A leitura conservadora da relação entre a Doutrina Social Católica e a leis econômicas é pouco difundida entre nós, e uma boa introdução é o "paper"Catholic Social Teaching and Economic Law: An Unresolved Tension do Thomas E.Wood, Jr. Abaixo um trecho deste texto:
"The primary difficulty with much of what has fallen under the heading of Catholic social teaching since Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891) is that it assumes without argument that the force of human will suffices to resolve economic questions, and that reason and the conclusions of economic law can be safely neglected, even scorned.4 In fact, as with the German Historical School that Ludwig von Mises opposed, proponents of Catholic social teaching effectively deny the very existence of economic law. Their position therefore neglects altogether the role that reason must play in assessing the consequences of seemingly "progressive" economic policies, as well as in apprehending the order and harmony that can exist within complex (in this case market) phenomena. This attitude runs directly counter to the entire Catholic intellectual tradition, according to which man is to conform his actions to reality, rather than embarking on the hopeless and foolish task of forcing the world to conform to him and to his desires. This corpus of thought wishes to force reality into outcomes that cannot be realized by will alone.
Thus, for example, that every man should earn a "family wage" that allows his family to live in reasonable comfort is a desirable social goal. The suggestion that such an outcome can be brought into existence by decree, however, that man’s will can establish such a state of affairs by his ipse dixit alone, and that no recourse to any so-called economic law can be of any help in ascertaining the probable outcome of such measures, is no more intellectually defensible than the suggestion that man’s desire to fly renders superfluous any need to take into account the law of gravity.
In sum, much of the economic counsel set forth as Catholic social teaching over the past century suffers from logical flaws and is factually mistaken in a number of its assertions. Such a position, whether or not its proponents realize it, represents the triumph of will over intellect, of the substitution of arbitrary will and desire for a rational assessment of laws of social interaction and the inevitable consequences of violent interference in that interaction. Such a posture, in addition to the damage it does to the existing stock of wealth and to social comity itself, is thoroughly uncharacteristic of the Catholic Church, an institution that has always emphasized the mind’s ability to perceive (and to rejoice in) the orderliness of God’s creation and to conform itself to it. Truth, say Catholic catechisms, consists of the conformity of mind to reality. Catholic "social teaching," on the other hand, too frequently demands that man allow mere desire and sentiment to form his judgment in economic matters, rather than assessing the consequences of economic measures with the aid of economic law, and rather than looking in the economic realm for the order and regularity to which the Church points in so many other areas as reflections of the orderliness of God himself."
