Unions and the Common Good

LABOR UNIONS PLAY A FUNDAMENTAL EVEN INDISPENSABLE ROLE in the advancing the interests of workers vis-à-vis their employers. Though--like any human institution--the history of unions shows they are the subject of abuse and misuse, their history also shows that they have the possibility of contributing not only to the good of the worker whom they represent, but to the common good as well.

The Church generally supported and supports the right of the workers to peaceful assembly and association. The Church's social doctrine therefore insists that workers have "the right to form associations or unions to defend the vital interests of workers employed in the various professions." (Compendium, No. 305)

Properly ordered, such association of workers, by independently and responsibly advancing the rights of workers and their interests, can contribute to the good of the worker and contribute to the common good as a whole. Properly ordered, then, unions then contribute to the general welfare of the entire population, increasing social justice and increasing its wealth and welfare.

The Church's support of unions must be understood within her vision of labor unions and their function. The function of unions must be understood within the Church's greater understanding of economic life as a whole. The Church does not accept the Marxist notion of a "class struggle," and any view of unions as being "mouthpiece for a class struggle which inevitably governs social life" is to be rejected.

Rather, the Church takes a more Heraclitean view of labor unions. According to Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus criticized the poet Homer who prayed that strife should perish among men, since Heraclitus insisted that justice required struggle.* In the relationship between worker and employer, there must be a similar struggle, a struggle for social justice.

It is inevitable that there will be struggles in the achievement for social justice if for no other reason than there are different interests involved between capital and between labor. And unions have a role towards implementing a tenuous peace between capital and labor, not in advancing internecine war.

"Properly speaking," the Compendium of the Church's Social Doctrine states, "unions are promoters of the struggle for social justice, for the rights of workers in their particular profession." (Compendium, No. 306) But the Church's understanding of struggle is nuanced. "This struggle," the Compendium continues quoting John Paul II's encyclical Laborem Exercens,** "should be seen as a normal endeavor 'for' the just good . . . not a struggle 'against' others."

This struggle--while of necessity adversarial--excludes any animosity, any hatred, any strict "us" versus "them" mentality. Any "hatred and attempts to eliminate the other are completely unacceptable." The struggle is one that is engaged in a spirit of cooperation, of solidarity, with an eye toward the common good. Unions must recognize that their rights and the rights of the worker are not absolute. Rather, they must recognized that "in every social system both 'labor' and 'capital' represent indispensable components of the process of production." The common good overrides the right of both employer and worker. (Compendium, No. 306)

Since social justice and not class warfare is the union's end, the union must view itself as an instrument of "solidarity and social justice," and any union ought to shun any misuse of the "tools of contention," such as strikes. (Compendium, No. 306) Indeed, ideally unions are to be disciplined and self-monitoring. They should "be capable of self-regulation," and they must always "be able to evaluate the consequences that their decisions will have on the common good." Unions ought neither to pit themselves against employers nor pit themselves against the common good.

While generally supportive of unions, the Church's social doctrine also promotes the notion of "right-to-work laws" which prohibit agreements between labor unions and employers that would make membership, the payment of union dues, a mandatory condition of employment and which require workplace to be a closed shop. Unions, the Compendium states, must resist "the temptation of believing that all workers should be union members." (Compendium, No. 306)

Unions ought to be more than mere advocates, "defending and vindicating" the rights of the worker. They ought also to have a greater appreciation for their role in greater society, in promoting not only the parochial or private interests of the workers, but the "proper arrangement of economic life" of the nation. They also should play an educative function, "educating the social consciences of workers so that they will feel that they have an active role, according to their capacities and aptitudes, in the whole task of economic and social development and in the attainment of the universal common good." (Compendium, No. 306)

Though unions ought to have a social role and a political voice, they are not "political parties," ought to avoid the quest for political power, ought not to be "too closely linked" to political parties, and at the same time ought not to be forced to submit to the "decisions of political parties." They ought to be independent from the political process, and never "become an instrument for other purposes." Their role is to make the political arena "sensitive to labor problems," and--in a manner independent of partisan spirit--help the political process include the rights of workers as part of the political mix. (Compendium, No. 307)

If unions become instruments of political parties, or if political parties become instruments of unions, there will necessarily be imbalance. Unions in such cases "easily lose contact with their specific role, which is to secure the just rights of workers within the framework of the common good of the whole of society." (Compendium, No. 307)

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Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics 1235a25; Heraclitus: DK22B80. The poet was Homer. See Iliad 18.107.
**John Paul II, Laborem exercens, 20.

