The Common Good

The prevailing ethos in today’s world seems to be “watching out for number one”, that is to say “I simply have to do what is best for me”.  Many of the legends in the business world are seen as “self-made men”, individuals who struggled against mighty odds to achieve their dream and become rich.  When it comes to being happy, we are exhorted to find happiness within ourselves, that we cannot depend upon others for making our lives better. 

The truth underlying the principle of the common good proceeds from the fact that we all exist “with” others and that we cannot find fulfillment without them.  But that is only part of the truth; the other part brings in the dignity of those others.  They too desire the same fulfillment that each of us seeks and the social nature of our design calls us to not prevent them from reaching for the same ultimate end that we strive to find.  The foundation of the principle of the common good is thus the acceptance that “the human person cannot find fulfilment in their self apart from the fact that they exist ‘with’ others and ‘for’ others”.  (CDSC 165)  The common good is “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.”  (GS 26) These social conditions that are the common good are not any sort of a utopian society, they do not imply an equal distribution of all property, and they do not demand that everyone be the same.  The creation of the social conditions which are the common good is not an end in itself.  The common good is more than socio-economic well-being.  Because the human person is a creation of God, the common good has a transcendental nature which is directed towards a specific goal, that of attaining the ultimate ends of the person, eternal beatitude.   

The common good is bound up in the idea that no one should be excluded from such basics as food, housing, work, education, and access to culture, transportation, basic health care, the freedom of communication and expression, and the protection of religious freedom.  For example, racial discrimination is a social condition that detracts from the common good because it creates barriers which deny access to employment, adequate housing, and education to persons of color.  The key concept is that society be structured and individuals act so that no one person or group is excluded from the opportunity to attain their fullest meaning. 

One immediate implication of the common good is the idea of the “universal destination of goods” because God created and gave the earth to the whole human race for the sustenance of all its members, without excluding anyone. People must have the material goods that will meet their primary needs and are thus the beginning of their existence; people must feed themselves to grow, communicate and associate with others, and reach the highest purpose to which they are called.  The universal destination of goods calls all of us to stop looking at the things of this world as economic science sees them, scarce resources.  The universal destination of goods calls us to reorient ourselves to the creation of wealth rather than the hoarding of goods.  This creation of wealth is not to be understood in a monetary sense; all too often the creation of wealth is understood as becoming rich.  The traders and hedge-fund managers of Wall Street, along with the heads of the large financial firms do not create wealth, they accumulate wealth.  Henry Ford’s assembly line decreased the time to make a car from over twelve hours to two and a half hours.  The cost of each car fell so that a much larger part of the population could buy them.  Even with the drop in the price of cars, Ford paid a very good wage for the time, a wage that would allow his workers to buy the cars they produced.  Henry Ford created wealth in that not only did he become very rich, but thousands became much better off in the process.  The universal destination of goods encourages us to “develop an economic vision inspired by moral values that permit people not to lose sight of the origin or purpose of these goods, so as to bring about a world of fairness and solidarity.”  (CSDC 174) 

The principle of the common good and its chief implication of the universal destination of goods are not and cannot be opposed to the right to private property.  However, the universal destination of goods indicates a need to regulate private property.  Private property is not absolute; it must be seen as a means rather than an end.  The social doctrine of the Church teaches:

The universal destination of goods entails obligations on how goods are to be used by their legitimate owners.  Individual persons may not use their resources without considering the effects that his use will have, rather thy must act in a way that benefits not only themselves and their family but also the common good.  (CSDC 178)

For a single individual to buy a great deal of farm land is not wrong or opposed to the idea of the universal destination of goods.  For that individual to grow a great deal of corn this year is likewise not wrong.  To withhold that corn from the market, to allow the land to lie fallow so that the price of corn rises a great deal and then sell the corn would be detrimental to the common good and thus violate the concept of the universal destination of goods. 

Taking these two together, the common good and the universal destination of goods, calls us to consider the poor; together they create what is called the “preferential option for the poor”.  This requires that the poor, the marginalized, and all those whose living conditions interfere with their proper growth be of particular concern.  The idea of the poor in this sense is different from the idea of the poor as understood in economic theory.  In economics, being poor is a result of a lack of work effort; people are poor because they choose not to work.  This understanding of poverty creates a great deal of resentment against the “poor” who are thought to be seeking a handout rather than a job.  To this kind of poverty people often recall the word of St. Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians:  “in anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.”

There is another type of “poor”, those who are poor due to exclusion.  These are the poor who dearly want to work but for whom there are no jobs.  These are the poor who are excluded from access to education.  Whether the exclusion if deliberate or the result of a long established social custom, these are not poor because of their own choice.  It is to these that we have social responsibilities and it is this preferential option for the poor that would have us examine all our decisions regarding the ownership and use of goods. 

This second permanent principle, that of the common good, recognizes what economic science recognizes, that people work hardest when working for themselves; it does not deny that self-interested behavior is a prime motivator.  What this principle does is to recognize that the pursuit of self-interest is not a behavior undertaken by independent individuals; it is a behavior exhibited by people striving for the same end who are interdependent, who are intimately associated with each other and who can become beneficial to each other’s quest.  This principle places limits upon self-interested behavior because no person is independent from others, no decisions can be made in a vacuum.  Orthodox economics holds for the idea that the best for society is a result of people pursuing their own interest without regard for others; the principle of the common good says that the best for society is not a result but rather it is a choice to recognize the benefits to all that can arise from acts of mutual responsibility and interdependence.

CSDC refers to the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church and the number refers to the paragraph in which the quote was found.