Course Description

The course begins with a survey and analysis of Medieval political-social-economic ideas with emphasis given to Aquinas' treatise on kingship and the best form of government using scripture and reason as twin guides.

Feudal social structures including solidaristic business practices, the guild system, land policies, and prohibitions against economic competition as well as against usury are impartially analyzed.

The latter two are studied in conjunction with demographic shifts, the birth of towns, and the rise of a new bourgeois business class in opposition to the aristocracy. The relationship of these political and economic changes to Reformation religious changes is examined.

This examination is followed by a study of modern descriptive politics leading to the abandonment of "virtue" as a guiding political concept beginning with Niccolo Machiavelli. Students will then study "Contract Theory" from the the writings of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, which led to further dissolution of the Medieval synthesis.

Other factors that contributed to this dissolution will be studied such as the French and American Revolutions, Mercantilism, the Industrial Revolution, and then Social, Economic, and Political, Liberalism followed by Socialism and Communism.

The course culminates with a study of Christian social teaching beginning with Leo XIII's "Rerum Novarum" and ending with Benedict XVI's "Caritas in Veritate".

Emphasis is given to the relationship among ethics, politics, economics, charity and justice. Understanding is enhanced by a close study of primary documents and by the use of an integral methodology, including empirical science, philosophy, and theology, throughout the course.

TOPIC 1: CHRISTENDOM

Topic I: Lecture I. Feudalism

 
Topic I: Lecture II. Feudalism continued

 
Topic I:
Lecture III. Usury

 
Topic I: Lecture IV. St. Thomas Aquinas I: Introduction to Politics

 
Topic I: Lecture V. St. Thomas Aquinas II: Plenitudo Potestatis

 

Readings for Topic One:  

Aquinas’
Treatise on Law
 

Pope Benedict XIV
Vix Prevenit (On Ususry)

TOPIC 2:

FALL OF THE MEDIEVAL SYNTHESIS

Machiavelli, Protestant Reformation, Economic Changes, Age of Discovery

Lecture I Online Test

Reading for Topic Two:

Machiavelli:
The Prince 

John Calvin
On Civil Government and Resistance
Excerpts from Institutes of Christian Religion  

Martin Luther
Address to the German Nobility 
The 95 Theses
The Freedom of a Christian  
The Jews and Their Lies  
Let Your Sins be Strong  
The Small Catechism  

TOPIC 3:

ABSOLUTISM AND CONTRACT THEORY

Social Contract Theory:  Hobbes, Locke Rousseau

Lecture I Online Test


Reading for Topic Three:

Hobbes:
Leviathan
 

Rousseau:
Social Contract   

Locke
A Letter Concerning Toleration

Second Treatise on Civil Government         
Locke's Farewell 

Bossuet
Treatise on Divine Right
      

King Henry VIII
The Act of Supremacy

English Parliament (William and Mary and Eclipse by Parliament)
Declaration of Right

TOPIC 4:

THE ENLIGHTENMENT, ABSOLUTISM, CONSERVATISM AND CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING

The Natural Law, Jefferson, Deism, French Rev. Democracy,  Popular Sovereignty, American Revolution, US and Polish Constitutions, Adam Smith, Physiocrats and Mercantilists

Lecture I Online Test

 

 

 

 

 

 

Readings for Topic Four: 

Polish Constitution of May 3, 1781
Preamble to United States Constitution
 

Voltaire
Voltaire's Dictionary

Catherine the Great
On the Enlightenment  

Montesquieu
Spirit of Laws  

D'Alembert
Discourse Encyclopedia 

Condorcet
The Future Progress of the Human Mind  

Thomas Jefferson
The Jeffersonian Bible

Jonathan Swift
The Abolition of Christianity

French National Assembly
Decree Abolishing the Feudal System
Civil Constitution of the Clergy

Pope Pius VI (April 13, 1791)
On The Civil Constitution of the Clergy

French National Convention
Meeting of September 21, 1792

Various French Documents
The Revolution of 1848 (Napoleon)


Absolutism

Frederick II
Essay on the Forms of Government     

Joseph Conrad 
Heart of Darkness 

Conservatism

Von-Metternich 
Political Confess Faith  

Wardsworth 
Tin tern Abby  

Edmund Burke 
Reflections on the French Revolution: 
Thoughts on Present Discontent and Various Speeches

Catholic Social Teaching

Pope Leo XIII (July 19, 1881)
Diuturnum: The Origin of Civil Power   

Pope Leo XIII (November 1, 1885)
Immortale Dei: On the Christian Constitution of States

Pope Leo XIII (January 18, 1901)
Graves de Communi Re: On Christian Democracy

TOPIC 5:

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION LIBERALISM AND CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING

Classical Liberalism, Industrial Revolution, Laisse Faire, Spencer and Social Darwinism

Lecture I Online Test

 

 

Readings for Topic Five:

Pope Leo XIII (May 15, 1891)
Rerum Novarum: On Capital and Labor    

Engels
Industrial Manchester

Franz
German Banking

Cloth Merchants of Leeds 
Leeds- Cloth Merchants Letter

Cloth Workers of Leeds 
Leeds- Woolen Workers Petition

Robinson 
Mill Girls

Ure
Philosophy of Manufacture

Liberal Tradition  

Susan B. Anthony
Women's Right to Vote

Malthus Population  
Mill Liberalism  
Sanger Autobiography  
Adam Smith Wealth of Nations
Charles Darwin Origin of Species  

Charles Dickens 
Hard Times (Chapter 2: Murdering the Innocents)

TOPIC 6:

SOCIALISM AND CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING

Democratic Socialism, Utopian Socialists, Democratic Socialism, Reform Liberalism, Progressivism, Populism, Great Society, Fascism, Progress

Lecture I Online Test

 

Readings for Topic Six: 

Pope Pius XI (May 15, 1931) 
Quadragesimo Anno: On Reconstruction of the Social Order

Pope John XXIII  (May 15, 1961) 
Mater et Magistra 

Pope John XXIII  (April 11, 1963)
Pacem et Terris

Pope Paul VI (March 26, 1967) 
Populorum Progression: On the Development of Peoples 

TOPIC 7

MARXISM-COMMUNISM AND CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING

Rise of Marxism, Russian Revolution, Marxism-LeninismMarxist Social and Political Philosophy

Lecture I Online Test

 

Readings for Topic Seven:

Karl Marx
The Communist Manifesto 
Interview With Marx  
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

Frederick Engels 
The History of Early Christianity

Pope Pius XI (March 19, 1937) 
Divini Redemptoris, On Atheistic Communism

Lenin 
Call to Power
State and Revolution

Testament
What is to be Done 

Stalin 
Purges

TOPIC 8:

NEW AGE POLITICS AND CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING

Future of Ideology Liberation Ideologies and Feminism, Liberation Ideologies,
Post Communism and Globalism/Internationalism

Lecture I Online Test

 

Readings Topic Eight: 

Pope John Paul II (December 30, 1987)
Solicitudo Rei Socialis, On the Social Teaching of the Church

Pope John Paul II (May 1, 1991)
Centesimus Annus, Hundredth Anniversary of Rurum Novarum

Pope Benedict XVI
Caritas in Veritate