by Andrew Reesor-Taylor
The consensus of Catholic Social Teaching puts forward the principle of "the Common Good". While private property has certain limited rights, these rights can never override the common good (bonum commune hominis). Similarly, the rightful role of the state to plan the distribution of wealth and services must not grow into a totalism which smothers the free choices of individuals and their families.
The general pattern in all Catholic Social Teaching has been to favour a planned economy which provides some room for markets and profits, and which permits the principle of Subsidiarity to flourish, -- that is, when a smaller, more grass-roots collectivity can better deal with a social/economic problem, it ought be permitted to do so. Whether the greater role in bank regulation/ownership presently taken by western governments is an opportunity for the working families and the global Left remains a disputed question I will address at a later time.
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