Unions and Catholic Social Teaching

In reading Bl. John Paul II's Centesimus annus, I came across a rather interesting statement:  "Here we find the reason for the Church's defence and approval of the establishment of what are commonly called trade unions: certainly not because of ideological prejudices or in order to surrender to a class mentality, but because the righ of association is a natural right of the human being, which therefore proceeds his or her incorporation into political society.  Indeed, the formation of unions "cannot...be prohibited by the State", because "the State is bound to protect natural rights, not to destroy them; and if it forbids its citizens to form associations, it contradicts the very principle of its own existence (Rerum novarum, 135)." (Centesimus annus, 7)

Why does the Church support trade unions or labor unions?  Not because of their goals or what they are trying to accomplish.  No, the Church supports simply their right to exist, because all humans have an inalienable right to form associations.  In fact, Bl. John Paul II recognizes a fact it seems that many progressive Catholics conveniently ignore: "Later on, this movement [the labor movement] was dominated to a certain extent by the Marxist ideology against which Rerum novarum had spoken."  This can be seen by the Goethe movement, as well as labor unions in the US, many of which are still overtly Marxist.  Despite the evil these unions support (make no mistake, the Church has consipicuously stated that Marxism and Socialism are evil), the Church supports their existence because it is the right of their members to form such an association.

My conclusion: you don't have to support unions to be a disciple of the Social Teaching of the Church.

Catholic Social Teaching and the Welfare State

Found in Centesimus annus 48:

"Excesses and abuses, especially in recent years, have provoked very harsh criticisms of the Welfare State, dubbed the "Social Assistance State".  Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State.  Here again, the principal of subsidiarity must be respected: a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activityies of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.

By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their cints, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending.  In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and sarisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbors to those in need.  It should be added that certain kinds of demands often call for a response which is not simply material but which is capable of perceiving the deeper human mind."

New Interest in Adam Smith

I was directed, a while back, to an article that discussed Pope Benedict's views on economics.  It touched on Catholic social teaching, and was interesting to read.  What struck me, though, was a commenter's rather uninformed quip that equated Adam Smith with modern capitalism.  This quip can be forgiven, though, because most school textbooks call Smith the father of capitalism, and summarize his famous Wealth of Nations as  basically calling for capitalism.

As I was reading this, a thought came to my mind: how does the Catholic social teaching compare with the writing of Adam Smith?  I decided to undertake a rather daunting task: read Wealth of Nations and compare it with Magesterial writings based on and including Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum.