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The Vocation of Business: Social Justice in the Marketplace
John C Medaille
€ 127.70
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Description for The Vocation of Business: Social Justice in the Marketplace
Paperback. Intended for would-be business professionals, this is a textbook on the Social Teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. This book provides: a history of moral discourse since the Enlightenment, a history of economic thought from Aristotle and Aquinas to Ludwig Mises and Milton Friedman, and a history of property. Num Pages: 374 pages, black & white illustrations. BIC Classification: HRCC7; HRCM; KJG. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational. Dimension: 151 x 226 x 27. Weight in Grams: 572.
This is a textbook on the Social Teaching of the Roman Catholic Church for would-be business professionals. Part I does 3 things: provides a history of moral discourse since the Enlightenment, a history of economic thought from Aristotle and Aquinas to Ludwig Mises and Milton Friedman, and a history of property. Part II provides a close reading of 3 major social encyclicals. Part III examines the tensions between Catholic social teaching and neoclassical economics. Part IV explores 5 case studies of the actual implementation of Catholic-like social teaching. The over-riding theme of the book is that the original unity of distributive and corrective justice that prevailed in both economics and moral discourse until the 16th and 17th centuries was shattered by the rise of an "individualistic" capitalism that relied on corrective justice (justice in exchange) only. The rise of individualistic business practice was paralleled by a movement in moral thinking from a discourse of virtue and the common good to a discourse of utilitarianism and "emotivism"; individual preference became all that mattered, and only the market is capable of correlating individual preferences. An economics that lacks a distributive principle will attain neither equity nor equilibrium and will be inherently unstable and increasingly reliant on government power (Keynesianism) to correct the balances. Catholic social teaching emphasizes equity in the distribution of land, the means of production, and a just wage.
Product Details
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2007
Publisher
Continuum
Number of pages
374
Condition
New
Number of Pages
374
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
ISBN
9780826428097
SKU
V9780826428097
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 15 to 20 working days
Ref
99-2
About John C Medaille
Author is a graduate student and adjunct instructor in theology at the University of Dallas, where he teaches "Social Justice for Business Students," a requirement for the Business Leadership Degree. He is a businessman with 31 years of experience in management at large corporations and as an independent real estate agent. He served 5 terms as City Councilman, City of Irving, and served as mayor pro tem in 1991.. He is delivering papers at 3 conferences in the fall of 2006: The Sixth International Conference on Catholic Social Thought and Management Education, Rome, Oct.; Conference on Catholic Social Teaching and Human Work, Villanova Univ., Sept.; 2006 Pruitt Memorial Symposium and Lilly Fellows Program National Research Conference, Baylor Univ., Nov. He's published one article in "New Oxford Review," "Power to the People Must Mean Property to the People," January 2000, and the entry on "Distributivism" in "Catholic Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy: An Encyclopedia" (Scarecrow, forthcoming).
Reviews for The Vocation of Business: Social Justice in the Marketplace
"... John Medaille has written a most interesting book, The Vocation of Business: Social Justice in the Marketplace. Medaille, a successful businessman who teaches in the Business Leadership program at the University of Dallas, traces the history and development of economic theory, examines the contribution of the Catholic social encyclicals, explains and critiques the evolution of contemporary capitalism, and provides both the theoretical underpinning and concrete examples for the successful ‘practice of justice in the modern business world.' "...I found the text both informative and fascinating.... The author has a great gift for exposing the intersection of economic theory and human values. He demonstrates again and again the unfortunate consequences of theories which depend on the wrong values, or which deny (naively) that they depend on any values at all. "Medaille ultimately demonstrates that some form of distributism (remember Chesterton and Belloc?) is essential for the proper operation of free enterprise in such a way that it actually expands prosperity, rather than progressively constricting it to a smaller and smaller group. In fact, he argues persuasively that an initial widespread distribution of ownership is necessary for capitalism to work at all. He adduces a long history and clear economic affairs leads directly to economic equilibrium, which is critical for human flourishing, and so should be a preeminent goal for any culture. "Students of economics should read this book as a corrective to the false claims of many theories to be scientific, immutable and value-free. Businessmen should read it for both a better understanding of their calling and the inspiration to make important contributions to the larger culture precisely through their business activity. Professors of economics and business may very well wish to make the book required reading. In fact, anyone who wonders about production, exchange and modern economic inequities will find in this book a highly intelligent treatment of how we got where we are, and what the way forward should be. "Even in the United States, the sphere of prosperity is steadily shrinking, the gap between rich and poor is widening, and the purchasing power of most citizens is artificially sustained by borrowing heavily against the future. For these reasons alone, it is none too soon to read The Vocation of Business."- Dr. Jess Mirus, Catholic Culture, August 7, 2007
Catholic Culture "A highly original, intriguing and challenging book...This book is so rich and wide-ranging that any brief synopsis easily dilutes its strengths. The Vocation of Business offers a feast to chew on."
America
Catholic Culture "A highly original, intriguing and challenging book...This book is so rich and wide-ranging that any brief synopsis easily dilutes its strengths. The Vocation of Business offers a feast to chew on."
America