Moral y desarrollo económico. La ayuda a los países subdesarrollados

This unusual little book jumps from pronouncements on individual morality, based on Roman Catholic doctrine, to pronouncements on public morality in international relations. It wrestles with definitions and dogma surrounding such interesting themes as “superfluous goods,” “commutative justice,” “distributive justice,” and “international charity.” While one can sympathize with the author’s heartfelt hope that wealthy nations, like wealthy individuals, will “do good,” one can hardly understand his exclusive reliance on papal encyclicals, bishops’ pronouncements, and St. Thomas Aquinas as sources in a work on so important a theme. To the enlightened Catholic, the book may make sense as an extension into the field of international relations of a set of principles with which he is already familar; to the non-Catholic, it can hardly appear as anything but dogmatic, obscure, and not very helpful. Perhaps the author has succeeded in realizing his desire to “add a grain of sand” to the literature on the morality of international relations. His addition to the useful literature on economic development is hardly of even that proportion.