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ENTERING THE CIRCLE OF EXCHANGE: CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING AND THE ROLE OF BUSINESS IN THE ERADICATION OF POVERTY
Abstract
This paper highlights the potential of key themes in Catholic Social Teaching (CST), when applied to business, to address the eradication of poverty. The themes selected are human dignity; solidarity; rights and responsibilities; and the spirit of enterprise. After summarizing each theme, the authors articulate each one in terms of a type of 'capital' (factor of production). They also present case studies that illustrate how responsible corporations can tackle poverty simply by executing their core business, rather than by adopting CSR projects. The authors conclude that CST provides a rich resource for reflection and action on the role of business in poverty alleviation. Its key insight is that poverty can best be overcome through enterprise in the global economy – 'entering the circle of exchange' (Centesimus annus). In the light of such teaching,, the Catholic church could play a crucial role in creating the moral and spiritual ethos in which pro-poor business can flourish, thereby helping to make poverty history.
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Part 1 Historical genealogies and theoretical background: Anglo and Latin - rival civilizations, alternative patterns the Methodist model - Anglo-American cultural production reproduced in Latin America. Part 2 Latin America - history and contemporary situation: profiles of evangelical advance in Latin America Brazil - largest society and most dramatic instance the Southern cone - Chile and the Argentine contrasted smaller contrasting societies - Ecuador, El Salvador, Gautemala and Mexico. Part 3 Comparisons and parallels: Carribean comparisons - Jamaica and Trinidad, Puerto Rico and Haiti instructive parallels - South Korea and South Africa. Part 4 Re-formations: new spiritual communications - healings and tongues, songs and stories conversions - transformations and turning points Protestantism and economic culture - evidence reviewed the body politic and the spirit - evidence reviewed. Part 5 Conclusions: the argument summarized and extended.
ICICI Banks the Poor in India', in Microfinance Matters
- Annie Duflo
Annie Duflo, 'ICICI
Banks the Poor in India', in Microfinance Matters, United Nations Capital Development Fund
(UNCDF), issue 17 (Oct 2005), available at www.uncdf.org/english/microfinance/newsletter/; and the
websites of the selected companies.
Mother and Teacher), #157. See also Pope John XXIII's Pacem in terris
- Mater
Mater et magistra (Mother and Teacher), #157. See also Pope John XXIII's Pacem in terris (Peace
on Earth), #131.
The ability to form organizations…depends on a prior sense of moral community, that is, an unwritten set of ethical rules or norms that serve as the basis for social trust'. See his 'Social Capital and the Global Economy: A Redrawn Map of the World
- Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama writes: 'The ability to form organizations…depends on a prior sense of moral
community, that is, an unwritten set of ethical rules or norms that serve as the basis for social trust'.
See his 'Social Capital and the Global Economy: A Redrawn Map of the World', in Foreign Affairs,
74:5 (September/October, 1995), pp. 89-103 (90).
Technology, and the Mission of Theology in a New Century
- Ronald Cole-Turner
Ronald Cole-Turner, 'Science, Technology, and the Mission of Theology in a New Century', in The
Spirit and the Modern Authorities, ed. by Max L. Stackhouse with Don S. Browning, (Harrisburg,
Penn: Trinity Press International, 2001), pp. 139-65 (p. 143).
Post-Communist Manifesto: Public Theology after the Collapse of Socialism
- Max L Stackhouse
- Dennis P Mccann
Max L. Stackhouse and Dennis P. McCann, 'Post-Communist Manifesto: Public Theology after the Collapse of Socialism', Christian Century, 16
January 1991, pp. 1, 44-47. Reprinted in On Moral Business, pp. 949-954.
II's insistence that true prosperity is based on more than purely economic factors is persistent. See, for instance, CA, #24, 28
- Ca Pope John In
- Paul
In CA Pope John Paul II's insistence that true prosperity is based on more than purely economic
factors is persistent. See, for instance, CA, #24, 28, 29, 35, 36, 39, 43, and 57.
even the decision to invest in one place rather than another, in one productive sector rather than another, is always a moral and cultural choice
- Pope John Paul Ii Writes
Pope John Paul II writes: 'even the decision to invest in one place rather than another, in one
productive sector rather than another, is always a moral and cultural choice.' CA, #39. It is unlikely
that the Pope means that such decisions are only moral and cultural but that they are also moral and
cultural.
See also #46, in which the Pope seeks to marry the Christian obligation to evangelize with the Christian obligation to protect human freedom
- Ca
CA, # 24. See also #46, in which the Pope seeks to marry the Christian obligation to evangelize with
the Christian obligation to protect human freedom.
that modern views of human rights are utterly dependent on Judaism and Christianity. A translation of this work authorized and revised by the author is The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens: A Contribution to Modern Constitutional History
- Georg Jellinek
Georg Jellinek, who converted to Christianity, argues in his essay Die Erklarung der Menschenund Burgerrechte: Ein Beitrag zur modernen Verfassungsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1895), that modern
views of human rights are utterly dependent on Judaism and Christianity. A translation of this work
authorized and revised by the author is The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens: A
Contribution to Modern Constitutional History (New York: Henry Holt, 1901). See Max Stackhouse,
'Why Human Rights Needs God: A Christian Perspective' in Does Human Rights Need God? edited by
Elizabeth M Bucar and Barbra Barnett (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2005), pp. 25-40 (28-29).
It is not only secular writers that refute the idea that human rights have biblical origins. The eminent Jesuit scholar Jack Mahoney does the same in his new book The Challenge of Human Rights Origin
It is not only secular writers that refute the idea that human rights have biblical origins. The eminent
Jesuit scholar Jack Mahoney does the same in his new book The Challenge of Human Rights
Origin, Development, and Significance (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).
Fukyama therefore considers the 'left' to be wrong in thinking that the state can embody or promote social solidarity and the 'right' to be wrong in thinking that strong social structures will spontaneously regenerate once the state is removed from the scene
- Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama, 'Social Capital', p. 103 (cf p. 90). Fukyama therefore considers the 'left' to be
wrong in thinking that the state can embody or promote social solidarity and the 'right' to be wrong in
thinking that strong social structures will spontaneously regenerate once the state is removed from the
scene.
Ludwig von Mises and Israel Krizner, have been amongst the foremost advocates of this insight, it is now more broadly accepted. See Michael Novak, The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
- Friedrich Hayek
- Joseph Schumpeter
Although authors associated with the controversial 'Austrian school' of economics, including
Friedrich Hayek, Joseph Schumpeter, Ludwig von Mises and Israel Krizner, have been amongst the
foremost advocates of this insight, it is now more broadly accepted. See Michael Novak, The Catholic
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Free Press, 1993), pp. 9-10 and Christianity and
Entrepreneurship: Protestant and Catholic Thoughts, ed by Samuel Gregg and Gordon Preece (St
Leonards: Centre for Independent Studies, 1999), pp. 56-57, 59-61.
Neuhaus writes: 'the religiocultural transformation proposed by Centesimus could turn out to be the greatest economic development of the next century
- Michael Novak
- Catholic The
- Richard John Ethic
- Neuhaus
Michael Novak, The Catholic Ethic and Richard John Neuhaus, Doing Well and Doing Good: The
Challenge to the Christian Capitalist (New York: Doubleday, 1992). Neuhaus writes: 'the
religiocultural transformation proposed by Centesimus could turn out to be the greatest economic
development of the next century', pp. 200-01.