In his preface to “Laborem Exercens”(1981), John Paul II points up the linkage which confers human dignity upon human work:

 “Through work man must earn his daily bread and contribute to the continual advance of sciences and technology and, above all, to elevate unceasingly the cultural and moral level of the society within which he lives in community with those who belong to the same family….. Man is made to be in the visible universe an image and likeness of God himself, and he is placed in it in order to subdue the earth. From the beginning therefore he is called to work. Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activities for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a  person  operating within a community of persons….”

The first of the great social justice encyclicals, “Rerum Novarum” (1891) of itself and above all a heart felt defence of the inalienable dignity of workers, commenced a sequence of encyclicals which has never ceased to address the problems of workers within the context of  a social question which has progressively taken on worldwide dimensions.

Ninety years later, John Paul II addressed the dignity of human work in “Laborem Exercens”

In making his point that work is “for man” and that man is not “for work”, John Paul II stated;

 “…the primary basis of the value of work is man himself, who is its subject….In fact, in the final analysis it is always man who is the purpose of the work, whatever work it is that is done by man – even if the common scale of values rates it as the merest “service”, as the most monotonous, even the most alienating work”. (6. Laborem Exercens - 1981)

“Laborem Exercens” expressed the spiritual value of work to humanity thus;

 “Work is a good thing for man – a good thing for his humanity – because through work man not only transforms nature adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfilment as a human being and indeed, becomes ‘more of a human being’ (9. Laborem Exercens”  - 1981)

The priority of the rights of workers over corporate profit was, in “Laborem Exercens” stated  thus:

“The attainment of the worker’s rights cannot however be doomed to be merely a result of economic systems which on a larger or smaller scale, are guided chiefly by the criterion of maximum profit. On the contrary, it is respect for the objective rights of the worker – every kind of worker, manual or intellectual, industrial or agricultural etc. – that must constitute the adequate and fundamental criterion for shaping the whole economy, both on the level of the individual society and State and within the whole of the world economic policy and of the systems of international relationships that derive from it”. (17. Laborem Exercens - 1981)

Some 9 years after “Laborem Exercens”, John Paul II found it necessary to address the dignity of the worker in the context of contemporary developments:

 “The new realities that are having such a powerful impact on the productive process, such as the globalisation of finance, economics, trade and labour, must never violate the dignity and centrality of the human person, nor the freedom and democracy of peoples”. ( Homily at the Mass for the Jubilee of Workers – 1 May, 2000)

 Some years  earlier, Vatican II also had a deal to say on the same issue:

 In the economic and social realms, too, the dignity and complete vocation of the human person and the welfare of society as a whole are to be respected and promoted. For man is the source, the centre and the purpose of all economic and social life”. (63. Second Vatican Council - Gaudium et Spes – Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World –1965)

CAPITAL OR LABOUR – WHICH HAS PRIORITY?

 The Church has always taught the principle of priority of labour over capital. “This principle directly concerns the process of production: in this process labour is always a primary efficient cause, while capital, the whole collection of means of production, remains a mere instrument or instrumental cause”. (12. Laborem Exercens - 1981)

 In “Laborem Exercens” John Paul II further addressed the principle thus:

 “Obviously, it remains clear that every human being sharing in the production process, even if he or she are only doing the kind of work for which no special training or qualifications are required, is the real efficient subject in this production process, while the whole collection of instruments, no matter how perfect they may be in themselves, are only a mere instrument subordinate to human labour”. (12. Laborem Exercens - 1981)

 The principle was re-affirmed in more recent documents thus:

 “But profitability is not the only indicator of a firm’s condition. It is possible for the financial accounts to be in order, and yet for the people – who make up the firm’s most valuable asset – to be humiliated and their dignity offended. Besides being morally inadmissible, this will certainly have repercussions on the firm’s economic efficiency. In fact, the purpose of a business firm is not simply to make a profit, but is to be found in its very existence as a community of persons who in various ways are endeavouring to satisfy their basic needs, and who form a particular group at the service of the whole of society. Profit is a regulator of the life of a business, but it is not the only one; other human and moral factors must also be considered which, in the long term, are at least equally important for the life of a business”. (35. Centesimus Annus - 1991)

 Business owners and management must not limit themselves to taking into account only the economic objectives of the company, the criteria for economic efficiency and the proper care of “capital” as the sum of the means of production. It is also their precise duty to respect concretely the dignity of those who work within the company. (2432. Catechism of the Catholic Church)

 HUMAN LABOUR AS A COMMODITY

Human work owns a particular dignity which does not allow it to be considered a simple commodity or an impersonal element of the apparatus for productivity. The human person is the measure of dignity of work. Human work has an ethical value of its own, which clearly and directly remains linked to the fact that the one who carries it out is a person.

 “Both natural reason and Christian philosophy agree that it does not shame a man to engage in profitable occupation. Rather does it do him credit, for it provides him with an honourable means of livelihood. What is truly shameful and inhuman is to misuse men as instruments for gain and to value them only as so much mere energy and strength”. (16. Rerum Novarum - 1891 )

 “A systematic opportunity for thinking and evaluating in this way (work as merchandise) and in a certain sense a stimulus for doing so, is provided by the quickening process of the development of a one-sidedly materialistic civilization, which gives prime importance to the objective dimension of work, while the subjective dimension - everything in direct or indirect relationship with the subject of work – remains on the secondary level. In all cases of this sort, in every social situation of this type, there is a confusion or even a reversal of order laid down from the beginning by the words of the Book of Genesis: man is treated as an instrument of production, whereas he – he alone, independently of the work he does – ought to be treated as the effective subject of work and its true maker and creator”.. ( 7. Laborem Exercens - 1981)

Corinda Graceville Catholic Parish Justice and Peace Group

January, 2007