The Relationship Between Labor and Capital: Priority and Complementarity

BETWEEN A MAN AND A MACHINE or between a man and a wad of money which is to be given preeminence? Looked in that manner, it seems incontestable that man is more important that either a machine or money. Neither machine nor money has the dignity of the human person, and neither machine nor money enters the kingdom of God. The question then presents itself. What is superior, man's work, which is an integral part of him and shares in the life of his spirit, or a machine, a stock certificate, or dollar bill, which is dumb, deaf, and mute matter?

To all but the most hardened materialist or hardened ideologue, the answer is obvious. Since human work has a subjective or personal character, it is intimately tied to the human person. For this reason, the Church's social doctrine insists that work is "superior to every other factor connected with productivity." Labor--that is to say human work--has therefore an "intrinsic priority over capital." (Compendium, No. 276, 277)

While there is a priority of labor over capital, that does not mean that these two are enemies and that capital is an evil. Quite the contrary, capital is a great good, for without it work cannot be done. Capital and labor complement each other, and in fact need each other. They are not in opposition to each other, as the Marxist might want to paint them. Though it is true that they are often in an antagonistic relationship, this need not be the case, and is the result of imbalance or reversal of means and ends.

As Pope Leo XIII stated: "Capital cannot stand without labor, nor labor without capital." (Rerum novarum, 11) Or, as Pope Pius XI stated forty years later in the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno: "It is altogether false to ascribe either to capital alone or to labor alone what is achieved by the joint work of both; and it is utterly unjust that one should arrogate unto itself what is being done, denying the effectiveness of the other." (Cf. Compendium, No. 277)

"United we stand. Divided we fall."

It is this blending of the principles of the priority of human work over capital and the principle of the complementarity of labor and capital which is the heart of the recipe of the social doctrine of the Church as it pertains to the relationship between labor and capital.

Put succinctly, work is an end; capital is a means. It is a general moral principle that as long as the means are licit, the end takes precedence over the means. Are the brush and paint more important than the painter's painting? Are the quill and ink more important that the poet's writing of poetry? Is G. M. Hopkins' pen superior to G. M. Hopkins? Clearly, not.

Looked at another way, from an Aristotelian causal analysis typical of Thomistic philosophy, labor or work is the "primary efficient cause," of production and of wealth, and capital is "a mere instrument or instrumental cause." (Compendium, No. 277) This gives an evident priority to human work, just like the painter takes priority over the paintbrush, and the poet takes priority over the pen. Cézanne's painting takes priority over Cézanne's paintbrush.

When the means (capital) is regarded more important than the end (the working human), or when the instrumental cause (capital) is held in more regard than the efficient cause (the working human), we have what is called the "alienation of labor."* (Compendium, No. 280) The alienation of labor comes about when the relative priority of labor and capital becomes reversed. It is at this point--when capital is prioritized over labor--that we start entering into the possibility of slavery. After all, slavery is nothing else than the complete absorption of human labor into capital.

Such subordination of labor to capital is obviously manifested in numerous social ills: child labor, concealed work, non-work,** underpaid work, exploitation of workers. But it is also manifested more insidiously and less noticeably, perhaps even sometimes self-imposed because of social pressure, in other ways: over-working, work-as-a-career that takes an overweening importance to other human aspects, excessive demands upon work that render family life difficult or impossible, and so forth. (Compendium, No. 280) Therefore alienation of labor occurs both quantitatively and qualitatively. And sometimes the alienation of labor can be very subtle.

Capital is a vague, amorphous term. But essentially, as used by the Church in its social doctrine, it includes the "whole collection of means of production" other than labor. Capital therefore includes the material means of production (physical assets) and the financial resources available for investment in such assets, but it also includes such matters as land, technology, science, or even institutions such as markets. It is everything that is not man working.

While labor enjoys a certain priority, the Church also recognizes that capital and labor are complementary: that one cannot exist without the other. (Compendium, No. 277) Unfortunately, experience has shown that there is a certain antagonism between the two, particularly during times of economic, social, or technological change.

Perhaps the most well-known antagonism between labor and capital is the classical, historical one, one where "the workers put their powers at the disposal of the entrepreneurs, and these, following the principal of maximum profit [and treating the employees as means, not ends, which is to say instruments or things], tried to establish the lowest possible wages for the work done by the employees," using ways that were not respectful of the dignity of the worker. Often, of the two sides of the equation, one was skewed with the bias of unequal bargaining power, and the contract was dangerously close to being one of adhesion. The relationship was dangerously close to a de facto slavery.

To some extent, the Church recognizes that this traditional antagonism has been ameliorated, though it certainly has not disappeared. It often raises its ugly head in sweatshops across the world. But she sees another antagonism arising, one that seems to focus not so much on wage, but on production. The "scientific and technological advances," which the Church recognizes as "a source of development and progress," often come with a price tag that is appended upon human workers. These scientific and technological advances "expose workers to the risk of being exploited by the mechanisms of the economy and the unrestrained quest for productivity."

