Source: What Comes Next | Commonweal Magazine
What social democracy can learn from Catholicism
March 27, 2024
Social democracy might well be the most successful economic project in history. During its heyday—the three decades following the Second World War on both sides of the Atlantic—it led to high productivity, economic growth, full employment, low inequality, and very few financial crises. Political and economic institutions made sure that rising prosperity benefitted all classes in society. The time has come to rehabilitate this economic model for our era. And just as in the middle of the twentieth century, Catholic social teaching can help provide a moral framework for this model.
What do I mean by social democracy? I mean an economic system predicated on the belief that an economy must be underpinned not only by property rights but also by economic rights. More concretely, in a social democracy, the government supplies public goods, uses the welfare state to protect people from adverse economic circumstances, and promotes unions to make sure that workers can bargain for their fair share of economic progress.
One could say that social democracy seeks, however imperfectly, to make operational Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That Article spells out the economic rights that should be afforded to all people: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.” In this, social democracy guarantees a standard of living sufficient for all to be able to participate in the economic and social life of the nation. Recognizing that market income is often inadequate for that purpose, social democracy insists on an active role for government.
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