An Economic Creed
This week I have shared some of Father Vincent McNabb’s
economic principles, often celebrated by Distributists. However, Fr. McNabb was not concerned about
economics for its own sake. He lived in
a time when industrialization, mechanization, and urbanization were taking
people, especially men, away from the home and family. Work was becoming sterile. Self-sufficient families were sometimes turning
into wage-slaves. As a priest, Father
McNabb’s primary concern was for the spiritual.
The following is his economic “creed”:
1. I believe that human life, being a divine life, is not adequately
paid by any human dividend, but only by a divine wage.
2. I believe that “the desire of money is the root of all evil” in our
economic world.
3. I believe that a life organized for moneymaking is the error of
taking “gain to be godliness.”
4. I believe that money values are false values: as money weights are
false weights.
5. I believe that mass production on the land is not for the sake of the
land, but for the sake of money.
6. I believe that what is called moneymaking is not wealth-making, but
money-getting.
7. I believe that the growing of one commodity, such as fruit or
flowers, finally impoverishes the country by making it the servant of the town;
whereas the town should be the servant of the country.
8. I believe the salvation of our over-industrialized England must come
from the land, but it cannot come from industrializing the land.
9. I believe that the business methods which have brought our towns to
bankruptcy would bring our country to bankruptcy.
10. Finally, I believe that by organizing our land-work for a market,
and not for home and homestead consumption, inevitably puts the landworker at
the mercy of the market and the transport service which carries the market.
11. I believe in God, the pattern or the Mount, who has challenged us by
a life and death given the service of mankind.
12. I believe that to service God by serving man is not to be a slave,
but a king.
“Servire Deo Regnare Est.” God’s Service is Kingship!
Originally appeared in G.K. Chesterton’s Weekly.
Originally appeared in G.K. Chesterton’s Weekly.
