknowledge and protect private societies, for example, associations of workers, for "it has been granted to man by natural right to enter private societies." Hence in protecting these societies those who preside over the city should not intrude into their intimate plan and order of life; but if certain societies plainly adverse to honesty, justice, or the safety of the republic must be prevented or dissolved, nevertheless the greatest caution must be used;

c) a fortiori those who preside over society cannot rightly arrogate to themselves any right over religious societies, nor transfer their administration to themselves, but ought to reverence them, preserve them, and, when circumstances require, protect them from injury.

2. Uprightness of morals and peace. It is of public safety:

a) that "upright morals flourish privately and publicly" among all orders of citizens, that vices be restrained, and that "affairs be peaceful and composed";

b) for this reason public society ought to intervene "if any disturbances threaten on account of withdrawals of workers or on account of work interrupted by agreement";

c) likewise where "longer or more burdensome labor and the expectation of scanty wages give workers a cause on account of which they release themselves from work by agreement, and give themselves to voluntary idleness. This customary and grave inconvenience must be remedied publicly...; and in this matter this is more effective and wholesome: to forestall by the authority of laws,... with the causes of conflict removed in due time";

d) likewise it ought to take care lest "danger to integrity of morals arise in workshops from a mingling of sex, or from other pernicious enticements to sin."

3. Families rightly and orderly instituted. Public authority:

a) ought to watch over domestic affairs so that they proceed according to the dictates of natural and divine right; thus, for example, that marriages be indissoluble, that the natural order be observed in procreating offspring, and that, as far as possible, vices against nature be restrained; that parents not fail in their office in educating offspring; that things necessary for this not be lacking; and therefore that the father of a family be able to acquire a sufficient abundance of goods for his own, etc.;

b) hence "it is right that assistance be given publicly in extreme affairs," "if some family is in the greatest difficulty of affairs and lack of counsel, so that in no way can it extricate itself by itself";

c) also "if somewhere within domestic walls a grave disturbance of mutual rights has arisen, let the public power vindicate to each his right; for this is not to seize to itself the rights of citizens, but to fortify and strengthen them by a just and due protection";

d) likewise, if "the natural bonds of the family among proletarians are loosened," public authority ought to intervene.

4. Guardianship of religion. Namely, public society ought to take care:

a) that religion be guarded and aided, and that God be worshiped;

b) therefore it must be publicly protected that sufficient convenience be granted to workers for the duties of piety;

c) and it must be publicly protected that there be rest from work on Sundays and feast days.

5. Guardianship of justice. Let the city publicly care:

a) that "justice be held sacred and that some not violate others with impunity... Rights, indeed, in whomever they are, must be kept sacred; and public power ought to provide that each one keep his own, by warding off and avenging injuries. Except that, in protecting the rights of private persons themselves, special account must be had of the weak and needy."

b) For this reason it ought to protect against this: that "the class of workers be oppressed by the class of masters with unjust burdens, or afflicted with conditions foreign to the human person and dignity," or that "health be harmed by immoderate work, and by work not accommodated to sex and age."

In particular: it must be publicly protected that the daily work of the worker not be drawn out into more hours than strength permits; that suitable intervals of rest be established according to the various kind of work, circumstances of times and places, and the health of workers; in such a way that the much greater the labor is and the more burdensome to health, the shorter it be in time, and that account be taken in such a matter of the different seasons of the year.

Likewise, publicly, "great care must be taken concerning children, lest the workshop receive them before age has sufficiently strengthened body, mind, and soul." And "certain trades less aptly suit women, born for domestic works." But "what a man of adult age and good strength can do and strive for, it is not equitable to demand from a woman or a child."

c) It ought publicly to care and provide especially for wage-earners, because they are protected by no resources of their own; and to take care that the proletarian "from the fact that he contributes to the common utility may himself receive something, so that, sheltered, clothed, and safe, he may be able to endure life less painfully. Whence it follows that all things should be favored which seem in any way likely to profit the condition of workers." Hence laws, as far as possible, ought to provide that, from wages sufficiently ample, workers may arrive at a modest estate to be acquired from expenses set aside, and thus protect the right of private possessions, while as many as possible from the multitude prefer to have a thing of their own. When this is done, "certainly a more equitable distribution of goods" will arise.

