Liberalismus, Socialismus und Christliche Gesellschaftsordnug/Liberalism, Socialism and Christian Social Order Book 4: The Christian Concept of the State

In Der christliche Staatsbegriff (1898) Pesch established the foundation for social order, inclusive of economic social order, in the form of a society with the common good rather than the good of a particular individual as its object. He refutes modern socialism. Pesch's focus was on the virtue of justice in the establishment of proper order in society including the state. He explained the traditional aspects of justice: commutative, distributive, general and legal. In his analysis of distributive justice, Pesch suggested that income tax, a function of the state, be levied on a progressive basis as a means of justice and equity.