Does the Church believe that an economic system with shared property is better than one based on private property?

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Not only has the early Church implemented such a "communal economic system" described in Acts 4:32–37, but it has been implemented in monasteries all throughout the Church's history, even today. For example, Benedictine monasteries have this rule (St. Benedict's Rule ch. 32):

Of the Tools and Goods of the Monastery

Let the Abbot appoint brethren on whose life and character he can rely, over the property of the monastery in tools, clothing, and things generally, and let him assign to them, as he shall deem proper, all the articles which must be collected after use and stored away. Let the Abbot keep a list of these articles, so that, when the brethren in turn succeed each other in these trusts, he may know what he giveth and what he receiveth back. If anyone, however, handleth the goods of the monastery slovenly or carelessly let him be reprimanded and if he doth not amend let him come under the discipline of the Rule.

Distributive & Commutative Justice

Fr. Hardon, S.J., defines "distributive justice" as

The virtue that regulates those actions which involve the rights that an individual may claim from society. According to distributive justice, the state has three basic duties: to distribute the common burdens and privileges equitably; to make it possible for each citizen to exercise natural and acquired rights without undue hindrance; to foster mutual relations among the citizens for living together peacefully. Inequitable imposition of taxes, for example, would be a violation of distributive justice.

and "commutative justice" as

The virtue that regulates those actions which involve the rights between one individual and another individual. If a person steals another's money, he or she violates commutative justice. Any violation of commutative justice imposes on the guilty party the duty of restitution, that is, the duty of repairing the harm caused. In fact, strictly speaking, only violations of commutative justice give rise to this duty of restitution.

John Horvat's Return to Order ch. 32 "An Organic Economic Order: A Passion for Justice" explains:

The Demands of Justice in Economy

Saint Thomas Aquinas defines the virtue of justice as “to render to each one his own.”³ In economic matters, commutative justice is the particular kind of justice that assures that one party will render to another in transactions what is due in strict equality as, for example, when the price one pays for an apple corresponds to its worth.⁴

It is by this justice that we own property. Although the earth was made to be shared by all, because of our fallen nature there arose the need for private property, so that by caring for that which is strictly ours, we preserve the peace and harmony of society. For as Aristotle points out, if property is commonly owned, “complaints are bound to arise between those who enjoy or take much but work little and those who take less but work more.”⁵

It is this justice by which we own the fruits of our labor, whether it be wages, fees, profits, or property. This is the basis of free enterprise since each tends to make the most efficient use of his own resources when properly compensated for those efforts. This, in turn, benefits the common good. Saint Albert the Great affirms that “everybody is by nature inclined to pay more attention to what is his own than to what is common; so that if this will be better cultivated it will also grow to good fruition where all are concerned.”⁶

[3] Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 58, a. 11.
[4] See ibid., II-II, q. 61.
[5] Odd Langholm, Economics in the Medieval Schools: Wealth, Exchange, Value, Money and Usury According to the Paris Theological Tradition 1200-1350 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992), 172.
[6] Ibid., 174.

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