More CST Reading

Susan is quite right about the Naughton books. They are important applications of CST concepts to questions central to corporate law scholars: what is the purpose of the corporation? For whose benefit should the corporation be managed? Are CST norms reconcilable with more mainstream norms of corporate governance? Many of the contributors to these volumes are business ethicists rather than legal scholars, but their concerns are relevant to our own. Loyal MOJ readers will remember that Steve Bainbridge and I have beaten these ideas to death, but they are becoming of interest to others. I will be working with Mike Naughton and others on a conference on "The Good Company" in Rome next fall (2006). Amy Uelmen's Focolare group is addressing these concerns thru their Economy of Communion lens in a conference in November at Castel Gandalfo. An institute at St. Mary's University in California has something cooking for fall of 06 as well.

Some other useful reading in the area -- which also cocerns the broader question of Catholic views on government regulation of or intervention in the economy -- was spawned by the 1984 US Bishops Pastoral Letter "Economic Justice For All." Heavily influenced by David Hollenbach, the letter was very controversial, and is an excellent locus for consideration of the extent to which CST can or should influence questions of social policy (and the legal implemenataion of that policy). Two collections that reflect the different sides of the debate are Gannon (ed) THE CATHOLIC CHALLENGE AND THE AMERICAN ECONOMY,; and Rasmussen & Sterba (ed), THE CATHOLIC BISHOPS AND THE ECONOMY: A DEBATE. A scholarly and theoretical discussion of these issues is McCarthy & Rhodes, ECLIPSE OF JUSTICE: ETHICS, ECONOMICS & THE LOST TRADITIONS OF AMERICAN CATHOLICISM. I would be amiss in not mentioning Michael Novak's critical discussions of all this in his many works, particularly his CATHOLIC SOCIAL THOUGHT AND LIBERAL INSTITUTIONS. An emerging issue is how CST makes sense of the prescriptive claims of  neoclassical economics and law & economics: most of the relevant literature is in Italian, but a starting point in English is Bruni, ed., THE ECONOMY OF COMMUNION.

With respect to CST in general, I forgot to mention what I think is the best starting point, Charles Curran's CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING, 1891-PRESENT.  We often forget the Europeans and others working in the field. For a good selection of their work see, Boswell et al (eds), CATHOLIC SOCIAL THOUGHT: TWILIGHT OR RENAISSANCE?

-Mark