Wrongful mindset

"Man and his own good have a primacy also in economic activity as also at wider level, encompassing social initiative and political life", since "man, the human person in his integrity, is the principal capital that needs to be safeguarded and enhanced": "God is the guarantor of man’s true development", Benedict XVI wrote in Caritas in veritate. The claim was reiterated by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, Archbishop of Genoa, CEI president, in his address titled "An economy for man and for society", delivered on February 29 at the London School of Economics, on the invitation of the Italian Society. Today, as suggested by the Pope, "the social question has become a radically anthropological question", thereby Cardinal Bagnasco underlined the centrality of "the founding and inalienable values of the human person that constitute the so-called ‘ethics of life’ and that represent life, from the moment of conception to its natural termination, the family formed by a man and a women based on marriage, freedom of religion and education". These are non-negotiable values, from which germinate "those values underlying social ethics in its manifold aspects". Conversely, contemporary culture "is individualistic", it "condemns" man to "self-loneliness" as it is based on the "ethics of choice" and not "on the ethics of values".The venom of cupidity. "Since the social question exploded, after the second half of the Nineteenth century – the cardinal said – the Church never ceased to systematically address social questions through the writings of the Popes, starting with Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, leading up to Benedict XVI’s last encyclical Caritas in Veritate". Globalization, coupled by "the serious economic and financial crisis that has upset the whole world" have shown that "invasive progress on the one side" and "global disparity on the other" produced a "mounting gap between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak" which "extended across Western countries". Thus "the signs of deterioration came to the fore, gradually ruining the ordinary life of economically advanced nations, whereby previously wealthy social brackets were met with difficulties, while others fell beneath the minimum living threshold". This is due to a "wrong, economically-driven mentality that poisoned Countries with different histories, situations and cultures". As an example, the CEI president mentioned the presence of "shameless luxuries before tragic miseries", or "the concentration of power in the hands of few while multitudes are practically stripped of the possibility of acting and deciding for themselves". "Cupidity, facilitated and prompted by international financial and speculative mechanisms – the prelate said – has created chasms and illusions, it envenomed the thought and action of individuals, economies and entire nations. It triggered a virtual vortex that couldn’t last".Man is not a commodity. "Man doesn’t thrive on economy only", claimed His Eminence in his analysis of prevailing economic models (liberalist, Keynesian, and Marxist). A "basic option underlies all economic models, i.e. materialism", he said, but "in this materialist perspective the economy, whichever model it belongs to, is turned into ‘economism’, namely, an end in itself, no longer designed for a higher value: the human person. Sooner or later it will implode". In the final part of his address the CEI president delved into the subject of market economy. He said: "Profit is a legitimate goal, but if conceived as an end in itself it goes against man, for this reason it should never be separated from its social purpose", that includes "ethical aspects for the fulfilment of the human person, who can never be reduced to mere material needs. In fact, the goods the human person transcends towards are not mere commodities". Thus "the irreplaceable role of the political realm consists in the primary responsibility of conveying an ideal value system – rational ethics – in order to guarantee not only the most appropriate juridical framework to guide and regulate the development of economic relations, but also a societal project that meets integral humanism, open to that very transcendence by which Europe came to be". The universal destination of the goods of the earth; the "necessary participation to economic life", that "emerges all the more strongly in times of general difficulty, when more initiative, courage, honesty and sacrifice are requested"; the importance of "educational commitment"; the value of subsidiarity, starting with the awareness that a balanced "social and economic system promotes the presence of the public and private spheres, including non-profit initiatives" are some of the economic "applications" of a "personalistic and communitarian vision which encompasses the ethical dimension as an integrating part".