ECONOMIC ILLS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1942, Page 6

ECONOMIC ILLS

CATHOLIC REMEDIES

LESSON FROM PAST

The attitude of Catholic social philosophy towards certain world economic problems was explained by Captain-Chaplain Trehey, M.A., Ph.D., in an address : to the Catholic University Students' Guild this week on "Problems of Sqcial Reconstruction." -

"The appalling fact of two , world wars in one generation has at last convinced even hidebound reactionaries that there must be something rotten in the state of society," he said. "A suffering, deluded world demands a new social and economic order. . It cries 'Thumbs down' to modern industrial capitalism, which allows the few who are strong to get more than enough, while the many who are .weak get less than enough. "History bears indisputable -• testimony to the fact that people have always been ready to fight even their own rulers or Governments when those rulers or Governments encroached on their rights and liberties. Yet, in the modern world,-many are willing to risk complete governmental dictatorship in return for economic securit-'. This almost unbelievable change of attitude is not the result of chance. It is a normal evolution from eighteenth century individualism which promised to protect personal rights— and did not—to twentieth ' century State absolutism, which also promised to protect personal rights and liberties —and does not. FAILURE OF INDIVIDUALISM. "Individualism taught, in effect, that a Government should be nothing more than a policeman whose sole function it was to prevent hold-ups in the traffic of commerce. It claimed that, i!1 Governments conveniently* iorgot about their duty to protect and; promote the general welfare, then every man, completely free to pursue his selfinterest, would produce the maximum. Everybody would be:better, off,.because there would be mo.re .goods to distribute. But "individualisin failed because it regarded individuals in the abstract and not as they actually exist. In practice, the weak were oppressed by the strong. Production, it is true, increased enormously, but the workers were deprived of their rightful share. The result, in the words of the late Pope Pius XI, is 'widespread, poverty of the masses ... and the concentration of wealth and economic power in the hands of the few.' Nor are these evils merely incidental. He called them "the characteristic note of the modern economic order.' : , "Strange to say, a further result of individualism was that it paved the way for what its followers were most horrified at —excessive State action. State absolutism. Governments felt compelled to regulate industry because employers and workers had not united in occupational groups to' regulate themselves. EXTREMES AVOIDED. "Catholic social philosophy avoids both of these extremes, and attaches proper importance to the natural impulse that has always induced men engaged in the same kind of work to organise in occupational groups. Hence, employers and employees should join their own.separate unions. From these unions in a particular industry, they elect their representatives to joint councils, local, regional, and national. Let it be noted that collaboration of employers and employees through these joint councils must be oh equal terms and with equal representation. In this way each industry, organised into a^ national group, can make its own ■re-'1 guiations and choose its own leaders freely. So also with agriculture, finance, commerce, the professionseach can govern itself and enjoy thr peace and prosperity of economic de mocracy. : "When employers and workers in any particular industry have freely agreed, in their national joint, council on such matters as wages, hours, prices, profitsharing, production schedules, and so on, they should apply to the Government to declare these collective agreements laws of the land. This the Government will do when it has satisfied itself that such collective agreements do not encroach on the rights of individuals (for example, consumers), or of other occupational groups, but promote the general welfare. Thus, every national industrial group rules itself democratically through its own little economic parliament, and the Government is left free to govern, that is. to co-ordinate all groups to the common-good. In this way, furthermore, the opposite evils of individualism and State absolutism are avoided. NOT A NEW SYSTEM. . . "Such a socio-economic system is not new. It flourished under a simpler economy in former centuries in England, France, Germany, and the Low Countries. William ;Ashley, a noted English economic historian,- says that it 'conveys a perpetual lesson to modern economists,' while Ephraim Lipson declares that it 'affords inspira- • tion to our own age.' Prior to \ the outbreak of this second worjd war, certain industries in Switzerland, Belgium, and France had adopted a modernised arrangement of the system with marked success There were, and still are, significant trends in the same direction in England, Canada, and the United States.

"Of course, economic democracy presupposes willingness for sacrifice, and tne strongest possible sense 01 social justice and. obligation. It demands personal acceptance of the. laws of God, plus the conviction that His justice will be vindicated here or hereafter. In the words of the late Pope: 'This longed-for social reconstruction must be preceded by a profound renewal of the Christian spirit. . . . Otherwise, all our endeavours-will be futile, and our social edifice will be built, not upon a rock, but upon shifting sand.'" .