Orthodox Economics
June 21, 2006
Sharing good things. Another feature of the Value-Added Life.
In regard to wealth: If you enjoy it alone, you too have lost it. For you will not reap its reward. But if you possess it jointly with the rest, then will it be more your own, and then will you reap the benefit of it.
Enlightened economics from St. John Chrysostom, homilies on I Corinthians.
Extrapolating and applying an adequate definition of "jointly" might serve as
the focus of genuine social justice considerations and experiments for
the foreseeable future, treading a path between the demon of "taking"
and the angel of "giving." Proper and practical, neither idealistic
nor cynical, "sharing" emerges organically, unsusceptible to coercion, and promises that which is quintessentially human and civilized.
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