Catholic social teaching and taxation: guidelines towards a socially more just and ecologically more sustainable world

Abstract

Catholic Social Teaching (CST) originates in the Mid-19th century during times of heightened tensions between the labour movement and capital intensive industries. Building on the methodological three steps of “See-Judge-Act”, CST’s principles, norms and values emerged as consequence of the empirical analysis of social problems and tensions seen in relation to Biblical commandments, values and norms, reflected with categories emerging from moral theology and Christian ethics. Building on the guidelines thus empirically-ethically confirmed and proven, recommendations for reform and improvements are developed and implemented. This contribution examines the question whether Catholic Social Teaching is also useful today in overcoming negative consequences of the present neoliberal world order, such as inequality or the overexploitation of natural resources. The authors’ thesis is that Catholic Social Teaching does have the guidelines for transforming the present order into something socially more just and ecologically more sustainable, and that taxation and tax-like instruments, including prudent spending of money thus collected have a great potential in facilitating such a transformation. This optimism does not only build on the Church’s experience in dealing with social tensions and norms, its century-long dealings with fighting poverty, but also the fact that Catholic Social Teaching contributed to the post-war prosperity of Germany and Austria due to its influence upon the concept of the “social market economy”, a paradigm swallowed by neoliberalism and waiting for rediscovery and revival.