Again, the danger is that man is viewed as a cog in a machine, as a thing.

That labor and capital need not be antagonistic adversaries is proved by those instances where workers themselves participate in the ownership, management, and profits of a business enterprise.*** And, of course, in small enterprises it is often the case that the owner provides both capital and labor. By structuring enterprises in appropriate ways, the worker is considered to be a part-owner of the business as a result of his work to the venture. We ought to consider business models other than those imposed upon us by historical fortuitousness as a result of their having been fashioned during the Industrial Revolution.

There is no social or economic necessity that requires that shareholders and owners, management, and labor be carved up into discrete uncommunicative categories. It would be healthy, the Church suggests, to think outside the box. We ought to consider other organizational structures which emphasize that labor, "because of its subjective character," might be remunerated by something other than just wage-for-work, but may be remunerated, at least in part, by "right to participate" in the venture itself in exchange for work. There are, of course, myriad ways in which this might be done, none of which are specifically mandated by the Church's social doctrine.

The priority of labor over capital must be understood within the Church's understanding of private property. As we have examined in other postings,† the right to private property is certain and assured in Catholic social doctrine. This, of course, would also include the means of production. These may be privately owned.

Yet the right to private property must be understood as being subject to a sort of "social mortgage," so that private property is subordinated to the principal of the universal destination of goods and to the common good. "Property, which is acquired in the first place through work, must be placed at the service of work." (Compendium, No. 282)

It would be an abuse of one's ownership of property to use it in a manner that would frustrate the work or development of others. For example, suppose you owned a strip of land which gave a farmer access to his crops. Wouldn't it be wrong to use your ownership to shut him out of access to his land and his crops? Or to use it in a manner that would exact from him an unjust toll?

This principle of the universal destination of goods is extended to include the means of production. For this reason, the "means of production 'cannot be possessed against labor, they cannot even be possessed for possession's sake.'" (Compendium, No. 282) (quoting John Paul II, Laborem exercens, 14)

There is something wrong to own the means of production and not to use it to the advantage of all or to use it in a manner that frustrates or impedes the work of others. It is particularly offensive when the means of production are not used or are used to impede the work of others "in an effort to gain a profit which is not the result of the overall expansion of work and the wealth of society, but rather is the result of curbing them or of illicit exploitation, speculation, or the breaking of solidarity among working people.'" (Compendium, No. 282) (quoting John Paul II, Centesimus annus, 43)

Private property, the means of production, public property, technology, knowledge, and "the various mechanisms of the economic system, must be oriented to an economy of service to mankind, so that they contribute to putting into effect the principle of the universal destination of goods." (Compendium, No. 283) This is a universal principle, and so these resources must not "remain concentrated in the wealthier countries or in the hands of a small number of powerful groups," impeding the development of developing or underdeveloped areas of the world.

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*It goes without saying that the Church, in using the phrase "alienation of labor," is not invoking any Marxist doctrine, but is using it to describe a phenomenon of estrangement or alienation between human labor and capital caused by the disordering or confusion of ends and means or of efficient and instrumental causality. Essentially, alienation occurs when material goods are held in greater esteem than man and his work which have spiritual, subjective realities. The Church understands the term "labor" quite broadly to encompass any form of human contribution to production. Therefore, she warns: "One must not fall into the error of thinking that the process of overcoming the dependence of work on material is capable of overcoming alienation in the workplace or alienation of labor. The reference here is not only to the many pockets of non-work, concealed work, child labor, underpaid work, exploitation of workers--all of which still persist today--but also to new, much more subtle forms of exploitation of new sources of work, to over-working, to work-as-a-career that often takes on more importance than other human an necessary aspects, to excessive demands of work that makes family life unstable and sometimes impossible, to a modular structure of work that entails the risk of serious repercussions on the unitary perception of one's existence and the stability of family relationships. (Compendium, No. 280) .
**Meaning chronic, systemic unemployment.
***There are a number of employee-owned businesses, where, for example, more than 50% of the stock ownership is held in an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). For a list of the top 100 of such companies in the United States, see the National Center for Employee Ownership's article: The Employee Ownership 100: America's Largest Majority Employee-Owned Companies. Of course, this sort of set-up is not necessarily recommended by the Church. Indeed, the Church does not "necessarily" demand anything in this area, since here we are dealing with prudential, contingent matters, with the application of doctrine, not with the doctrine itself. She leaves the implementation to the ingenuity of individuals. In fact, one could see how the governing body of the ESOP could set itself up as a rival to the individual stock owner, so that the employee ownership becomes one of form and not substance.
†See Property is Yours, Mine, and Ours.

