The Social Virtues

The disposition of material goods is the question around which all the “-isms” and subsequent reactions formed during the last century.  The Industrial Revolution, World War I, Communism, Fascism, World War II, the Cold War and the liberal/conservative divide are all on the same continuum of that unsolved riddle, the social question.

It is helpful to review the social virtues in any attempt to address this problem. Commutative justice is commonly known as the protection of private property rights.  Distributive justice is the action that insures that the goods of this world are used for the benefit of all.  Subsidiarity is the principle that requires that everything done, should be done at the lowest possible level of social organization.  Solidarity is the understanding that our individual and social action should be mutually beneficial to all involved.

These virtues are all of paramount importance in the sense that one without the others leads to distortion.  History shows that these distortions can have far reaching and tragic results.  The pursuit of distributive justice  without regard to commutative justice led to the dark tyranny of communistic socialism.  Conversely, the enforcement of commutative justice without acknowledging the demands of distributive justice issued in the extreme privation of the industrial slums.

A harmony of these virtues is necessary to escape the reactionary lurching that has marked most of the last century.  It is only in the pursuit of a virtuous life that any harmony will be found.  Until then, the reactionary jolts will continue.