1 Novak, Michael, Free Persons and the Common Good (New York: Madison Books, 1989), p. 1.Google Scholar This work is Novak's most developed expression of his thinking on the common good.

2 The following explication of Aristotle's role in the development of the common good tradition is taken from Novak, , Free Persons, pp. 22–26.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., pp. 26–30.

4 Ibid., pp. 28–29.

5 Ibid., pp. 22–24.

6 Novak discusses the American contribution to the common good in Ibid., pp. 41–73.

7 Indeed, Novak believes that the capitalist society has contributed to the development of the “communitarian individual”. See Novak, Michael, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), pp. 143–50Google Scholar.

8 Novak, , Free Persons, pp. 81–82Google Scholar. Emphasis mine.

9 The following discussion of tribalism, the “veil of ignorance”, and authority is drawn from Ibid., pp. 78–95.

10 Novak discusses the formal and material concepts of the common good in Ibid., pp. 176–88. Here Novak also explicitly compares his work with Simon's.

11 Ibid. p. 177. The expressions, “the material common good” (Novak) or “the common good materially considered” (Simon), do not refer simply to economic well-being. Everything specified by law and public policy would pertain to the material common good, and this clearly goes beyond economic matters. However, economic matters are, for both authors, a constitutive dimension of the material common good. Beyond an exploration of the different ways Novak and Simon explicate the theory of the common good (both materially and formally), this article intends to focus on the economic dimension.

12 Novak, Michael, The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: The Free Press, 1993), pp. 149–51Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., pp. 180–81.

14 Novak, Michael, This Hemisphere of Liberty (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1990), pp. 28–34Google Scholar.

15 The following observations on the communitarian and orderly nature of the market system is based on Novak, , Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, pp. 128–42Google Scholar.

16 Ibid., pp. 104–116.

17 Novak, , Free Persons, p. 80Google Scholar. Emphasis mine.

18 Simon, Yves R., Philosophy of Democratic Government (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), p. 65Google Scholar. Simon defines community as a society relative to a common good. A characteristic feature of such societies is “communion in immanent action”, which Simon is explaining in the expression quoted here. Two other features of societies relative to a common good, collective causality and communion-causing communications, are mentioned by Simon but will not be discussed in this article. It is crucial to distinguish between a common good and the common good. There are any number of examples of common goods. Simon cites a team of workers, a football team and the army as examples of societies pursuing common goods. The common good, however, refers to a comprehensive set of goods in which the entire civil society participates. Simon is not referring in this example to the material common good of an entire society, the requirements of which are normally expressed by the function of authority. Simon explains why the civil society is a society relative to a common good in Philosophy of Democratic Government, pp. 63–68.

19 Simon, Yves R., The Tradition of Natural Law (New York: Fordham University Press, 1992), p. 98Google Scholar.

20 Simon, , Philosophy of Democratic Government, p. 65Google Scholar.

21 This means that in the civil society the virtuous citizen genuinely desires and is willing to contribute to the common good. It does not mean that all citizens concretely will the same material state of affairs. The determination of the latter is the special function of authority.

22 Ibid., pp. 64–65.

23 See Simon, Yves R., The Definition of Moral Virtue (New York: Fordham University Press, 1986), pp. 61–67Google Scholar.

24 Here, scientific knowledge is understood in the Aristotelian sense as knowledge characterized by the strict, objective necessity of its conclusions.

25 Simon, Yves R., Practical Knowledge (New York: Fordham University Press, 1991), p. 13Google Scholar.

26 Novak–s exact words are as follows: “The formal meaning points to the full (and future) conclusion of human development, both communal and personal. The material meaning points to the existing level of human development” (Free Persons and the Common Good, p. 177). Simon, on the other hand, speaks of a distinction between the form and the matter of the common good in the context of two ways of willing and intending the common good, and not to suggest that the common good itself has two separable meanings or that the common good materially considered could somehow be present without the form.

27 This may well account for Novak's refusal to acknowledge the degree to which Latin American economies are already liberalized.

28 Aquinas, Saint Thomas, Summa Theologiae I-II, 19, 10 in Introduction to Saint Thomas Aquinas, ed. Pegis, Anton C. (New York: Modern Library, 1948)Google Scholar.

29 Ibid.

30 Simon, , Philosophy of Democratic Government, p. 42.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., p. 41.

32 Ibid., p. 55.

33 Simon, Yves R., A General Theory of Authority (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980), p. 29Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., p. 158.