Christ Working for Christ

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION WAS SOMETHING LIKE Pandora's box. With all the unquestionable increase in human economic development and the increase in wealth and efficiency in productivity and technical progress that the Industrial Revolution ushered in, came a variety of moral plagues and social evils, particularly for the factory worker, the miner, the child laborer, the family in overcrowded tenement, the disregarded poor, all of whom seemed to suffer from exploitation.

For many, these were hard times. The moneyed capitalist and the bourgeoisie who prospered from this Gospel of Wealth which dulled their appetite for the Eternal and their obligations to their fellow man seemed fat enough. But for the exploited class, it seemed like Hope remained bottled up, hidden somewhere.

Then, to make matters worse, all sorts of human devices were thought up as solutions for the moral and social problems: socialism, communism, anarchism. These seemed to pit class against class, brother against brother, and suggested injustice as an answer for injustice, two wrongs to make a right. These were Godless, materialistic recipes to counter a Godless, heartless capitalism. They were but salt in the wound of class warfare.

This Industrial Revolution and the "social question" it raised, presented the Church with a new challenge. When she saw the crowds, she had compassion on them, because they were distressed and troubled, wandering around like sheep without a shepherd. So she looked into her reservoir of knowledge to see what she could offer to alleviate the problem and counter the spurious solutions. Drawing forth from the natural law and evangelical principles, she brought forth the salve of her social doctrine.

The Church's first sally into this area was Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum novarum, literally "Of New Things." This encyclical was, as, as the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church describes it, "a heartfelt defense to the inalienable dignity of workers," but it also stressed the "importance of the right to property, the principle of cooperation among the social classes, the rights of the weak and the poor, the obligations of workers and employers, and the right to form associations." (Compendium, No. 268)

From Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum novarum to Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical Caritas in veritate, "the Church has never stopped considering the problems of workers within the context of a social question which has progressively taken on worldwide dimensions."(Compendium, No. 269)

In addressing the social questions raised by the Industrial Revolution and the economic and social changes it brought forth, the Church has had cause to reflect on the meaning of work. Work that is the every-day fact of life for man. Work from which man can derive dignity, but which may in some cases also be impersonal, tainted by injustice, the loss of freedom, and the cause of heavy toil and inhuman suffering.

The Church brings a unique personalistic vision of work, one that finds in it great dignity and great value. For the Church, work is always understood within the context of the human person. The human is never viewed as a commodity, but always as a person, one endowed with body and soul, and one called to an eternal destiny. It is from this personal vantage point that the Church understands work and its dignity.

The Church therefore sees human work from three dimensions: the objective, the subjective,and the social. The first looks first at the work and not necessarily the person doing the work. The second looks at the person doing the work and not necessarily the work done. The third looks at the social aspect of work: how it affects others.

The Church recognizes that work has an objective component. It can be seen as the "sum of activities, resources, instruments, and technologies used by men and women to produce things." The precise boundaries of works therefore changes with the times and with place.

But the Church also sees the more important subjective component of work. In this subjective sense, work is the "actus personae," an act of a person. She recognizes that "work is the activity of the human person as a dynamic being," one made in the image of God and enjoying all the dignity of that image. (Compendium, No. 270) It is this personal, subjective side of work which gives it its dignity, and "which does not allow that it be considered a simple commodity or an impersonal element of the apparatus for productivity." "The subjective dimension of work must take precedence over the objective dimension." (Compendium, No. 271)

From the subjective, personal vantage point, any materialism is excluded. "Any form of materialism or economic tenet that tries to reduce the worker to being a mere instrument of production, a simple labor force with an exclusively material value, would end up hopelessly distorting the essence of work and stripping it of its most noble and basic human finality." (Compendium, No. 271).

Human work, therefore, must recognize "human finality." It must have as its final goal, not work itself or its product, but must have its "final goal in the human person." The "end of work any work whatsoever, always remains man." "Work is for man, and not man for work." (Compendium, No. 272)

There is therefore always a personal, a spiritual part of man involved in work, and for this reason "whatever work it is that is done by man--even if the common scale of values rates it as the meanest 'service,' as the most monotonous, even the most alienating work" retains its subjective value.

Work is never not tied to others. There are invariably social aspects, social connections and interdependency tied to work. One always works with others and for others, and not only for oneself. "Work, therefore, cannot be properly evaluated if its social nature is not taken into account." (Compendium, No. 273)

Work is not an option for man. Work is "an obligation, that is to say, a duty on the part of man." (Compendium, No. 274) (quoting John Paul II, Laborem exercens, 16) In a sense, work may be seen as part of that commandment of loving one's self and loving one's neighbor as one's self. The "Creator has commanded" that man work. That command is not arbitrary, as it recognizes that work is required for a man "in order to respond to the need to maintain and develop his own humanity." Finally, work is a moral obligation "with respect to one's neighbor, which in the first place is one's family," but which may also be seen to including "the society to which one belongs, the nation of which one is son or daughter," and even "the entire human family of which one is a member." Indeed, the duty of work extends beyond our own time, since we are "heirs of the work of generations and at the same time shapers of the future of all who will live after us." (Compendium, No.274)

In trying to understand the Church's personalistic vision of work, we might invoke here the picture of the last judgment presented by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew (25:31-46).

