This particular writer, and those trained in his school, which he denies is the German Historical School, but it is, operate from a nominalistic approach. Nominalism, a school of thought begun in the Middle Ages by the Franciscan, William of Ockham, denies that there is any human nature. Therefore, human beings have no necessary consistency in them. In ethics, each person makes up his own code, and the codes can be very much at odds. To a nominalist, everything is will alone, not reason. This is why the writer in question asserts that people are at the “mercy of markets.” To those who think like this, everything is power. Even in moral theology, the reason one obeys the Ten Commandments is that it’s God’s will only, and there is no connection with those commandments and the nature of things. God could have commanded ten other things we were to avoid, and we would be required to obey them, because they are His will, even if they were the opposite of those actually listed. (I am sure many people would not have any trouble with the commandments were that the case) Thus, to those who think in this manner, markets are power, and that’s why there are no laws of economics. That’s why corporations are evil; because money gives them power, which they use to take advantage of others.
Those who adhere to Catholic Social Teaching, and the scholastic theologians who criticize "free-market capitalism" are probably not nominalists. They do not deny the existence of natures. This professor at a Catholic school continues:
The truth of it is that human beings do participate in a common nature, created by God, and this common nature leads people to think and act alike generally speaking. The laws of economics come from this consistency of human nature.
Scholastics and distributists do not assert that there is no human nature, or that human nature is the same for all. What they would assert is that not all have the same desires, and our desires can be shaped by our choices and habits. While we are inclined by our nature to certain goods (God, living in society, procreation, and so on), our desires themselves may become disordered through bad choices, and as a result we become vicious. Our habits, whether good or bad, shape our practical reasoning. Because human beings differ in character, such laws cannot be universalized or absolutized. They remain generalizations resting on presuppositions about the character of the people involved.
On the question of law, as the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas should tell us, the meaning of law is first derived from what is most familiar to us -- human law. Human beings participate in the Eternal Law in a way that the rest of material creation cannot, because human beings have reason (and thus freedom). This participation in the Eternal Law is none other than Natural Law. Other creatures participate in the Eternal Law in so far as they are ruled and measured by it. It seems to me that the physical laws of the modern scientists can be harmonized with this understanding of law; creatures have natures and by these natures they are ordered to certain ends and act accordingly.
But it seems to me to be a mistake to take this notion of law, as it is applied to the rest of material creation, and then apply it back to human beings, when it is the other way around in the order of knowing and naming. To do so obliterates the distinction between human beings and other material creatures and creates confusion with respect to the word law.
Think about the decisions in your life, and see if there are no laws governing your decisions. If gasoline is $.10 per gallon cheaper in the next town, which is 45 minutes away, would you think it is worth it to drive there to get that particular gas, given not only the price but the time involved, and whether it is raining or snowing, and other things that you have to do? Well, you just did a cost-benefit analysis, which every sane human being does in their head many times a day whether they realize it or not. How can anyone say that there are no laws of economics.
Cost-benefit analysis is just an instantiation of practical reasoning. With the goods we desire in mind, we examine the means to achieving them and then decide which means to take. What sort of laws do we use though when deciding? We base our decisions in part on the precepts of Natural Law -- not solely on if-then reasoning. The precepts of Natural Law (including those which are known through human law) are first in "governing our decisions." If-then reasoning is dependent upon what we desire and is the prelude to our weighing the alternatives. But as I've said before, not only are the conclusions reached by the virtuous man and the vicious man different, but how they reason is different. What the virtuous man will consider in his if-then reasoning will not be the same as what is considered by a vicious man, as the goods they desire or the means deemed acceptable will not be the same.
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