Was the Good Samaritan a Bad Economist?

Charles K. Wilber is emeritus professor of economics and fellow, Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

• Part One: Foundations1 The Good Samaritan and Catholic Social Thought2 Economic Theory Requires Moral Values 3 Individual Actors Have Moral Values4 Markets Require Intervention5 Moral Theories and Justice6 Catholic Social Thought and the Common GoodPart Two: Applications7 Economics of Labor Markets and Theory of the Gift8 The Causes of Poverty9 Pope Francis and Inequality10 The Economy as a Casino: Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis11 Integral Human Development Part Three: Whither the Future12 The Economy, the Family and Mediating Institutions13 Distributism and the Catholic Worker Movement14 Wisdom and the Christian Economist

Wilber presents a persuasive case that values can and should make a real difference in economics. Both the duty to respect the dignity of one’s neighbors and the Good Samaritan’s compassionate care for a wounded stranger should energize today’s economic policies. This is a creative and critical synthesis of economic analysis, Christian theology, and Catholic social ethics. Economists, theologians, and church leaders will learn much from it.