At the end of time, the Lord will separate employers and employees.

And to the employers who understand the dignity of work, the Lord will say, "Come, for you provided me work." And they will respond, "Lord when did we give you work?" And the Lord will respond, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

And to the employees who understand the dignity of work, the Lord will say, "Come, for you worked for me." And these will respond, "Lord when did we work for you?" And the Lord will respond, "Truly I tell you, whatever work you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

Think of how the world would differ if the employment relationships were seen as Christ employing Christ and Christ working for Christ.

I'll bet Adam Smith, James Mill, the Comte Saint-Simon, Karl Marx, and Pierre Joseph Proudhon never thought of that.

What a new thing that would be.

The Word of God Worked: The Biblical Foundations of Work

“WORK IS NO DISGRACE; it is idleness which is a disgrace," writes the Greek poet Hesiod in his poem, "Works and Days."* Even this noble pagan sentiment fails to capture the Scriptural notion of the nobility of work and our duty to engage in it and sanctify it. Indeed, in the Scriptural view, work is a sort of imitation of God, the entire creation being seen as a workweek in which God brings forth the world out of nothing and gifts it to man so that he may exercise dominion over it and cultivate and care for it. (Gen. 1:28; 2:15; cf. Ps. 8:5-7) In Christ, work is even more ennobled, as we see God in his human nature working in the silent, hidden obscurity of Nazareth, setting for us an example of how work, even the most menial, can be the source of sanctification. In Christ, "human work becomes a service raised to the grandeur of God." (Compendium, No. 262)

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church begins its section on work with a reflection of the Biblical view of work and man's relationship to work. The message that one may take from the Compendium's understanding of the Biblical view of work is that it is a great, but relative good. "Work is part of the original state of man and precedes his fall; it is therefore not a punishment or curse." Work becomes toilsome only after the sin of Adam and Eve, after the fall. (Gen. 3:6-8; 17-19) The soil begrudges its gifts: it "becomes miserly, unrewarding, sordidly hostile." Only "by the sweat of one's brow" will man "get bread to eat." (Gen. 3:19)

The Childhood of Christ by Gerrit van Honthorst

When Christ teaches us to pray, "Give us this day, our daily bread," he is not teaching us to ask for some sort of divine welfare, a life of leisure while bread comes down from heaven as if it were manna. He is enjoining up us also the duty of work as a predicate for the gift of its fruit. "Through work," John Paul II said in his encyclical on human labor, "man must earn his daily bread." The post lapsarian suffering and toil, frustration and burden do not change our essential duty to exercise dominion over, to "cultivate and care for" creation.

Work was part of paradise. Work is part of the world which is no longer a paradise.

Work has a place of honor because it is a source of wealth, a necessary key to flourishing, to fulfillment, to happiness. It is the key to the conditions of a decent life. It is a tool against poverty and hunger. In this world--unless one lives off of the labor of another or off one's inherited or saved capital--work is what will keep body and soul together. "If any man will not work, neither let him eat." (2 Thess. 3:10)

For all its value, however, work and the wealth and money it may bring are not to be idolized. There is such a thing as idols of work, of the marketplace, and of wealth: idola laboris, idola fori, idola pecuniae. The Compendium warns us that one "must not succumb to the temptation of making an idol of work, for the ultimate and definitive meaning of life is not to be found in work." "Work is essential," it recognizes, "but it is God--and not work--who is the origin of life and the final goal of man." (Compendium, No. 257) The work week culminates in the Sabbath rest. "The memory and the experience of the Sabbath constitute a barrier against becoming slaves to work, whether voluntarily or by force, and against every kind of exploitation, hidden or evident." (Compendium, No. 258)

Indeed, the wealth that work may yield--while unquestionably a great good--may also be inordinately loved. "Man," our Lord says, "does not live by bread alone." (Matt. 4:4; Luke 4:4) There are things greater than wealth--justice, righteousness, and charity among them. "Better is a little with the fear of the Lord," Proverbs 15:16 says, "than great treasure and trouble with it." The same message is repeated: "Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice." (Prov. 16:8) We are therefore not to be anxious for earthly goods, like the Pagans. (Matt. 6:25, 31, 34) "But seek first the kingdom (of God) and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides." (Matt. 6:33)

