Am I Doing Good Work?

One

The wide scope of “Thou Shalt Not Steal”

So many of us think we’re safe when it comes to the Ten Commandments. Particularly in the case of the seventh commandment, “Thou shall not steal,” we think, well, I’m safe there. I haven’t robbed a bank or broken into anybody’s house. But not so fast. The Catechism of the Catholic Church applies the seventh commandment to a lot more than that.

Listen to the list of economic activities that are condemned under the commandment not to steal, “…deliberate retention of goods lent or of objects lost; business fraud; paying unjust wages; forcing up prices by taking advantage of the ignorance or hardship of another.” 

The Catechism continues, “The following are also morally wrong; speculation in which one contrives to manipulate the price of goods artificially in order to gain an advantage to the detriment of others; corruption in which one influences the judgement of those who must make decisions according to law; appropriation and use for private purposes of the common goods of an enterprise; work poorly done; tax evasion; forgery of checks and invoices; excessive expense and waste…”

How can all these practices, some of which are uncomfortably familiar, count as stealing? 

Two

Justice means giving to others what we owe them and not demanding or tricking people into giving you more than what you give.

When it comes to work and money, the first principle is to love your neighbor as yourself, that is, do good for yourself and do good for the other person. That means, do good work, work that is good for other people and good for the world

Give your employer or employee, your customer, client, or patient what you really owe them, what they deserve! 

Stealing is when you take what you have no right to, and when you acquire or keep someone else’s property against the owner’s reasonable will.

So, the question is, when do you not have a right to someone else’s property? When is it fair to say that you are taking it or keeping it against the owner’s reasonable will?

Aquinas says that justice in economic exchanges is based on the equality of what you give and what you demand for it. If somebody gives you a gift, then you can take more than you give. But when it comes to selling goods and services if you don’t give them what you owe them or you leave them worse off than you found them, if you take more from them than you give, that’s just not okay. 

And, unfortunately, that’s what a lot of us do to make our money.

Three

Getting more out of people than you give them

Let’s take an easy case. If somebody’s giving you money to do a certain job for them and you do poor work, lazy work, or work that is less than they have a right to expect, then you’re taking good money for bad work. That’s stealing. 

Or if somebody is doing good work for you, and you figure out some way to pay less than the work is worth, less than it’s reasonable for you to give and them to expect, then you’re giving lousy money for good work. That’s stealing too. 

If you’re selling products that you know aren’t worth the price. If you’re selling someone stocks that you know are about to tank in value and leave that person stranded. If you’re selling a service, or some kind of bogus insurance, or some kind of fake medicine, that you know isn’t going to benefit the other person. Then you’re taking good money for lousy products. That’s also stealing.

It’s true that the value of things is largely subjective. It’s true that something may not be worth much to one person even though it is worth a lot to someone else. And it’s true that you can’t perfectly put some kind of absolute objective price that will be guaranteed to match a thing’s absolute objective value for everybody. BUT! If you believe sincerely that you are taking something that will benefit you, and giving something in exchange that you are practically certain will NOT benefit the other person…then you are not, at all, loving your neighbor as yourself. And you are breaking the seventh commandment.

Four

Actually doing other people harm

Worse than that is when you try to make money by hurting innocent people economically. That’s why the Catechism says it’s a sin to artificially manipulate prices just so you can get an advantage and try to destroy someone else’s business.

It’s also a sin to try to get lawmakers to enact policies that don’t really serve the common good, they just hurt your competition. 

It’s a sin to scam people out of their money by phone or email.

We’re called to love our neighbor. We’re called to do good to strangers, and even to our enemies. If we make our money by hurting people, the Lord isn’t going to like it. 

So, let’s reflect on our work lives. When it comes to work and money, the first principle is to love your neighbor as yourself, that is, do good for yourself and do good for the other person. That means, do good work, work that is good for other people and good for the world. And give your employer or employee, your customer, client, or patient what you really owe them – what they deserve! 

The most basic rule when it comes to work and money is the Golden Rule - Do to others what you want them to do to you.

Are we living the Golden Rule in our work and economic exchanges?

Five

The economy doesn’t dispense us from our Christian obligations.

Everybody wants a safe space, some time off from our obligation to live like Christians. Some people try to keep the Gospel out of the bedroom. Some people try to keep the Gospel out of the voting booth or the courtroom. Some people try to keep the Gospel out of their entertainment. And some people try to keep the Gospel out of the workplace, or out of the larger economy as a whole. But you can’t do that. The Gospel is for everyone, everywhere, all the time.   

We have to live like Christians as we try to earn our living, just like we have to live like Christians in every other place.

To do anything else is simply to be a Christian with no integrity, which doesn’t really count as being a Christian at all. 

So let’s live the Gospel of Love, the Golden Rule at work, and do to our employer or employees, our customers, patients or clients what we would expect them to do to us.