Volume 26, Issue 1, Spring/Summer 2006
Mary Hirschfeld
Pages 61-77
Standard of Living and Economic Virtue
Forging a Link between St. Thomas Aquinas and the Twenty-First Century
NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS IS INSTRUMENTAL IN CHARACTER, FOCUSING on the efficient realization of the sovereign desires of consumers. The emphasis on instrumental reasoning leaves little room for consideration of economic virtue. The tradition of Catholic social teaching has drawn on St. Thomas Aquinas for a framework that approaches economic problems through the lens of virtue. Thomas's thought, however, hinges on the socially determined standards of living of his day, which have no modern counterpart. The neglected consumer economist Hazel Kyrk (1886—1957) offers a theory of consumption that does center on the standard of living and thus offers us a bridge between Thomas's thought and our modern economic setting.