Pius XI judged that this should most recently be commented upon in the encyclical Quadragesimo anno, May 15, 1931: "The riches which are continually enlarged by economic-social increases ought to be attributed to individual persons and classes of men in such a way that that common utility of all, which Leo XIII praises, is preserved, or, in other words, that the common good of the whole society be kept unharmed. By this law of social justice one class is forbidden to exclude another from participation in benefits...

"Therefore his own part of goods must be attributed to each; and it must be brought about that the distribution of created goods be recalled and conformed to the norms of the common good or of social justice, a distribution which, as every sensible man knows, labors today under a most grave inconvenience because of the enormous difference between the few very rich and the innumerable poor." This must be understood not only of dominions and fruits of the earth, but also of goods produced by human industry: "the very immense multitude of proletarians on one side, and on the other side the greatest resources of certain very rich men, are a sure proof that the riches so abundantly produced in this our age, which they call the age of 'industrialism,' are not rightly distributed nor applied equitably to the different classes of men."

d) Public authority ought to intervene, Leo XIII continues, "with the rein put upon agitators," so that "corrupting arts be restrained from the morals of the workers, and the danger of robberies from lawful masters." Pius XI declares that the duties of masters in order to the common good, "to define in detail, where necessity demands it and the natural law itself has not supplied, belongs to those who preside over the republic. Therefore what, with consideration of the necessity of the common good, may be permitted to those who possess, and what may be illicit in the use of their goods, public authority, with the natural and divine law always shining before it, can determine more accurately." By this, Leo XIII warns, it will happen that "however distributed among private persons, the earth does not cease to serve the utility of all."

But since in very recent times a certain economic power has arisen from the accumulation of riches in the hands of a few, who especially hold and dominate money, and by whom also "there is sharp contention about taking possession of the very power over the republic, so that they may abuse its forces and power for economic conflicts," this economic power "must be restrained firmly and ruled wisely," in such a way that it be "governed severely and integrally" by social justice and social charity. This is so all the more because "from the intermingling and foul confusion of the duties and offices of public power and of the economy itself, most grave harms have arisen, such as, one of the greatest, a certain abasement of the majesty of the republic, which, since it ought to sit on high, free from every zeal of parties and intent upon the common good alone and justice, like a queen and supreme arbitress of affairs, becomes a servant, handed over and enslaved to the passion and cupidity of men." Thus Pius XI.

e) Finally, in establishing the amount of wage not unequal to nourishing a thrifty and well-mannered worker, in determining the amount of hours to be worked, and in similar causes, let the magistrate not intrude too importunately; but "it will be better to reserve these matters to the judgment of associations, or to enter upon another way by which the interests of wage-earners may be kept safe, as is fitting, with the protection and aid of the republic added if circumstances demand it."

Pius XI explains this last point more fully: "Therefore every effort must be made that fathers of families receive wages sufficiently ample, which may suitably provide for common domestic necessities. But if in the present circumstances of things this cannot always be furnished, social justice demands that those changes be introduced as soon as possible by which wages of this kind are secured for every adult worker...

"But another thing must not be passed over, of scarcely less moment and especially necessary in our times: namely, that the opportunity of working be furnished to those who can and will work."

"The right proportion among wages also pertains to the matter. For who does not know that wages, too diminished or increased beyond measure, have been a cause why workers were barred from hiring out their labor?... Therefore it is foreign to social justice that, for the sake of one's own profit and with the account of the common good disregarded, the wages of workers be too much depressed or raised; and the same justice demands that, by agreement of counsels and wills, as far as can be done, wages be so ruled that as many as possible may hire out their labor and receive suitable fruits for the sustenance of life."

6. The moderate imposition and equitable distribution of public burdens, especially of taxes and military service, according to the respective capacity of subjects, conformably to the precepts of distributive justice.

7. The increase of arts and commerce: that both liberal and mechanical arts be cultivated and advanced, and that commerce be increased in such a way that a sufficient quantity of useful things be offered to all, to be acquired at no excessive price, with frauds, usuries, and unjust agreements set aside.

