You asked, citing what I said about property, "While the redistribution of common goods such as land and other natural resources by the government may not be prudent in a particular society, is it accurate to say that there is nothing within distributism, or Catholic Social Teaching for that matter, to hold that such a method of redistribution is intrinsically unjust? That is to say, when such common goods are concerned, distributive justice may take priority over commutative justice (which governs property rights, as it they are exercised between individuals)?"

There is a discussion of this in Msgr. John A. Ryan's Distributive Justice. He holds that there is nothing intrinsically unjust in the state setting a limit to the amount of property (including cash) a person can possess, provided that it is set at a reasonably high level. In the Middle Ages some of the guilds set limits on how much property or money a member could hold, the surplus being turned over to the guild treasury. Before anyone of you attacks me for being a socialist, please remember that Msgr. Ryan's book was written in the 1940s and had an imprimatur from Cardinal Spellman, and the guilds who acted in this fashion obviously were not influenced by socialism which did not yet exist. As Mr. Chan hinted, it is probably not wise to institute such a policy very often, but I don't think it is unjust. Off the top of my head, I can't remember if either Chesterton or Belloc ever discussed this point directly.

The medieval open field village was an excellent example of cooperative property in action and gives a good example of how property rights can be variously exercised. There was an interesting article in the late 90s in the Yale Law Journal entitled "Property in Land," which had a section on the medieval English open field.

It's funny, I expect many who've posted here to violently disagree with this. Fifty and more years ago Catholic were united in defending the teaching of the Church and the glories of medieval Catholic civilization. If you look at Fulton Sheen's book on communism, written in the late 1940s, he makes the statement that the Church is as critical of capitalism as the communists are! Now, at least here in the U.S., so many of them who claim orthodoxy have capitulated to various ideologies that are ultimately anti-Catholic, including the kinds of economics that can't stomach Catholic social teaching.

Then Mr. Chan asked, "Also, what do you make of the claim made by Fr. Ernest Fortin and others that Leo XIII was too influenced by modern conceptions of property rights in his encyclicals?"

Yes, I'm familiar with that claim. If Leo was to any extent influenced by Locke, then he was corrected by the later popes. Remember that I said much earlier in this discussion that we have to look for continuity and repetition in papal social teaching. It is for the most part statements and teachings that we can find repeated by successive popes that have the most authority. If we can't trust the Holy Spirit to prevent the Church from teaching error, then we're not really Catholics. This doesn't mean, of course, that any casual or even semi-casual statement by a pope partakes of much authority. The matter is more nuanced than that, and I've already touched on it more than once in this discussion.

The employer has a duty to his family and employees to keep an business on a sound financial footing. If he over pays his help that will put the business at jeopardy. Many mom and pop businesses can only pay the minimum wage, if even that. Many owners of such enterprizes work long hard hours at not very high wages themselves. A living wage does not include money for a car, tv, computer, cable tv, phone, rich food, booze, drugs ciggarets, etc. Why should I over pay my help to provide these luxuries? If someone wants all this stuff he has to work for it. That is the way the world should work anyhow. In this country with massive government programs many of the poor have these luxuries without honest labor.

In order for an employer to have a successful long term business, he needs good employees. He can't keep them if he doesn't pay them well. They will go down the street to his competitor. The Christian employer should go as far as he can to give his employees good wages and safe working conditions. I always tried to do that. In depression times, like this, both business and labor are suffering. It is hard to meet your moral commitments if the business can't stand the expense.

You get to the root of the matter when you write 'The vast majority of construction work in this country is done by non union contractors. This keeps prices lower on almost all construction. Non union workers are usually well paid and recieve a living wage if there is enough work to go around. How can it benfit the average man if he has to pay a large premium for his home just to support a lot of featherbedding constuction work rules? At one time painters refused to use rollers and spray guns, for example. There are many other instances I could cite. How do such luddite practices benefit anyone?'

One could also ask how anyone benefits from that 'benign neglect' of immigration policy which has seen a vast increase in the volume of unskilled immigration, some of which may have found its way on to building sites, or by the financial manipulations which resulted in the property boom of the past decade. It is against that backdrop that Austrian theory must be viewed. All theories advocating free trade must be viewed not as being pro-consumer, but anti-labour. In his wonderful wee book 'Victorian Cities', Professor Lord Asa Briggs recorded how the Anti Corn Law League went so far as to silence one of its Manchester members who said quite bluntly that the reason free trade was should be pursued was that it would drive wages down to the continental level. What does silencing people who clearly want more freedom than their fellows can bear have to do with free markets? Nothing. What does it have to do with trying to steal from people? Everything.

There is no such thing as free trade, and there never has been. There cannot be; as the Anglo-Spanish historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto succintly put it in his book 'Civilisations', 'man is not an economic animal' - if he were, the Mayans would not have devoted years to hauling stones through the jungle to erect temples for no conceivable economic purpose. In my view, and hopefully clinging to the shreds of a sometimes timelocked, sometimes deadlocked sense Christian charity while saying so, to think that any one school of economic thinking has all the answers is a mistake. The reason for this is that economics is not a science, but a religion.

As enunciated by Adam Smith, economics proceeds on the assumption that human beings always act in their own self-interest. This is a direct affront to the Gospels, a direct denial of Our Lord's teaching and a direct challenge to the magisterium of the Catholic Church; one which, in my view, has never been adequately challenged. It proceeds from one man's interpretation of the nature of human relationships and motives; and it has been divinely ordained, indeed is revealed truth, that this analysis is wrong; indeed, may be a paving stone on the road to perdition. All Catholic commentary on economics should, in my view, proceed from the assumption that Smith was a teacher of false doctrines. It was something of a pity to see that the English translation of 'Caritas in Veritate' uses that hateful expression 'human resources', as if human beings were just another tool, like a chainsaw or a jackhammer - yet such language is the natural consequence of Smith's teaching, for if you're only in it for yourself then why bother thinking that your fellow should be treated with any dignity?

Its one saving grace is that, like all other false doctrines, economics is prone to sectarianism and factionalism. Let us hope it chews itself up sooner rather than later.

I have nothing but sympathy for the owners of small businesses and mom-and-pop stores who have to close down because their customers dumped them for chain stores like WalMart, Taco Bell, etc.

But what's the solution? Using legislation to limit competition?