An angelic answer to the cost of living crisis: Thomas Aquinas
by Benedikt Koehler, The Article:
The cost of living crisis calls for remedial intervention. On that much there is agreement. But what those measures should look like and who should benefit from them is up in the air. Party political considerations will colour recommendations and possibly compromise them. To tap an advisor unaffiliated with any particular political faction makes sense.
One could do worse than turn to St Thomas Aquinas, the 13th-century theologian. He came to be known as doctor angelicus, “the angelic doctor”, a reputation that chimes with the popular legend that peak medieval theology consisted in counting the number of angels that would fit on a pinhead. Aquinas’ main work, the Summa theologiae, debunks that urban myth. One of its chapters is focused on welfare: why to pay it, to what end, how much, and for how long.
His starting point is an examination of why welfare is an issue in the first place.
Agreed, anyone who is rich has a right to enjoy their wealth because “it is lawful for everyone to use and to keep what is his own”. But “giving alms is a generous gesture (actus liberalitatis)” that gives satisfaction to donors too. And besides, welfare payments are a corrective of a certain market failure, namely when wealth is concentrated in few hands and does not trickle down. The blame for this market failure falls squarely on the rich, because they have to answer for “the money of the needy that you have buried underground”. Welfare transfers are a market corrective in a society where riches are hoarded.
How should welfare work?
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