“By the end of this book you may not be able to explain how the Federal Reserve Bank works, but you will be very clear about the moral values that measure economic health.”
It is twenty years since the U.S. Catholic bishops issued a pastoral
letter on the U.S. economy. Since then striking changes have occurred
as the U.S. has become dramatically more unequal in terms of wealth, income, and opportunity. The signs are everywhere, from the fantastic salaries of corporate CEOs, the skyrocketing rates of personal and public debt, tax cuts for the wealthiest, increased job insecurity, and shrinking
public services. Catholic social teaching supplies a set of criteria for evaluating the moral health of an economic system, though for most people these principles are a well-kept secret. In this clear and penetrating book, Chuck Collins and Mary Wright draw on these principles to evaluate our economy and lay out practical steps toward establishing an economy
“as if people mattered.”
Well worth reading and thinking about . . . excellent for parish discussions on the meaning of wealth and poverty today."--St. Anthony Messenger
Chuck Collins, currently a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, is co-founder of the Boston-based United for a Fair Economy and Responsible Wealth. He is the author of several books about economic inequality, including Economic Apartheid in America, Wealth and Our Commonwealth (with Bill Gates, Sr.), and The Wealth Inequality Reader.
Mary Wright is a staff member of JustFaith Ministries in Louisville, KY. For twelve years she was the Education Coordinator at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) office in Washington, D.C. Previously she served for fourteen years as the CCHD Diocesan Director at the Human Rights Office for the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
