Catholic social thought, the market and public policy: Twenty‐first century challenges Edited by PhilipBooth and André AzevedoAlves. St Mary's University Press. 2024. 302 pp. £40.00 (hbk). ISBN: 978‐1916786004. £28.00 (ebk). ISBN: 978‐1916786028

Catholic Social Thought (CST) in its modern form originated in the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum which was issued by Pope Leo XIII. It has the subtitle On the Conditions of Labour and it was drawn up in the context of the perceived conflict between capital and labour and the hard conditions of the working class. It opposed both socialism and unrestrained capitalism and it affirmed the legitimacy of both private property and trade unions. It was succeeded by in 1931 by Pope Pius XI's Quadragesimo Anno, by Pope John XXIII's Mater et Magistra in 1961 and by Pope John Paul II's Centisimus Annus in 1991. These latter encyclicals both elaborated and modified Rerum Novarum in the light of changing conditions and ideas. Thus Quadragesimo Anno makes a modest move towards supporting the corporate state. Still, CST should not be seen as a ‘third way’ between capitalism and socialism but rather as setting out general principles for policymakers. Philip Booth and André Alves, respectively Professor of Finance and Associate Professor of Economics at St Mary's University, London, have marshalled a collection of essays designed to meet, as they say, the challenges of the twenty-first century and to “promote a better understanding of the link between Catholic Social Thought (CST) and public policy” (p. 1). It reflects the perennial tension between subsidiarity and solidarity, the need to preserve individual freedom and the dignity of the person, and the need to protect the poor and the less well-off. For Catholics who are also liberal economists, like the editors and contributors, this creates the problem of reconciling the insights of liberal economics with what is essentially Thomist analysis of human nature and society. They have a surprisingly easy time of it. One consequence, though, is that economic and social relations are seen through the light of the virtues, the moral philosophy of Aristotle and Aquinas and later secular writers like Philippa Foot. But in the twenty-first century West the virtues are little known and practised less, and varieties of utilitarianism reign. In their introduction Booth and Alves explain that prudence is the prime virtue in deciding public policy and they identify the common good as a deciding factor in forming public policy. The latter concept is related to the concept of ‘human flourishing’. Whether a person or a society is flourishing is easily told. The former will be happy, moral, and reasonably well-off, the latter will be prosperous, with little crime, good education and good-quality health care. Booth and Alves point out the little appreciated fact that between 1980 and 2019 (before Covid) the world was flourishing as never before. The share of world population in extreme poverty had shrunk from 43 per cent to 9 per cent, literacy had increased from 68 per cent to 86 per cent and deaths from air pollution were down by over 40 per cent. Included are helpful articles which describe the origins of CST, its biblical and patristic origins, Thomist philosophy and its formal sources (in other words the encyclicals and other authoritative church documents). Included are the beliefs and decisions of the early church. A major influence, as in other teachings of the Catholic Church, is Aquinas, who combined the best of Plato and Aristotle with the Old and New Testaments. Pope Leo XIII declared in his encyclical Aeternis Patris (1878) that Scholastic philosophers and Aquinas in particular should have prime position in theology and in understanding the sacred texts. Aquinas argues for the legitimacy of private property, which remains a vital element in CST. He also argued for a ‘just wage’ by which he meant (among other things) a wage which allowed the worker “to live a life with dignity according to his station in life” (p. 31). In contrast, writers of the Salamanca School emphasised that equivalence in value as measured by open market price was the standard for commutative justice. The articles also cover a number of public policy issues, some more contentious than others. These include globalisation, migration, the environment, business ethics, cronyism, taxation, government debt, the financial sector, health care and education. Some issues, such as cronyism and government debt, have not received the attention they deserve. Jay Richards argues that cronyism could and should be condemned by CST (pp. 136–62). Philip Booth et al. explain that the excessive growth of the national debt in developed countries can create intergenerational injustice. Too much debt can lead governments to fall short in their service of the common good. Governments which lacked the virtue of temperance could accumulate debt which would hamper their proper function (pp. 193–216). Articles on health care and education by Russell Sparkes and Leonardo Frenchi respectively raise important issues. Russell Sparkes argues for a reassessment of the CST's approach to health care and in particular maintains that the UK's National Health Service (NHS) is not an “epitome” (p. 235) of CST but rather contrary to it. The NHS is effectively a monopoly and it is well behind the standard of health care in OECD countries (p. 237). In the context of CST Sparkes's solution is to break the monopoly and to allow for the growth of mutual self-help groups. A bureaucratic monopoly cannot properly serve the common good. He gives the example of medieval guilds as the sort of non-state mutual organisations that provide healthcare (pp. 235–60). All this provokes the thought that one possibility is the founding of a private hospital operating as a charity rather than a for-profit business. Leonardo Frenchi reviews education policy in the light of CST. The Catholic Church has an enviable record of promoting education. Catholic education has the particular role of aiming to “form young people in virtue to promote human flourishing” (p. 261). Frenchi points to three challenges to Catholic education: state funding, admissions policy and the curriculum. These derive from assertive secularism and its suspicion of religious education in schools. CST emphasises the importance of the family and the right of parents to educate their children as they see fit. This is a valuable collection which demonstrates for Catholics (and others) that CST is a very strong but not uncritical supporter of a liberal economy and an open society.