The Urgency of a Moral Economy: Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of Centesimus Annus

[Triana]

Prepared remarks from Sanders' website:

The Urgency of a Moral Economy: Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of Centesimus Annus

. . .

Over a century ago, Pope Leo XIII highlighted economic issues and challenges in Rerum Novarum that continue to haunt us today, such as what he called “the enormous wealth of a few as opposed to the poverty of the many.”

And let us be clear. That situation is worse today. In the year 2016, the top one percent of the people on this planet own more wealth than the bottom 99 percent, while the wealthiest 60 people – 60 people – own more than the bottom half – 3 1/2 billion people. At a time when so few have so much, and so many have so little, we must reject the foundations of this contemporary economy as immoral and unsustainable.

The words of Centesimus Annus likewise resonate with us today. One striking example:

Furthermore, society and the State must ensure wage levels adequate for the maintenance of the worker and his family, including a certain amount for savings. This requires a continuous effort to improve workers’ training and capability so that their work will be more skilled and productive, as well as careful controls and adequate legislative measures to block shameful forms of exploitation, especially to the disadvantage of the most vulnerable workers, of immigrants and of those on the margins of society. The role of trade unions in negotiating minimum salaries and working conditions is decisive in this area. (Para15)

The essential wisdom of Centesimus Annus is this: A market economy is beneficial for productivity and economic freedom. But if we let the quest for profits dominate society; if workers become disposable cogs of the financial system; if vast inequalities of power and wealth lead to marginalization of the poor and the powerless; then the common good is squandered and the market economy fails us. Pope John Paul II puts it this way: profit that is the result of “illicit exploitation, speculation, or the breaking of solidarity among working people . . . has not justification, and represents an abuse in the sight of God and man.” (Para43).

We are now twenty-five years after the fall of Communist rule in Eastern Europe. Yet we have to acknowledge that Pope John Paul’s warnings about the excesses of untrammeled finance were deeply prescient. Twenty-five years after Centesimus Annus, speculation, illicit financial flows, environmental destruction, and the weakening of the rights of workers is far more severe than it was a quarter century ago. Financial excesses, indeed widespread financial criminality on Wall Street, played a direct role in causing the world’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

THE REST:

https://berniesanders.com/urgency-moral-economy-reflections-anniversary-centesimus-annus/

[eridani]

1. Mr. Sanders Goes to the Vatican

http://www.thenation.com/article/mr-sanders-goes-to-the-vatican/

?I do not know what Sanders will say to this Pontifical Academy. But I know one thing, from having actively supported Pope Francis’ US trip. There is one sentence Francis wrote but dared not express during his speech to the US Congress. That sentence was: Politics “cannot be a slave to the economy and finance.” We don’t know who the next US president will be, but I hope that Sanders pronounces this sentence loudly enough so that he can be heard urbi et orbi.

In the challenges the world is facing today, from extremism to violence and the next financial crisis, the last thing we need is an American democracy still enslaved by the powers of money. The land of the free deserves better. If Sanders goes to the Vatican to hammer this point, it might be a counterintuitive campaign move, but he will find a friendly and supportive audience there.