Generally I have come to detest making examples of blogs or mining articles at certain websites and posts at other blogs for easy posts focused primarily upon criticism. There are a few that draw my ire or annoyance, and it would be too easy to pick on them for the sake of increasing "original" content on my blog. These days I try to maintain an apathetic attitude to most other blogs and refrain from commenting or responding: what do I have to do with you? I don't even know you.
In a comment to this post, DC writes:
I wouldn’t say that there’s anything wrong with buying from other Americans rather from abroad, I think what’s being objected to is that it’s wrong to buy from abroad rather than Americans because of some idea that Americans are fundamentally more entitled to be supported by our purchases than foreigners.Actually, Americans are entitled, both in accordance with the order of charity and justice (and the related virtues). The economy is for the sake of the people, not the other way around, and economic transactions are meant to support and benefit all in that community. Our actions are not governed by contractual justice alone. We do have duties to fellow members of a political community precisely because they are fellow members, and these duties do not exist for those outside of a political community.
We supposedly live in an age of globalization. Corporations have very few ties to a particular people and are not answerable to a specific community, though they may be so in name only. (There is the question of incorporation laws and if they have any relevance today.) It is also easy to point out the benefits of globalization, equating that with development. But is it sustainable? What have we Catholics learned from Schumacher and Illich? Very little. There are apologists for the spread of industrial agriculture, which is dependent upon cheap energy, as well.
Corporations can thuse use their leverage and claim to be doing a service to the poor in other countries at the same time. Such useful propaganda. One could object that since corporations benefit from operating or make sales in many countries. (How have they amassed their capital?) Hence they have an obligation to employ people in those countries. But is such a balance in outsourcing really achieved or intended? (Do they render what is owed to each particular country? Or do their creative accounting practices reveal an evasion of tax laws and other misdeeds?)
This particular website, just like a certain counterpart that embraces statism, does give evidence that we cannot help but think in accordance with what we already believe, and we believe in accordance with what we have been taught. What American Catholic hasn't been influenced by liberalism and the Enlightenment in their understanding of morality and moral obligations? The order of charity has been replaced by a false universalism with respect to the nature of caritas.
But if you want to speak about moral and political issues from a Catholic viewpoint, it is right and necessary to obtain a good formation in moral theology, with St. Thomas Aquinas as a starting point. It is for the good of the Church that popes have recommended St. Thomas as a guide. If one is going to proceed to discuss political and economic issues, then one needs to begin with a study of Aristotle's Politics.
A university education, at a Catholic college or university, even one culminating in a degree in theology, may not be enough to qualify a blogger as an expert. Too many Catholics believe that everything that came before Vatican II has gone out of the window, blown out by the Holy Spirit. Most blogs are rather useless for learning--the bad pushes out the good, and this trend seems to affect Catholic blogs as well. Despite my negative opinion of academia in general, I think a blog or website by a reputable scholar is more reliable than something by an amateur philosopher or theologian who hasn't learned their scientiae properly.
Why be bad representatives for Church teaching -- why bother to write about moral topics if one does not have the gift of wisdom, connatural knowledge, or adequate scientia? Perhaps I indict myself. So be it.
Related:
Multinational Corporations and Development: Friends or Foes? by Jagdish Bhagwati
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