This paper attempts a theological justification for the right to private property or ownership. This I have subtitled, A Thomistic Onto-Theology of Self-Communicative Ownership, for our discourse grounds human ownership as a participation of the self-giving creativity of the Divine owner. Such a justification of ownership is also a metaphysical articulation of the true spirit of the creative economy, which should be the theological norm for democratic capitalism, insofar as capitalism aspires to be such a creative economy. This is no blind praise of any capitalist system, but proposes itself as a normative thesis as well as a justificatory thesis of capitalism. Hence its title, First Philosophy of Democratic Capitalism As Creative Economy, for it intends to be a demonstration of its first principlesfirst of a creative economy, and by extension also of democratic capitalism insofar as the latter should instantiate such an economy.
Jude Chua Soo Meng, "First Philosophy of Democratic Capitalism As Creative Economy: A Thomistic Onto-Theology of Self-Communicative Ownership," Journal of Markets & Morality 5, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 385-413