Folia Theologica 11. (2000)
Eugene Csocsan de Váralja: The Just Income Distribution
THE JUST INCOME DISTRIBUTION 127 2. The dynamism of the common good (Bonum commune tamquam finis cui).We have just seen the central place occupied in the common good by the legal order, It is the legal order in which the human personality forming the society is reflected most sharply. It is necessary therefore to investigate the role of subjects of law in the formation of the common good. In the system of individualism the highest value is the individual, and in contrast to this the collectivism subjects the individual to the interests of the community. The Christian Social Theory however acknowledges the dynamic but harmonic tension in the structure of the common good. According to Saint Thomas Aquinas “the common good is the goal of the individual persons living in community, as the good of the whole is the goal of any of its parts”48 The common good however can not be achieved, if the members do not share the common good; the share in the common good is due to the members: “As the part and the whole is somehow the same, what belongs to the whole, somehow belongs to the part. Therefore” (and so) “when something is distributed to each from the common good, anybody receives, what is his own.”49 In the distributive justice something is given to somebody private person, in as much what belongs to the whole is due to the part.50 The general justice therefore keeps the common good in dynamic tension. It requires not only the duties of the members for the common good, but as general virtue demands not only the fulfilment of the exchange justice between the subjects of the society, but just as much that the distributive justice must share the common good with the community's fellow persons.51 3. The rights of the human person constituting the principles of the income distribution with special respect to the teaching of the popes. I. According to Saint Thomas Aquinas “man has natural dominion over the external things because he can use the external things for his 48 bonum cummune est finis singularum personarum in communitate existen- tium, sicut bonum totius est finis cuiuslibet partium; IIJ IIje qu 58. a 9. ad 3. 49 Sicut pars et totum quodammodo sunt idem, ita quod est totius, quodammodo est partis. Et ita cum ex bonis communibus aliquod in singulis distribuitur, quilibet aliquo modo recipit, quod suum est IIa IIde qu 61. a 1. ad 2. 50 In distributiva iustitia datur aliquid alicui privatae personae inquantum id quod est totius est debitum parti. IIaIIae qu 61. a 2. 51 cf.: IIa IIae qu. 58. a 1.