8. Flourishing cultivation of the fields, in such a way that all, especially the farmers themselves, may be able to receive from the fruits of the earth as much as is required for the fittingness of life.

270. The limits within which intervention is to be made in all these matters are determined by the end itself or the cause of intervening: "the same cause," says Leo XIII, "which asks the help of laws, determines the limits." Therefore:

1. "It is not right, as we have said, for the citizen or the family to be absorbed by the republic; it is equitable that the faculty of acting with liberty be permitted to each, as much as can be done with the common good unharmed and without injury to anyone."

Pius XI has most recently applied this to the various groups and associations of orders: "Just as those things which can be accomplished by individual men by their own initiative and their own industry must not be taken away from them and handed over to the community, so also those things which can be effected and furnished by lesser and inferior communities, to call these away to a greater and higher society is at once an injury, a grave damage, and a disturbance of right order; since every social work by its force and nature ought to bring aid to the members of the social body, but never to destroy and absorb them.

"Therefore the supreme authority of the republic ought to permit affairs and concerns of lesser moment, by which otherwise it would be especially detained, to be dispatched by inferior groups; by which it will happen that it may execute more freely, strongly, and efficaciously all those things which pertain to it alone, as things which it alone can furnish: by directing, watching over, urging, restraining, according as the case bears and necessity demands."

2. The common good is to be promoted of the whole society and of the individual parts, as Leo XIII shows: "Those who command must see to it that they protect the community and its parts. The community indeed, since nature has entrusted it to the supreme power to be preserved, to such a degree that the guarding of public safety is not only the supreme law but the whole cause and reason of rulership; the parts, moreover, because both philosophy and the Christian faith equally agree that the administration of the republic by nature pertains not to the utility of those to whom it has been entrusted, but to those who have been entrusted. And since the faculty of commanding proceeds from God, and is a certain communication of His supreme principate, it must be carried on according to the example of divine power, which consults with paternal care no less for singular things than for universal things.⁷ If, therefore, any detriment has been brought or threatens either to common affairs or to the interests of individual orders, which cannot be healed or prevented in another way, it is necessary that it be met by public authority."

⁷ St. Thomas already has the same thing, De Reg. princ., I, c. 12 at the end: "Let the king know that he has taken up this office, that he be in the kingdom as the soul in the body and as God in the world"; and c. 15 at the beginning: "The king, just as he ought to be subject to the dominion and governance which is administered through the office of the priesthood, so also ought to preside over all human offices and order them by the command of his rule."

3. In warding off evil, "not more things must be undertaken by laws, nor must progress be made farther, than the healing of inconveniences or the repulsion of danger requires."

Thus in governing society, the middle way must be held between socialism, which takes away the liberty of individuals and contends that all things be defined by the State, and individualism or liberalism, which thinks that the State is composed of individuals alone, with intermediate associations removed, in such a way that, says Pius XI, "almost only individual men and the republic remained, to no small detriment of the republic itself, which, having lost the form of social governance and having taken up all the burdens which those destroyed associations formerly bore, has been overwhelmed and oppressed by affairs and offices almost infinite."

271. Notice. — The civil State by which intervention is to be made in the aforesaid matters and limits is any State whatever, and not the State insofar as it exists under a special form in this or that people: for the motive of intervention is by no means the quality or particular form of the State, but the natural requirement itself of things. Hence Leo XIII: "By republic in this place we understand not the republic such as one or another people uses, but such as right reason, congruent with nature, both wills, and the documents of divine wisdom approve."

This text of the holy Pontiff could not be understood in that sense in which some would wish, that the ideal State alone intervenes, and one which is already perfect. Such an interpretation is contrary to the obvious sense itself, and to the very nature of the matter; for a) the intervention of which it has been spoken is an office derived from the nature of things, and on that account imprescriptible; — b) if the interpretation which we reject were true, there would have been no need for the Pontiff to demand this part of the remedy from the State, since the perfect State already furnishes all those things which the holy Pontiff recalls as to be furnished; — c) he would also have spoken in vain, since now nowhere in the world does such a perfect State exist in fact. It is added that such an interpretation is opposed to the common doctrine of the scholastics.