There are few things more dangerous than wealth. We know what God has in store for the hoarder who had only his riches in mind, even if these riches were legally and justly acquired: "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you." (Luke 12:20) In the parable of Lazarus and Dives, the rich man Dives lands in Hades. (Luke 16:19-31) "I tell you the truth," Christ says, "it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." He follows it up with an image which is harrowing to a man of means: "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Matt. 19:23-24; Mark 10:24-25; Luke 18:24-25)

The Christian must therefore always subject himself to an examen of conscience, and he may have no better guide than Job:

Had I put my trust in gold or called fine gold my security;
Or had I rejoiced that my wealth was great,
Or that my hand had acquired abundance
. . .
This too would be a crime for condemnation,
For I should have denied God above.

(Job 31: 24-25, 28)

In his life, Jesus gives us an example of Christian work. One must remember than in all Christ's "hidden years," Jesus labored in obscurity. In fact, Jesus "'devoted most of the years of his life on earth in manual work at the carpenter's bench' in the workshop of Joseph." (Compendium, No. 259) (quoting JP II, Laborem exercens, 6) Nothing Jesus did was in vain. Nor must we think these almost thirty years of obscure labor meant nothing to Jesus or to humankind.

In his book Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton said that there was one thing too great for God to show us when He walked upon earth, and that he "sometimes fancied that it was His mirth."

In truth there was something other than Jesus' mirth that was not shown us: the almost thirty years of obscure labor in Nazareth: God in humility, poverty, and silence--in hiding--doing "the work of human hands," the opera manuum hominum, of a poor carpenter. It was this mysterious "non-revelation" that so inspired Blessed Charles de Foucald himself to live this "hidden life" outside of Tamanrasset, among the Berber Touareg tribe, in the hostile southern Sahara.

He [Jesus] came to Nazareth, the place of the hidden life, of ordinary life, of family life, of prayer, of work, of obscurity, of silent virtues practiced with no witness other than God, his family, and his neighbors, of this holy life, humble, kindly, obscure, that place where the greater part of humans lead their lives, and where he set the example for thirty years.**

The value that Jesus ascribes to work is apparent in his parables and in his words. Useless servants are chastised for hiding talents. (Matt. 24:46) Hired laborers in the vineyard should accept their agreed wage. (Matt. 20:1-6) The laborer deserves his wages. (Luke 10:7) Servants that are faithful to their masters are held in high esteem. (Matt. 24:46) He views his entire mission as work: "My Father is working still, and I am working." (John 5:17)

"Work," reflected upon in the revelation of Jesus Christ, "represents a fundamental dimension of human existence as participation not only in the act of creation but also in that of redemption." (Compendium, No. 263) The difficulties of work can be part of that cross which, as disciples of our Lord, we are called to carry in imitation of our Lord. Our work, not through any merits of its own, but as a result of the grace of Christ, becomes "an expression of man's full humanity, in his historical condition and his eschatological orientation." (Compendium, No. 118)

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*ll. 309 (ἔργον δ᾽ οὐδὲν ὄνειδος, ἀεργίη δέ τ᾽ ὄνειδος)
**Il vint à Nazareth, le lieu de la vie cachée, de la vie ordinaire, de la vie de famille, de prière, de travail, d’obscurité, de vertus silencieuses, pratiquées sans autre témoin que Dieu, ses proches, des voisins, de cette vie sainte, humble, bienfaisante, obscure, qu’est celle de la plupart des humains, et dont il donna l’exemple pendant trente ans. Charles de Foucauld, "Voyageur dans la nuit, notes de spiritualité 1888-1916", note quotidienne du 20 juin 1916, éditions Nouvelle Cité, page 208.

Jacques Maritain and Natural Law: Rights of Labor, Part 2

WORK MUST BE MORAL, and so the moral life governs the life of work. Ultimately, therefore, the "political sphere," whose principal organ is the State, has competence over the common good, and thus "possesses authority over the economic sphere." Maritain, 91.

The political life and organization of the State affect the common life of human persons and their direction towards a common task, which assumes the strength, peace and harmony of the social body, and which must aim at the conquest of freedom and the establishment of a brotherly city as its supreme ideal; they are of an order superior to the life and organization of economic groups.

Maritain, 91. The common good is, of course, much broader than merely the economic well-being of the human person. Man is more than homo economicus. The common good of man must consider moral, intellectual, and spiritual well-being. So neither moneyed interests, nor "trade-unions, economic institutions, vocational bodies," should direct the political life of a nation, although it goes without saying that they ought to "play a consultative role." Maritain, 92.

