Examining the rest of chapter 3, we see that Pope Benedict XVI continues his discussion of morality and ethics within the economic and political spheres.
Locating resources, financing, production, consumption and all the other phases in the economic cycle inevitably have moral implications. Thus every economic decision has a moral consequence.
Hence the canons of justice must be respected from the outset, as the economic process unfolds, and not just afterwards or incidentally.
He also draws attention to the fact that economic life is a multi-layered phenomenon with three subjects: the market, the State, and civil society; and that recently the market and contractual exchange have been favored by public opinion.
[Economic life] requires contracts, in order to regulate relations of exchange between goods of equivalent value. But it also needs just laws and forms of redistribution governed by politics, and what is more, it needs works redolent of the spirit of gift.
The economy in the global era seems to privilege the former logic, that of contractual exchange, but directly or indirectly it also demonstrates its need for the other two: political logic, and the logic of the unconditional gift.
He reminds us that we all must strive for solidarity, "a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone;" and that "[the pursuit of solidarity] cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State."
He also reminds us yet again that "without gratuitousness, there can be no justice in the first place."
We need what Pope Paul VI called for in Populorum Progressio:
The creation of a model of market economy capable of including within its range all peoples and not just the better off. He called for efforts to build a more human world for all, a world in which “all will be able to give and receive, without one group making progress at the expense of the other”. In this way he was applying on a global scale the insights and aspirations contained in Rerum Novarum, written when, as a result of the Industrial Revolution, the idea was first proposed — somewhat ahead of its time — that the civil order, for its self-regulation, also needed intervention from the State for purposes of redistribution.
We need more than just a binary model of market-plus-State society:
In order to defeat underdevelopment, action is required not only on improving exchange-based transactions and implanting public welfare structures, but above all on gradually increasing openness, in a world context, to forms of economic activity marked by quotas of gratuitousness and communion.
He then calls for a "profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise," noting the risks and dangers of today's common form of business enterprise.
One of the greatest risks for businesses is that they are almost exclusively answerable to their investors, thereby limiting their social value. Owing to their growth in scale and the need for more and more capital, it is becoming increasingly rare for business enterprises to be in the hands of a stable director who feels responsible in the long term, not just the short term, for the life and the results of his company, and it is becoming increasingly rare for businesses to depend on a single territory. Moreover, the so-called outsourcing of production can weaken the company's sense of responsibility towards the stakeholders — namely the workers, the suppliers, the consumers, the natural environment and broader society — in favour of the shareholders, who are not tied to a specific geographical area and who therefore enjoy extraordinary mobility.
In recent years a new cosmopolitan class of managers has emerged, who are often answerable only to the shareholders generally consisting of anonymous funds which de facto determine their remuneration.
Even if the ethical considerations that currently inform debate on the social responsibility of the corporate world are not all acceptable from the perspective of the Church's social doctrine, there is nevertheless a growing conviction that business management cannot concern itself only with the interests of the proprietors, but must also assume responsibility for all the other stakeholders who contribute to the life of the business: the workers, the clients, the suppliers of various elements of production, the community of reference.
How should the business enterprise effectively promote justice/how should we view the business enterprise?
What should be avoided is a speculative use of financial resources that yields to the temptation of seeking only short-term profit, without regard for the long-term sustainability of the enterprise, its benefit to the real economy and attention to the advancement, in suitable and appropriate ways, of further economic initiatives in countries in need of development.
And extra care must be taken into consideration by international corporations:
It is true that the export of investments and skills can benefit the populations of the receiving country. Labour and technical knowledge are a universal good. Yet it is not right to export these things merely for the sake of obtaining advantageous conditions, or worse, for purposes of exploitation, without making a real contribution to local society by helping to bring about a robust productive and social system, an essential factor for stable development.
He reminds us that "business enterprise involves a wide range of values," and that "business has to be understood in an articulated way." Because:
Business activity has a human significance, prior to its professional one. It is present in all work, understood as a personal action, which is why every worker should have the chance to make his contribution knowing that in some way he is working ‘for himself'.
"Political authority also involves a wide range of values."
As well as cultivating differentiated forms of business activity on the global plane, we must also promote a dispersed political authority, effective on different levels.
In terms of the resolution of the current crisis, the State's role seems destined to grow, as it regains many of its competences. In some nations, moreover, the construction or reconstruction of the State remains a key factor in their development.
The State does not need to have identical characteristics everywhere: the support aimed at strengthening weak constitutional systems can easily be accompanied by the development of other political players, of a cultural, social, territorial or religious nature, alongside the State. The articulation of political authority at the local, national and international levels is one of the best ways of giving direction to the process of economic globalization. It is also the way to ensure that it does not actually undermine the foundations of democracy.
And finally, Pope Benedict XVI teaches us that "globalization is neither good nor bad," and that true globalization and integration requires "a sustained commitment so as to promote a person-based and community-oriented cultural process of world-wide integration that is open to transcendence."
The processes of globalization, suitably understood and directed, open up the unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale; if badly directed, however, they can lead to an increase in poverty and inequality, and could even trigger a global crisis. It is necessary to correct the malfunctions, some of them serious, that cause new divisions between peoples and within peoples, and also to ensure that the redistribution of wealth does not come about through the redistribution or increase of poverty: a real danger if the present situation were to be badly managed.
Today the material resources available for rescuing these peoples from poverty are potentially greater than before, but they have ended up largely in the hands of people from developed countries, who have benefited more from the liberalization that has occurred in the mobility of capital and labour. The world-wide diffusion of forms of prosperity should not therefore be held up by projects that are self-centred, protectionist or at the service of private interests.
"In this way it will be possible to experience and to steer the globalization of humanity in relational terms, in terms of communion and the sharing of goods."
