The Market Economy and Christian Ethics

In November 1986, the American Roman Catholic Bishops issued the final draft of their pastoral letter entitled Economic Justice for All, which was their text on the morality of the United States economy. It is worth examining this text in detail as an example of how a church responded to issues of work and consumerism of work. What is significant about this report is that it represented a process, in which the publication of the report was only one stage. Before the publication there were hearings, and, in the case of the American report, there were also draft versions of it. After the publication, in each case, there were conferences and discussions with government.

All of this is an attempt to educate Christians about some of the basic realities of their lives: conditions at work, consumerism and the relations set up by the market. If Habermas' work represents a philosophical overview of the nature of social existence in contemporary western culture, the response of the churches represents the attempt to integrate the conditions of social life into the life of faith. The work of Habermas, and the response of the churches, frame this book's discussion of the realities of economic life. What these responses suggest is that it matters that there is an ecclesial response and not simply an individual one to economic life.

What did the Catholic Bishops say? They set out their report in five chapters, and built a cumulative case.