There is a danger of economic totalitarianism, socialism, and this is a danger, an unwelcome development that Maritain seeks to avoid. Socialism as it has come down to us is a "totalitarian principle," that entails perversion. Maritain seeks to avoid "the methods of dialectic conflict and paralyzing irresponsibility" of the past. Maritain, 92, 93. Instead of these ways of doing things, Maritain advocates a "pluralist principle." Maritain, 92. The fact is that we need each other and we need each other's ideas and views. What ought to inform the public authority should be as broad, as expansive as possible, so that public authority is not aligned with the interests of any one group, whether they be capital or labor, or anythings else:

[W]e may count upon [the pluralist principle] for a reasonable solution of the school problem and the problem of the harmonious dwelling together of various spiritual families, with their specific moral conceptions, in the bosom of the temporal community. In the economic order it lays the foundation not only for the autonomy of groups and associations . . . but also for the diversity of regime of organization which is suitable to the various typical structures of economic life, in particular, to the structure of industrial economy and to those of agricultural economy.

Maritain, 92.

Maritain closes his reflections on the rights of the working person with a reflection on bondage of one man to another, a bondage which may be legal, economic, or moral. Maritain advances the notion of a fundamental, that is natural and absolute, right of liberty:

[O]ne of the fundamental rights . . . [is] the right of every human being to personal liberty, or the right to direct his own life as his own master, responsible before God and the law of the community. Such a right is a natural right, but it concerns so profoundly the radical aspirations of the person and the dynamism which they entail that all of human history would not be too long for it to develop completely.

Maritain, 93.

This natural right, of course, "implies the condemnation of slavery and forced labor." Maritain, 93. Awareness of this natural right, and the condemnation of slavery and forced labor it implied, was, of course, slow in developing:

[T]he greatest thinkers of Antiquity had not dreamed of condemning slavery, and the medieval theologians considered only slavery in its absolute form as opposed to natural law, where the body and the life of the slave and his primary human rights, like the freedom to marry, are at the mercy of the master.

Maritain, 93. The reasons behind mankind's inability to perceive this arose from the material and technical conditions and "obstacles suffered by spiritual energies in collectively life," which "grievously, and in the manner of a punishment, thwart the normal development of the fundamental right in question." Maritain, 93. In short, it was the result of blindness associated with the Fall of man, with his original sin, which impeded him from seeing the truth.

Of course, bondage and slavery can be more than chattel slavery or and indentured servitude. Bondage or servitude is not always as stark as that. The chains may not be of iron, but of another element, even intangible, such as those involved with serfdom or with the proletariat, "and still other forms." The natural right in question opposes any "form of authority of one man over another in which the one who is directed is not directed towards the common good by the official charged with this duty, but is at the service of the particular good of the one who is doing the directing." Maritain, 93-94. This sort of more subtle servitude may be detected by the fact that the relationship results in "alienating [one person's] activity and giving over to another the benefit (the fruit of his activity) which should rightly be his." Maritain, 94. In other words, "becoming to that extent the organ of another person." Maritain, 94.

With regard to natural law, absolute bondage thus appears as opposed to natural law considered in its primary requirements, and the other more or less attenuated forms of servitude as opposed to natural law considered in its more or less secondary requirements or yearnings, and in the dynamism which it enfolds. This dynamism will be fully gratified only when every form of servitude shall have disappeared--under the "new heavens" of the resurrection.

Maritain, 94. This, of course, means mankind will be working on this for a long, long time, "as human history approaches its term," that is, until Christ's second coming and the end of human history as we know it.

Jacques Maritain and Natural Law: Rights of Labor, Part 1

LABOR, WORK, ECONOMICS, the activity of homo economicus, man the worker, are the last areas that Maritain explores in the book we have been reviewing, Natural Law: Reflections on Theory and Practice. It is clear that this area of the human endeavor has been the subject of human thought in a particularly focused way since the Industrial Revolution, by both secularists and the Church. As both the nation and the world have progressed economically, so also must moral reflection advance. The economic life must not leave the moral life behind. They advance together. For this reason, we have seen the social doctrine, particularly in the area of social and economic matters, of the Church bloom from the issuance by Leo XIII of Rerum novarum in 1891 (Rerum novarum means "Of new things"), to the point that a rather bulky Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church could be published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in 2004.

Labor, work is fundamental to the human person. To a certain extent, as a result of social and historical factors, the laborer, the worker has reached a sort of social adulthood. "The principle phenomenon . . . which emerged in the nineteenth century is the consciousness of self (prise de conscience), achieved by the working person and the working community." Maritain, 86. Maritain sees this self-consciousness, this self-awareness as a sort of moral advance, a "historic gain in the consciousness of the dignity of work and of the worker, of the dignity of the human person in the worker as such." Maritain, 87.