35 Of course, Novak would demand a framework of laws in which the competition for particular goods takes place.

36 Simon, , quoted in Novak, Michael, Free Persons, p. 32.Google Scholar

37 Maritain, , quoted in Novak, , Free Persons, pp. 32–33.Google Scholar

38 Madison, James, quoted in Novak, , Free Persons, p. 32.Google Scholar

39 Writes, Simon: “What bears repeating is that the whole problem of the relationship between work and wealth depends on recognizing and admitting something that many economists want to leave out of the picture altogether, namely, the possibility of a discrepancy between human desires and genuine human needs” (Work, Society, and Culture [New York: Fordham University Press], p. 125).Google Scholar

40 Simon, Yves R., Freedom of Choice (New York: Fordham University Press, 1969), p. 153.Google Scholar

41 Simon, , Work, Society and Culture, p. 120.Google Scholar

42 Ibid., p. 121.

43 Thorstein Veblen, quoted in Ibid.

44 Simon, , Work, Society, and Culture, p. 139.Google Scholar

45 Ibid. p. 122.

46 Ibid.

47 Barnet, Richard and Cavanaugh, John, Global Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), pp. 326–28.Google Scholar, While accepting inequalities in the recompense of human labor, Simon believes that there should be an upper limit, because “no aspect of the common good demands that any person should enjoy an income many times greater than his avowable needs” (Philosophy of Democratic Government, p. 250).

48 Simon considers Proudhon “an astonishingly perceptive observer of social life, with a special talent for identifying tendencies that remain constant in the play of social forces” (Simon, Yves R., “A Note on Simon's Federalism”, trans. by Kuic, Vukan, Publius 3 [1973]: 19–30).Google Scholar

49 Simon, Yves R., The Community of the Free (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), p. 162.Google Scholar

50 Simon, , Work, Society, and Culture, p. 35.Google Scholar

51 Simon, , Community of the Free, p. 163.Google Scholar

52 Simon, , Philosophy of Democratic Government, p. 240.Google Scholar

53 Simon, , Work, Society, and Culture, p. 37.Google Scholar

54 Simon, , Community of the Free, pp. 163–164.Google Scholar

55 Simon, , Work, Society, and Culture, p. 130.Google Scholar

56 Ibid.

57 Simon, , Philosophy of Democratic Government, p. 248.Google Scholar

58 Barnet, and Cavanaugh, , Global Dreams, p. 254.Google Scholar, Again, the issue for Simon here would not be simply to create equality of incomes. He is concerned, however, about wages of this kind which are not sufficient to maintain “common participation in the basic necessities of life” (Community of the Free, p. 172).

59 Lairson, Thomas D. and Skidmore, David, International Political Economy: The Struggle for Power and Wealth (Fort Worth: Hartcourt Brace, 1993), p. 260.Google Scholar

60 Simon, , Work, Society, and Culture, p. 122.Google Scholar

61 This doctrine was defined by Pius XI as follows: “Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative Û and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil Û to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do (Quadragesimo Anno, #79).

62 For Novak's fears concerning the welfare state and its appropriate limits, see The New Consensus on Family and Welfare (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1987).Google Scholar, Novak, mentions employee stock ownership in This Hemisphere of liberty, p. 105.Google Scholar, Simon, mentions his fears of an excess of state management and his support of worker cooperatives in Philosophy of Democratic Government, p. 252.Google Scholar

63 Simon, , Work, Society, and Culture, p. 140.Google Scholar

64 The former would insure that the needs of a worker's family would be considered in the determination of the wage. The latter would include all voluntary forms of distribution where recipients do not pay for what they receive.

65 Novak would not disagree, but he is far more concerned about exploitation by the state.

66 Simon, , Philosophy of Democratic Government, pp. 252–53.Google Scholar

67 Simon, , The Tradition of Natural Law, p. 166.Google Scholar, Of course, Novak does not argue directly that the poor should be left to chance. He argues, on the contrary, that the cycle of exchange be expanded to include the poor. But is this fundamentally different from leaving them to chance when there is no inherent necessity for the market to be inclusive? Novak's theory suggests that all should take responsibility for the poor through voluntary institutions. However, if such institutions lack the people and the funds to deal with the problems, then it would seem that the reliance on private initiative would ultimately be indistinguishable from leaving the poor to chance.

68 Novak, This Hemisphere of Liberty, pp. 101–102.Google Scholar

69 Ibid., p. 104.

70 I am not sugesting the simplistic and false argument that economic liberalism is the unique cause of Latin American poverty. I am suggesting that recent liberalization, particularly in the 1980's, has had a negative impact on the standard of living of the poor and does not show signs of reversing the problem.

71 For a discussion of contemporary Mexico, see Barry, Tom, ed., Mexico: A Country Guide (Albuquerque: Inter-Hemispheric Education Resource Center, 1992).Google Scholar

72 Novak makes an astounding claim with reference to this phenomenon. He blames the proliferation of informal workers on the difficulties of obtaining legal incorporation for their efforts. Although I concur with the proposal to make incorporation easy, the absence of this factor cannot be said to account for the tremendous proliferation of informal workers. Liberal socioeconomic policies which prompted job loss and dramatically lower wages at the same time that social sector spending was being greatly reduced, surely played an important role in generating the millions of informal laborers in the 1980s.

73 The following is not intended as a simple endorsement of the South Korean model. The achievements of South Korea were related to a repressive political model. The following draws on Dorrien, Gary, The Neoconservative Mind (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), pp. 295–306.Google Scholar