The principal resource

Christian humanism is “a terrain particularly favourable to the long-term growth and health of the business economy”, said Cardinal Camillo Ruini, vicar of the Pope for the diocese of Rome and President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), on opening the 4th Symposium of European University Teachers, held in Rome in recent days, on the initiative of the CCEE (Council of the European Bishops’ Conferences) and the diocesan Office for University Pastoral Care, on the theme: “Business and Christian Humanism”. The business economy, continued the cardinal, has at least an “internal interest” to support “the growth of such humanism, while respecting the freedom of individuals and social bodies, and in particular religious freedom”. Business and “Christian humanism” . Man’s “principal resource is man himself”: man is “the decisive factor” for development and for the production of goods itself. This teaching of John Paul II’s Encyclical Centesimus Annus (no. 32), according to the President of the CEI, is now a “widely shared affirmation”: if it is true, it means that “the formation of the person is an ‘internal’ goal of business, something that belongs constitutionally to its dynamic and to its intrinsic ethic: it is not only and not primarily a norm that comes ‘from outside’, from ethical or religious or social or political needs extrinsic to it”. Hence the centrality of “Christian humanism”, which Ruini summed up in three “common denominators”: “Enhancing the dignity of man – of each individual man – to the highest level possible, as already emphasized by Hegel; recognizing the radical weakness of man and his need to be saved, as taught by St. Paul, St. Augustine and then by Blaise Pascal, who pointed out the paradox of the greatness and misery of man; and affirming and demanding that the bond of brotherhood, universal and concrete, be put into practice, a bond that unites the whole human family in Christ, once again according to the teaching of St. Paul”. Towards a “humanistic” civilization. Contributing to the construction of a “humanistic” civilization, i.e. a civilization in which – as already dreamt of by Kant – “the human person is the central value, always the end and never the means”, according to Ruini, “thus forms part of the goals and internal ethics of business”, just as, “reciprocally, everything that contributes to the formation of the person and the construction of a humanistic civilization is to the benefit of the development of the system of businesses”. “A humanism that grows and develops in the context of a civilization whose fundamental form of economic organization is the business economy – this is Ruini’s central thesis – will be a partially new humanism in comparison with those that have preceded it”, especially “in the light of the link between business and modern sciences, with the associated technologies and with their enormous innovative dynamism”. What business “model”? The business model described in Centesimus annus “is not common and does not constitute the majority of those that exist in reality”, nor can it be said that the significance given to work by Laborem exercens is “widely shared, pointed out Alberto Cova, of the Catholic University of Milan. Describing in historical terms the relation between business and labour, he emphasized: “We have witnessed a process of dissociation of man from his work and the break-down of social relations within businesses, a process that has involved a great many and which has taken place with marked disparities in the course of tine”. John Paul II teaches that business “is a community of men who, in various ways, pursue the satisfaction of their fundamental needs and constitute a particular group at the service of society as a whole”. Managers and the “common good” . In business, the “common good” should not be considered an abstract or rhetorical objective, but a real “duty” of the manager, if he wants to respond to the “public” goals implicit in every business organization, understood as a sum of people whose activities are aimed at an “active participation” in the business venture. Peter Kowslowski, of the University of Amsterdam, is convinced of this. According to Kowslowski, “the idea of the common good of an institution demonstrates that the institutions cannot achieve their optimal performances and diligently operate without anticipating their common good in the decisions that leave their mark on the interest of the individuals who act in them”. Ever greater specialized “skills” and professional “experts” to tackle the continuous challenges posed by technological innovations and by an ever more competitive market: that’s one of the salient characteristics of the current business climate, according to David J. Teece, of the University of Berkeley. The modern business, based on the “organization of know-how cannot be based simply on a scheme of ‘head and subordinates’. It must be a relatively agile structure, that distributes leadership and autonomous teams”.