Work and the economy
What does the Church ask of an employer?
The development of economic activity and growth in production are meant to provide for the needs of human beings. Economic life is not meant solely to multiply goods produced and increase profit or power; it is ordered first of all to the service of persons, of the whole man, and of the entire human community. Economic activity, conducted according to its own proper methods, is to be exercised within the limits of the moral order, in keeping with social justice so as to correspond to God's plan for man. Cf. GS 64.
Human work proceeds directly from persons created in the image of God and called to prolong the work of creation by subduing the earth, both with and for one another. Cf. Gen 1:28; GS 34; CA 31. Hence work is a duty: "If any one will not work, let him not eat." 2 Thess 3:10; Cf. 1 Thess 4:11. Work honors the Creator's gifts and the talents received from him. It can also be redemptive. By enduring the hardship of work Cf. Gen 3:14-19. in union with Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth and the one crucified on Calvary, man collaborates in a certain fashion with the Son of God in his redemptive work. He shows himself to be a disciple of Christ by carrying the cross, daily, in the work he is called to accomplish. Cf. LE 27. Work can be a means of sanctification and a way of animating earthly realities with the Spirit of Christ.
In work, the person exercises and fulfills in part the potential inscribed in his nature. the primordial value of labor stems from man himself, its author and its beneficiary. Work is for man, not man for work. Cf. LE 6. Everyone should be able to draw from work the means of providing for his life and that of his family, and of serving the human community.
Everyone has the right of economic initiative; everyone should make legitimate use of his talents to contribute to the abundance that will benefit all and to harvest the just fruits of his labor. He should seek to observe regulations issued by legitimate authority for the sake of the common good. Cf. CA 32; 34.
Economic life brings into play different interests, often opposed to one another. This explains why the conflicts that characterize it arise. Cf. LE 11. Efforts should be made to reduce these conflicts by negotiation that respects the rights and duties of each social partner: those responsible for business enterprises, representatives of wage - earners (for example, trade unions), and public authorities when appropriate.
The responsibility of the state. "Economic activity, especially the activity of a market economy, cannot be conducted in an institutional, juridical, or political vacuum. On the contrary, it presupposes sure guarantees of individual freedom and private property, as well as a stable currency and efficient public services. Hence the principal task of the state is to guarantee this security, so that those who work and produce can enjoy the fruits of their labors and thus feel encouraged to work efficiently and honestly.... Another task of the state is that of overseeing and directing the exercise of human rights in the economic sector. However, primary responsibility in this area belongs not to the state but to individuals and to the various groups and associations which make up society." CA 48.
Those responsible for business enterprises are responsible to society for the economic and ecological effects of their operations. Cf. CA 37. They have an obligation to consider the good of persons and not only the increase of profits. Profits are necessary, however. They make possible the investments that ensure the future of a business and they guarantee employment.
Human work has a twofold significance: objective and subjective. In the objective sense, it is the sum of activities, resources, instruments and technologies used by men and women to produce things, to exercise dominion over the earth, in the words of the Book of Genesis. In the subjective sense, work is the activity of the human person as a dynamic being capable of performing a variety of actions that are part of the work process and that correspond to his personal vocation: “Man has to subdue the earth and dominate it, because as the ‘image of God' he is a person, that is to say, a subjective being capable of acting in a planned and rational way, capable of deciding about himself, and with a tendency to self-realization. As a person, man is therefore the subject of work” John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 6: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 73 (1981) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1981), 589-590.. Work in the objective sense constitutes the contingent aspect of human activity, which constantly varies in its expressions according to the changing technological, cultural, social and political conditions. Work in the subjective sense, however, represents its stable dimension, since it does not depend on what people produce or on the type of activity they undertake, but only and exclusively on their dignity as human beings. This distinction is critical, both for understanding what the ultimate foundation of the value and dignity of work is, and with regard to the difficulties of organizing economic and social systems that respect human rights.
This subjectivity gives to work its particular dignity, which does not allow that it be considered a simple commodity or an impersonal element of the apparatus for productivity. Cut off from its lesser or greater objective value, work is an essential expression of the person, it is an “actus personae”. Any form of materialism or economic tenet that tries to reduce the worker to being a mere instrument of production, a simple labour force with an exclusively material value, would end up hopelessly distorting the essence of work and stripping it of its most noble and basic human finality. The human person is the measure of the dignity of work: “In fact there is no doubt that human work has an ethical value of its own, which clearly and directly remains linked to the fact that the one who carries it out is a person” John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 6: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 73 (1981) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1981), 590.. The subjective dimension of work must take precedence over the objective dimension, because it is the dimension of the person himself who engages in work, determining its quality and consummate value. If this awareness is lacking, or if one chooses not to recognize this truth, work loses its truest and most profound meaning. In such cases — which are unfortunately all too frequent and widespread — work activity and the very technology employed become more important than the person himself and at the same time are transformed into enemies of his dignity.
Human work not only proceeds from the person, but it is also essentially ordered to and has its final goal in the human person. Independently of its objective content, work must be oriented to the subject who performs it, because the end of work, any work whatsoever, always remains man. Even if one cannot ignore the objective component of work with regard to its quality, this component must nonetheless be subordinated to the self-realization of the person, and therefore to the subjective dimension, thanks to which it is possible to affirm that work is for man and not man for work. “It is always man who is the purpose of work, whatever work it is that is done by man — even if the common scale of values rates it as the merest ‘service', as the most monotonous, even the most alienating work” John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 6: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 73 (1981) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1981), 592; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2428..
Human work also has an intrinsic social dimension. A person's work, in fact, is naturally connected with that of other people. Today “more than ever, work is work with others and work for others. It is a matter of doing something for someone else” John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 31: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 83 (1991) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1991), 832.. The fruits of work offer occasions for exchange, relationship and encounter. Work, therefore, cannot be properly evaluated if its social nature is not taken into account: “For man's productive effort cannot yield its fruits unless a truly social and organic body exists, unless a social and juridical order watches over the exercise of work, unless the various occupations, being interdependent, cooperate with and mutually complete one another, and, what is still more important, unless mind, material things, and work combine and form as it were a single whole. Therefore, where the social and individual nature of work is neglected, it will be impossible to evaluate work justly and pay it according to justice” Pius XI, Encyclical Letter Quadragesimo Anno: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 23 (1931) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1931), 200..
Work is also “an obligation, that is to say, a duty on the part of man” John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 16: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 73 (1981) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1981), 619.. Man must work, both because the Creator has commanded it and in order to respond to the need to maintain and develop his own humanity. Work is presented as a moral obligation with respect to one's neighbour, which in the first place is one's own family, but also the society to which one belongs, the nation of which one is son or daughter, the entire human family of which one is member. We are heirs of the work of generations and at the same time shapers of the future of all who will live after us.
Work confirms the profound identity of men and women created in the image and likeness of God: “As man, through his work, becomes more and more the master of the earth, and as he confirms his dominion over the visible world, again through his work, he nevertheless remains in every case and at every phase of this process within the Creator's original ordering. And this ordering remains necessarily and indissolubly linked with the fact that man was created, as male and female, ‘in the image of God”' John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, 4: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 73 (1981) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1981), 586.. This describes human activity in the universe: men and women are not its owner, but those to whom it is entrusted, called to reflect in their own manner of working the image of him in whose likeness they are made.