Review
..". John Medaille has written a most interesting book, "The Vocation of Business: Social Justice in the Marketplace. "Medaille, a successful businessman who teaches in the Business Leadership program at the University of Dallas, traces the history and development of economic theory, examines the contribution of the Catholic social encyclicals, explains and critiques the evolution of contemporary capitalism, and provides both the theoretical underpinning and concrete examples for the successful 'practice of justice in the modern business world.' ..".I found the text both informative and fascinating.... The author has a great gift for exposing the intersection of economic theory and human values. He demonstrates again and again the unfortunate consequences of theories which depend on the wrong values, or which deny (naively) that they depend on any values at all. "Medaille ultimately demonstrates that some form of distributism (remember Chesterton and Belloc?) is essential for the proper operation of free enterprise in such a way that it actually expands prosperity, rather than progressively constricting it to a smaller and smaller group. In fact, he argues persuasively that an initial widespread distribution of ownership is necessary for capitalism to work at all. He adduces a long history and clear economic affairs leads directly to economic equilibrium, which is critical for human flourishing, and so should be a preeminent goal for any culture. "Students of economics should read this book as a corrective to the false claims of many theories to be scientific, immutable and value-free. Businessmen should read it for both a better understanding of their calling and the inspiration to make important contributions to the larger culture precisely through their business activity. Professors of economics and business may very well wish to make the book required reading. In fact, anyone who wonders about production, exchange and modern economic inequities will find in this
"A highly original, intriguing and challenging book...This book is so rich and wide-ranging that any brief synopsis easily dilutes its strengths. "The Vocation of Business" offers a feast to chew on."-"-America"
"A highlyoriginal, intriguing and challenging book...This book is so rich and wide-rangingthat any brief synopsis easily dilutes its strengths. "TheVocation of Business" offers a feast to chew on."-"-America"
About the Author
Author is a graduate student and adjunct instructor in theology at the University of Dallas, where he teaches "Social Justice for Business Students," a requirement for the Business Leadership Degree. He is a businessman with 31 years of experience in management at large corporations and as an independent real estate agent. He served 5 terms as City Councilman, City of Irving, and served as mayor pro tem in 1991.. He is delivering papers at 3 conferences in the fall of 2006: The Sixth International Conference on Catholic Social Thought and Management Education, Rome, Oct.; Conference on Catholic Social Teaching and Human Work, Villanova Univ., Sept.; 2006 Pruitt Memorial Symposium and Lilly Fellows Program National Research Conference, Baylor Univ., Nov. He's published one article in "New Oxford Review," "Power to the People Must Mean Property to the People," January 2000, and the entry on "Distributivism" in "Catholic Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy: An Encyclopedia" (Scarecrow, forthcoming).
