PESCH, HEINRICH. - Jesuit, writer on social politics and national economy, b. in Cologne on 17 Sept. 1854, d. in Valkenburg on 1 April 1926.
Having entered the Society of Jesus on 10 Jan. 1876, after studying law and social sciences at the theological faculty of Bonn, and having been ordained a priest in 1888, he devoted himself entirely to writing on subjects of national economy. As preparation he had the private instructions, at Türmitz Castle in Bohemia (1889), of the publicist R. Meyer, who tried in vain to win him over to his theories of State socialism; the personal observations gathered on journeys in England and Belgium; his activity as spiritual director at the Seminary of Mainz, where social studies were flourishing (1892-1901); and the new studies undertaken, at nearly forty, under A. Wagner at the University of Berlin (1901-1903), lost among the young students. From Berlin he moved to Luxembourg as a contributor to the Stimmen aus Maria Laach, and in 1910 he returned to Berlin, to the Sisters of the Good Shepherd at Marienfeld, where he was able to finish his principal work. In his years at Mainz he had published: Liberalismus, Sozialismus und christliche Gesellschaftsordnung (2 vols., Freiburg im Breisgau 1893-1900; 2nd ed., ibid. 1901), a systematic study of the relations of Catholic social thought to the other two currents then dominant; from Berlin came his masterpiece: Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie (5 vols., ibid. 1905-1923), which aroused the greatest interest, being the first modern work of economics inspired by Catholicism, independent of the theories in vogue in the schools and yet founded on all the scientific and practical experiences exploited by others. In it he sets out and defends his social system, which he himself called "Christian solidarism"; collective social well-being must necessarily be founded on an organic conception of society, that is, on the interdependence and solidarity of the various social groups; neither the individual, taken by himself, nor society, taken by itself, will procure this well-being, but the two elements harmoniously reconciled together. The individual exists also for society, and society exists also for the individual; there will therefore be need of a social order in which the free activity of individuals is harmonized with the common good, and the interests of workers with those of employers; in other words, what must be socialized is not the instruments of labor, but men. After the First World War further occasions offered themselves to P. to orient minds in the midst of the new social tendencies that were emerging; hence he published, generally making use of the material of the Lehrbuch: Solidarisierung (ibid. 1919); Christlicher Solidarismus und soziales Arbeitsystem (ibid. 1924); Des wissenschaftlichen Sozialismus Irrgung und Ende (ibid. 1924), etc.
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