While affecting economic life and the temporal order, this advance is primarily of a spiritual and moral order, and that is what gives it its importance. It is the grasp of consciousness of an offended and humiliated human dignity and of the mission of the working world in modern history. It signifies the ascension towards liberty and personality, taken in the inner reality and their social expression, of a community of persons . . . the community of manual work, the community of human persons charged with this labour.

Maritain, 86-87. The proletariat has come of age, has taken its rightful place among the gods, and is aware, as others have become aware, of its newly-found dignity and place in the banquet of the common good. It wants its share of the ambrosia. Like all changes, this development has been unsettling and, like most things in the world of men, it may be found to have both good and bad elements, positive and negative faces. In confronting this Janus-faced development, Maritain chooses to focus on the smiling, positive developments. The fact is: it happened. What may we learn from it? What part of this historical development is good and should be promoted as a lasting gain?

Janus, the Roman God of Doorways

As a result of this advance, various rights may be said to have been more clearly learned or need to be more clearly learned:

• The right to a just wage, "for a man's work is not a piece of merchandise subject to the mere law of supply and demand."
• The right to work, which means "the right of every one to find work which will afford a living for himself and his family."
• The freedom to organize, to form trade-unions, "free to confederate as they see fit."
• The "right to strike," the "natural weapon" of the worker, limited by needs arising out of "national emergency," which Maritain sees as nothing other than a corollary to the freedom of association. Neither the State nor economic powers are allowed to disarm the worker, though in emergencies, when the common good demands it, its exercise may be prohibited.

For Maritain, these rights are related to the awareness of work's own dignity, the dignity of the human person engaged in work, and the awareness that the worker "stands before his employer in a relationship of justice and as an adult person, not as a child or as a servant." Maritain, 89. This relationship, and the awareness of the rights that come with it, however, is founded on a "moral datum." Maritain, 89. If this is forgotten, then trade-unionism could, "in its turn, run the risk of becoming tyranny." The relationship between capital and labor, then, must be built upon justice, and not power. And this is true whether one looks at the power that labor, if gathered together in unions, has over capital, or the power that capital has over labor.

For all Maritain's solicitude for the laborer, he ought not to be misunderstood. He is not a socialist, and indeed warns against a socialist solution, what he calls a "temptation which arises from old socialist concepts," to the problem between capital and labor. He advocates against a "planned economy," against "collectivization," for a decentralizing solution that is "associative," comes from "producers and consumers from the bottom up," and allows for a greater share of labor in management responsibilities and in the success of the venture.

The temptation . . . is that of granting primacy to economic technique, and by the same token of tending to entrust everything to the power of the State, administrator of the welfare of all, and to its scientific and bureaucratic machinery; which obviously, whether we will or no, leads in the direction of a totalitarianism with a technocratic base.

Maritain, 90. Maritain, then, suggests we re-think the matter of association in the area of business. "When I speak of the associative form of industrial ownership, I am thinking of an association of persons . . . entirely different from the associations of capital which the idea of joint ownership might suggest under the present regime."* Maritain, 90-91. Why can't the capital/labor division be less stark, more blended? Aren't innovative associations--something other than the inherited corporations, where the worker has an interest in the venture (what Maritain calls the "worker's title")--something available to us? Must we think in the historical investment and business patterns thrust upon us by another age? One should think not.**

(continued)
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*Cf. Benedict XVI, Caritas in veritate, No. 46:

When we consider the issues involved in the relationship between business and ethics, as well as the evolution currently taking place in methods of production, it would appear that the traditionally valid distinction between profit-based companies and non-profit organizations can no longer do full justice to reality, or offer practical direction for the future. In recent decades a broad intermediate area has emerged between the two types of enterprise. It is made up of traditional companies which nonetheless subscribe to social aid agreements in support of underdeveloped countries, charitable foundations associated with individual companies, groups of companies oriented towards social welfare, and the diversified world of the so-called “civil economy” and the “economy of communion”. This is not merely a matter of a “third sector”, but of a broad new composite reality embracing the private and public spheres, one which does not exclude profit, but instead considers it a means for achieving human and social ends. Whether such companies distribute dividends or not, whether their juridical structure corresponds to one or other of the established forms, becomes secondary in relation to their willingness to view profit as a means of achieving the goal of a more humane market and society. It is to be hoped that these new kinds of enterprise will succeed in finding a suitable juridical and fiscal structure in every country. Without prejudice to the importance and the economic and social benefits of the more traditional forms of business, they steer the system towards a clearer and more complete assumption of duties on the part of economic subjects. And not only that. The very plurality of institutional forms of business gives rise to a market which is not only more civilized but also more competitive.

**There is a negative to the "worker's title" notion. If the worker shares in the benefits of the venture, then he also shares in the risk of the venture, including the risk of loss.