A principle of reciprocity

So much has been written, and will be written, about Joseph Ratzinger; I take the liberty of sketching a brief reflection on the contribution that, as Benedict XVI, he made to Catholic social doctrine and, in particular, to the issues of the market and the political order—taking as a frame of reference the Augustinian notion of Tranquillitas ordinis and taking my cue from the encyclical Caritas in Veritate, which Benedict signed in 2009.

In Caritas, Benedict wrote: “In a climate of mutual trust, the market is the economic institution that permits encounter between persons, inasmuch as they are economic subjects who make use of contracts to regulate their relations as they exchange goods and services of equivalent value between them, in order to satisfy their needs and desires.” The market is presented to us as a form of cooperation based on the contractualist principle of “reciprocity,” meaning that the premise is voluntary exchange. Two people meet and, by exchanging information about their expectations, realize that they can be helpful to each other. You cannot give birth to the market by legislation or by decree. One can regulate a market, of course, or facilitate or hinder it, but no one can force anyone to engage in a transaction against his will: doing so puts us outside the market economy.