The
Common Good Bishops of England & Wales |
82 Therefore, where such social provisions as health and education are concerned, the common good requires a supervising authority that can step in with remedies as soon as deficiencies become apparent, rather than waiting until the logic of the market causes failing institutions to close, harming those who must still rely on them. There are, of course, circumstances in which, after due consideration, deliberate closure and the making of alternative arrangements will serve the common good. 83 84 It leads to an ideology of consumerism. The individual is reduced to the status of an isolated economic agent, whose life has meaning only as a consumer. 85 To promote the idea that the individual is primarily to be considered by society as a consumer - that is to say when an individual’s greatest significance is as a possessor of wealth and purchaser of goods and services - is both contrary to the Gospel and to any rational idea of what a human being really is. It gravely disadvantages those who do not have wealth to spend. Unlimited free markets tend to produce what is in effect an "option against the poor" |