Next year I shall be co-leading a seminar on the common good for theology students. We are trying to work out a syllabus now. The current draft starts with Charles De Koninck’s classic book on the subject, then does a quick run through intellectual history, looking at a few key texts on the question (a bit like roller-skating through the Louvre I’m afraid), and then ends with the controversy that followed the publication of De Koninck’s book. Here’s the current draft:
The highlighted names are for authors where I’m not sure what texts to pick as yet. I would be grateful for suggestions of all kinds. Perhaps Owen White could suggest some leftist texts to read, and Modestinus some authoritarian ones?
Sancrucensis 
Dear Father, as a layman and lawyer, I would prefer to take the course you outline rather than the other one, although admittedly perhaps much of the historical material you contemplate would be used in the other course, too. I just think your approach is better. Please give us citations to the specific works you are thinking of using for the authoritarian and Fascist section. A couple of the names are not familiar to me. Carl Schmitt’s name has two t’s however, if memory serves. Should there be some time given to Peronism, one wonders?
At any rate, keep up all the good work.
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I’ve updated the syllabus, as you can see above. I’m not sure what texts to take from Maurras and Schmitt — any suggestions? For Baeumler I’m planning on doing some passages on his book on Nietzsche and politics, and for Feder I’m planning on taking section 3 “The Basic Ideas” from The Programme of the NSDAP (http://archive.org/stream/FederProgrammeNSDAP#page/n11/mode/2up). If we were to add Peronism what text would you suggest?
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Well, Father, as to Peronism, I was of course half joking, given the current Roman Pontiff. However, a quick Google search reveals some stuff translated into English, at sites such as:http://web.archive.org/web/20040602202419/http://edsall-historypage.org/html/argentine_sourcebook.html, http://www.evitaperon.org, and http://www.casahistoria.net/peron.htm. The English language books that I have found are all of the usual (when dealing with thinkers on the Right, although one might well query whether Peron was a Rightist) historical descriptive type, in other words, giving what the author says are the views of the subject, rather than reprinting or translating the subject’s own words so that the reader, heaven forfend, might decide for himself. Spanish books would include “Doctrina Peronista” (1947) and Mende, “El Justicialismo” (1950).
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If you teach a course on the common good, I would begin with rights being something given to man by God in His covenant, and that rights exist in man. I would also rely heavily on the ecclesial exegesis; namely, what the Church herself says about this in Her witness of tradition.
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