Working for the Common Good

I have recently endeavored to read many writings of Dorothy Day. I was particularly challenged by the following passage taken from one of her journals written in December of 1948 in a work titled On Pilgrimage.

The love of humanity of Our Lord is the love of our brother. I have meditated on this fact during the past month. The only way we have to show our love for God is by the love we have for our brother. And as Father Hugo likes to say, “You love God as much as the one you love the least.”

Love of brother means voluntary poverty, stripping one’s self, putting off the old man, denying one’s self. It also means non-participation in those comforts and luxuries which have been manufactured by the exploitation of others. While our brothers suffer, we must suffer with them. While our brothers suffer from lack of necessities, we will refuse to enjoy comforts. These resolutions, no matter how hard they are to live up to, no matter how often we fail and have to begin over again, are part of the long-range view which Peter Maurin has been trying to give us these past years.

And we must keep this vision in mind, recognize the truth of it, the necessity for it, even though we do not, cannot, live up to it. Live perfection. We are ordered to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, and we aim at it, in our intention, though in our execution we may fall short of the mark over and over. As St. Paul says, it is little and by little that we proceed.

If our jobs do not contribute to the common good, we pray God for the grace to give it up. Have they to do with shelter, food, clothing? Have they to do with the Works of Mercy? Everyone should be able to place his job in the category of the Works of Mercy.

This would exclude jobs in advertising, which only increases people’s useless desires, and in insurance companies and banks, which are known to exploit the poor of this country and of others. Whatever has contributed to the misery and degradation of the poor may be considered a bad job, and not to be worked at.

If we examined our consciences in this way we would soon be driven into manual labor, into humble work, and so would become more like Our Lord and Blessed Mother.

By Works of Mercy Dorothy Day would include both the Corporeal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.

Corporeal Works of Mercy:
*To feed the hungry;
*To give drink to the thirsty;
*To cloth the naked;
*To harbor the harborless;
*To visit the sick;
*To ransom the captive;
*To bury the dead.

Spiritual Works of Mercy:
*To instruct the ignorant;
*To counsel the doubtful;
*To admonish sinners;
*To bear wrongs patienty;
*To forgive offences willingly;
*To comfort the afflicted;
*To pray for the living and the dead.

I wonder how right she is on this matter. Do we have an obligation to seek employment that contributes to the Common Good especially if we are able? The Social Doctrine of the Church speaks plenty about the dignity of work which entails a human’s ability and obligation to contribute meaningfully to the community and hence the Common Good.

I don’t know how committed Dorothy Day is claiming that the work that merits a payment (which could probably be money, goods, or services for Dorothy) for services has to be specifically manual in nature or if onside of what we do for basic goods we need to make sure that somewhere in our activities we are engaged in manual work as well. I would bet on the latter. In several other writings she emphasizes the importance of other work and vocations that do not intrinsically consist of manual labor like educators, clergy, writers, etc.(pretty much any that contributes to the good of society). However having any of these jobs does not excuse the person from having some kind of humble physical practice by which he participates in manual labor that disciplines the body. I think she would say that a person’s job should encompass some Work of Mercy by which they contribute to the common good. And such a person would include some kind of manual labor in their daily discipline. At least that is my take on it.

We do what we can, and the whole field of all the Works of Mercy is open to us. There is a saying, "Do what you are doing." If you are a student, study, prepare, in order to give to others, and keep alive in yourself the vision of a new social order. All work, whether building, increasing food production, running credit unions, working in factories which produce for true human needs, working the smallest of industries, the handicrafts--all these things can come under the heading of the Works of Mercy, which are the opposite of the works of war. -Penance, Dororthy Day

Globalizing the Common Good

Recently the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences meet to discuss a future assembly directed to how to reverse the negative effect of Globalization in the pursuit of the common good. This session will look at the social changes around the social principles: dignity of the human person, common good, subsidiarity, solidarity. This assembly will focus on how to increase the recognition of the dignity of the person and common good by seriously considering how Globalization should be guided by subsidiarity and solidarity. The goal of the assembly “is to give new meaning and application to the concept of common good in this age of globalization, which in certain fields is leading to growing inequalities and social injustice, laceration and fragmentation of the social fabric, in short, to the destruction of common goods throughout the world."

While Globalization allows for a network of communication between different areas of the world and can increase awareness and solidarity, the danger lies in using this network only for commercial advantage and economic efficiency. Subsidiarity and solidarity must work together and be guidelines to help realize how to act towards the common good, which is more important than financial gain. The social cohesion of a society will always be rooted in the family. Poor economic conditions that exploit individuals and forces people to emigrate and split the family have harmful effects on society. In his recent address to the United Nations Pope Benedict XVI made some comments about globalization and solidarity:

Indeed, questions of security, development goals, reduction of local and global inequalities, protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate, require all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law, and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet. I am thinking especially of those countries in Africa and other parts of the world which remain on the margins of authentic integral development, and are therefore at risk of experiencing only the negative effects of globalization. In the context of international relations, it is necessary to recognize the higher role played by rules and structures that are intrinsically ordered to promote the common good, and therefore to safeguard human freedom.

Unless we join and subsume the pursuit of globalizing the economy under the pursuit of justice and peace, inevitably some parts of the world will suffer, as has been the case. Even in the structure of international relations there needs to be a preferential option for the poor, weak, and marginalized areas that are unequipped to meet the economic demands placed upon it by the growing market and globalization.

Solidarity means that we must consider the dignity of other as a fundamental part of our own interest. Any action that seeks primarily to exploit another group or has the direct consequence of exploiting other people, regardless of their proximity, is in contradiction with solidarity. The implication is simple: we must have a greater social awareness as to the effects of our actions and actively seek ways to prevent this social evil. We must live socially responsible in hopes to safeguard the dignity of our neighbors.

Subsidiarity promotes social responsibility by those participating in society. Attached to the dignity of a person is the ability to work and participate in family, local government, and society. Subsidiarity insures that individuals can express ownership within their community by working for the common good. Our solidarity should not seek to unearth this dignity of family and community but to support it. Solidarity and subsidiarity are not two opposing principles but two irreducible principles that are interrelated. We cannot be united to the interest of others and insure their dignity unless we are united to their ability to participate meaningfully in society by encouraging them to bring their own gifts, talents, and individuality to the table. True solidarity encourages subsidiarity.

Once we acknowledge that the great deficit of modernity, which is nevertheless responsible for many social conquests, has been and still is social solidarity -- at all levels, from local to global -- it is a matter of seeing whether and how this deficit can be overcome by a new way of intending and practicing subsidiarity as a proactive, promotional principle, not only as a defensive, protective one.

The hope is to work towards a vision that can reverse the negative effects of globalization. We cannot only seek to defend our own interest but must work with others so that we do not ignorantly promote the economic destruction of other areas by participating in structures that unjustly exploit the resources and labor of found there. How we live has consequences on how others live.

In short the challenge is for a new combination of subsidiarity and solidarity to become the key to activate those social circuits on which common goods depend, the key to turn globalization into a 'civilization of the common good.'