economy for the Men's Congress 60th National Congress FUCI
Piacenza, 22 - 25 April 2010
THESIS CONFERENCE
economy to humans
We crisis we are experiencing the most severe and dangerous economic and financial crisis since 1929, and by extension and intensity. The impact on workers and families very large, and will be felt again, so it should be taken seriously. The reasons for triggering the crisis can be traced primarily to an over-development and debt-based svincolatosi progressively by the rules: a growing ephemeral without a foundation or solid base on which to rest, no longer tied to the real economy or covered by some form of ethics. It has been a privileged form of short sight, not corroborated by a long-term planning. The responsibility of economic actors has given way to speculation, the easy money, fraudulent enrichment, often disguised as efficiency "of convenience" of the market. Behind the economic crisis, So you read the signs of a cultural and ethical crisis, which affects the dynamics deep in our society.
Beyond homo economicus The economic structure of the current crisis demonstrates the failure of the anthropology that underlies it. What was to be a tool - property, wealth, finance - is now beginning and end of effort, one size and undisputed actions. Here is the homo economicus, who is hungry only for money and seeks only to maximize their personal profit. But behind the desire to accumulate and own is not perhaps a lack of authentic relationships, the lack of a sharing of joy, fear of an uncertain future? The spiritual poverty of the advanced world is the other side of the coin of the scandalous injustices that afflict the third and fourth world.
Return to question the legitimate expectations of happiness as those who live in one another, is to put the question of the quality of our life, the respect of our activities, our investments and our consumption of ourselves and others.
Keepers of a gift must therefore rethink the economy, its rules, its limitations, its instruments. Divide the person must be the watchword. Person is first and foremost relational restart it, then, means to overcome the isolation individualistic and open the possibility of a genuine encounter with others, with creation and transcendence. The book of Genesis (2:15) states: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it". Man was made for happiness: the garden symbolizes the condition of harmony in which there is a man if he complies with its limitations and recognize God as the foundation of your life, treating the earth as a gift to be preserved and to take care of . The man has the right and duty to be custodians of creation, encouraging their growth without destroy or alienate it.
Guard then becomes synonymous with protecting, without having to empty of wealth and sense of what was received as a gift. Man is free, but his freedom is responsibility, a vocation: he therefore asked to know, love and live set that has been entrusted. It is a question of intergenerational justice: we must "recognize our grave duty to hand the land to future generations in a state that they too can live there with dignity and continue to cultivate" (No. CV 50).
Ethics economy If we let ourselves guide from this perspective, it is clear the urgent need to recover even in the economic attributes such as trust, respect for rules and solidarity. "The economy needs ethics for its efficient functioning, not any ethics whatsoever, but an ethics of the person" (No. CV 45). Ethics is not only a correction of some aspects of the economy: it must ensure a key role and structure. Any personal relationship and economic, whatever it is, has a relapse in the social. Firms should therefore be encouraged to broaden our vision and move from a "limited" to a "social responsibility", where the center there are also the interests and needs of workers. A market economy is innervated the concepts of gift and gratuity can be transformed over time into a disruptive reality. A market economy is diverse and regulated in the service of man and his dignity, it is therefore essential to overcome the current crisis.
New lifestyles humanize the economy is a daunting task, but it is true that not just a single item to change the system in which it is inserted, it is also true that a micro-system, intended as part Although small the macro-system of origin, can in fact bring the seeds of change. Therefore, it should overcome the dichotomy between individual and state: you must rather focus on intermediate bodies of civil society, on everything that is in the middle between the isolation of the individual and the conformism of the mass, and that can bring people together in view of common good. Only if people are not themselves able to develop new lifestyles, with alternatives and creative, inspired by an ethic of the report, translated into attitudes of simplicity, consistency and accountability. Ethical finance, critical consumption, low environmental impact energy, free software are some scenarios of a possible personal and community commitment. In this sense, the various forms of aggregation and association are more and more calls to "network", bringing together different skills and experiences toward common goals. To support this effort, particularly as we feel the urgent need for new momentum in the educational task, since the formation of a critical consciousness, the fundamental premise of each option ethics. Among the choices that young as we are called to do, that the profession is one of the most significant, since the work must be the framework in which the person finds his full dignity and fulfillment. It is necessary that the ethics of justice and national institutions are complementary: ask that the policy at all levels - local, national and supranational - to create a framework within which those choices are actually achievable.
Restoring Hope crisis, despite everything, is not hopeless. This is not only in economic recipes: the alternative to the emptiness and fear, and trust in man, which generates hope. Man is the real capital to invest, since "the author, the center and goal of all economic and social life" (GS n ° 63). It is from it, and his ability to weave meaningful and positive relationships with others, you can recreate a dynamic of genuine development. We must fight the temptation of resignation, that strikes us when we feel powerless, helpless spectators of events greater than ourselves. One must be able to take the courage of hope, which makes them capable of facing obstacles and difficulties. If every man is ready to review their life choices in the light of the fraternity and the common good, of sobriety and sharing, we can build a more humane future. We Christians know that this hope is not in vain, because the possibility of this new humanity is already opened by the love of God manifested in Jesus Christ. "Only if we think we are called as individuals and as a community to belong to the family of God as his children, we will also be able to produce a new thought and the expression of new energy in the service of a true integral humanism "(No. CV 78).