As for the “distribution” of wealth, I’m gonna go with Thomas Sowell on this one. He makes the simple and common-sense point that distribution of wealth is the wrong way to think about it, because wealth is not distributed at all–it is earned. At least, that is true in a just system like the free-market system.

What exactly is the justification for saying that it’s more just to have equal “distribution” regardless of whether one earns it? Especially, how do you justify forcibly extracting resources from those who actually earned it, to give to those who choose to be poor?

Choose, I say. In our country at this time, those who are poor by and large choose it. First by their moral choices–having children out of wedlock and raising them in single-parent arrangements. Choosing to become addicted to various substances and behaviors. Immigrating, whether legally or illegally. Choosing to pursue one’s “dream” or “passion” while having no regard for providing for the needs of others–then wondering why one is not compensated.

Mark: Nothing in your post is not fully allowed and commended by paragraph III in the citation of “Vix Pervenit” above. Such contracts are not sinful. Usury is sinful.

It is worth noting that Benedict XIV (Propspero Lambertini) was probably the greatest canonist to occupy the chair of St Peter, Innocent IV being his only possible rival.

You know, that itty bitty little thing the Church anathematized for a thousand years and more, until the best thinking of men persuaded the magisterium to abandon in practice the enforcement of what the Church had received from God?”

Restrictions around usury are easy to reason around. Suppose you are a merchant in Genoa and you are sending a shipment to Venice that, because of the fact that steamships haven’t been invented yet, will take a while to get there. You don’t want to ask your business partner in Venice to ship gold to you as payment — that’s just wasteful. Instead, you have him write a note promising 100 lira, say, 2 months in the future. You then take this note to a merchant who happens to owe someone in Venice money, he pays you 98 lira for the note and then cancels out his debt in Venice when it comes time for your business partner to pay up.

And that is how merchant banking got started in Catholic Italy. Unless you demand that all commercial transactions always be settled immediately in cash, you are going to have debt instruments like commercial paper and bills of exchange emerge and people are naturally going to grant discounts for immediate payments and premiums for future payments. The result is a market for short-term debt securities.

It appears my previous response may have not gone through. The reference is “The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents–The Definitive Edition (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume 2),” edited by Bruce Caldwell, page 148.

Whether you want to call this “socialist” or not is up to you. However, I believe you would be splitting hairs in trying to distinguish Hayek’s comments on these pages from Anderson’s call for a guaranteed minimum living standard for all people consistent with human flourishing.

This is a bit confused. If a business wants to, for instance, build a new factory as an addition to its capital stock, that requires marshalling the real resources of the economy. Someone has to feed and clothe the workers, dig up the raw materials that make up the concrete and bricks, put fuel in the trucks to transport said concrete and brisk to the project site, etc. Those real resources can only be mobilized when some people in the economy defer current consumption in favor of a future pay-off.

Those people who defer future consumption will be the factory owners themselves if financing is not available (which was true during the early days of the Industrial Revolution) or else will be financiers when the financial system is more developed. But someone has to do it — someone has to agree to spend his or her real resources on constructing the factory rather than on, say, a new private jet or a holiday house in the Caribbean.

“Socialism” is a strawman of your own creation. The original quote from Anderson dealt with assuring a minimum standard of living compatible with human flourishing. As requested, here is Hayek:

“An incautious handling of these questions might well cause serious and perhaps even dangerous political problems; but there can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody. Indeed, for a considerable part of the population of England this sort of security has long been achieved.

“Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance — where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks — the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong.”

(“The Road to Serfdom”, page 148, in the edition posted to Google Books)

Socialist systems, of course, are designed to distribute by intention, so they can be unjust, as ample experience has confirmed. (Whether socialist systems can also be just is highly doubtful, first of all because those who control distribution serve their own self-interest and class-interest rather than apply principles of distribution impartially.)

Market (or capitalist) systems are, of course, governed by rules that are set intentionally through political systems. These rules can be unjust, as systems of ‘crony capitalism’ demonstrate. However, the rules can also be just, if based on principles of rule of law (vs arbitrary government action) and equal protection.

Whether ‘social’ justice calls for government to provide redistribution outside the market is a contentious issue that I will not address now. (Hayek, in his book, said he would not object to it.) Interestingly, the Roman Catholic catechism says only that social justice requires that society should provide the means for individuals and subsidiary institutions to pursue for themselves what is their due; it does not call for explicit redistribution and guaranteed outcomes.

In any case, ‘social’ justice does not apply to individual actions, and Ryan Anderson may fail to understand that point.

Usury.

You know, that itty bitty little thing the Church anathematized for a thousand years and more, until the best thinking of men persuaded the magisterium to abandon in practice the enforcement of what the Church had received from God?

There is a silver lining. Once the immiseration and destruction advance two or three more cycles down the line, we shall all be able to recall that the Church never reversed or amended Her condemnation of usury:

“I. The nature of the sin called usury has its proper place and origin in a loan contract. This financial contract between consenting parties demands, by its very nature, that one return to another only as much as he has received. The sin rests on the fact that sometimes the creditor desires more than he has given. Therefore he contends some gain is owed him beyond that which he loaned, but any gain which exceeds the amount he gave is illicit and usurious.

II. One cannot condone the sin of usury by arguing that the gain is not great or excessive, but rather moderate or small; neither can it be condoned by arguing that the borrower is rich; nor even by arguing that the money borrowed is not left idle, but is spent usefully, either to increase one’s fortune, to purchase new estates, or to engage in business transactions. The law governing loans consists necessarily in the equality of what is given and returned; once the equality has been established, whoever demands more than that violates the terms of the loan. Therefore if one receives interest, he must make restitution according to the commutative bond of justice; its function in human contracts is to assure equality for each one. This law is to be observed in a holy manner. If not observed exactly, reparation must be made.

III. By these remarks, however, We do not deny that at times together with the loan contract certain other titles-which are not at all intrinsic to the contract-may run parallel with it. From these other titles, entirely just and legitimate reasons arise to demand something over and above the amount due on the contract. Nor is it denied that it is very often possible for someone, by means of contracts differing entirely from loans, to spend and invest money legitimately either to provide oneself with an annual income or to engage in legitimate trade and business. From these types of contracts honest gain may be made.

IV. There are many different contracts of this kind. In these contracts, if equality is not maintained, whatever is received over and above what is fair is a real injustice. Even though it may not fall under the precise rubric of usury (since all reciprocity, both open and hidden, is absent), restitution is obligated. Thus if everything is done correctly and weighed in the scales of justice, these same legitimate contracts suffice to provide a standard and a principle for engaging in commerce and fruitful business for the common good. Christian minds should not think that gainful commerce can flourish by usuries or other similar injustices. On the contrary We learn from divine Revelation that justice raises up nations; sin, however, makes nations miserable.” Pope Benedict XIV, Vix Pervenit

Sin, however, makes nations miserable indeed.