chief reasons for the existence of the State. It may indeed be regulated by the State, as far as is necessary for the common good, but it is beyond the power of the State to do away with it. [1] No Catholic is at liberty to deny the lawfulness of private property and its necessity in the general conditions of the modern world.
Socialists, indeed, advocate the nationalization of the land and of all the means of production and exchange as a sovereign cure for the economic evils of the world. The plan militates against the right of private property; it is unworkable, and even if it could be introduced it would be no cure for existing evils, and would introduce other new ones. The fuller treatment of this, a practical question in our days, scarcely belongs to moral theology; it is not in the confessional that such questions are treated. The student should consult books on ethics, or special works written on socialism or collectivism.
- ↑ Leo XIII, on the Condition of Labour, May 15, 1891.
