MAN AS A WORKER

Man uses various forms of economic organizations to gain a livelihood.

The contemporary world possesses a wide range of economic structures.

TWO TYPES OF ECONOMY

Traditional

Economy

Expanding

Economy

A. TRADITIONAL ECONOMY

People live by cultivation. Land is the chief economic good

and primary capital resource. Technology is slow in changing. This economy still lingers in the

developing countries of the Third World.

In the non-communist world, it is called market economy.

Free enterprise economy characterized by private ownership of the means of production, freedom to choose one’s line of work, local planning, consumer’s sovereignty, competition, profit- making, and risk-taking.

B. EXPANDING ECONOMY

The expanding command or centrally planned economy is associated with communist countries.

In a command economy, the state virtually controls the economic life of the people.

• This socialized enterprise type of economy is characterized by Five Year economic plans, state farms, collectivized state farms government-controlled retailing establishment, and government controlled labor organizations.

• The economic ideologies followed by non-communist and communist countries are becoming increasingly undefined.

• Mixed type of economies seems to be “in-thing.”

What is the place of man the worker in these economic ideologies?

THE CHRISTIAN POINT OF VIEW

We can get a very good idea of the Church’s stand on man the worker

from the following popular encyclicals:

a. Rerum Novarum by Leo XIII, which champions the case of the lowly workers. (Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor )

b. Quadragesimo Anno by Pius XI, agrees with Rerum Novarum’s points on the right and duty of the Church.( On the Condition of Workers)

d. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes),one of the documents of Vatican II, which develops the Church’s teachings on man, his world and his relations with the church, and which also deals with the problems of his world today.

c. MATER ET MAGESTRA by John XXIII, which was issued to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the Rerum Novarum teachings.

e. Centesimus Annus ( The Hundredth Year – from Rerum Novarum) by Pope John Paul II deals not only with labor and capital but the whole economy after Communism’s downfall in Russia.

It states that capitalism should now be a system of the countries where communism has failed, for “capitalism is meant an economic system that recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, market, private property, and the resulting responsibility for the means of production as well as free human creativity in the economic sector.”

The Pastoral Constitution recognizes the hope and anguish modern man suffers because of the new technology.It recognizes the changes the social order, in attitudes, morals, and religion which create the worsening of imbalances on the levels of person, family and nations.

The dichotomies man finds in his world- poverty in the midst of abundance, backwardness vs. technological gains, the ideologies of democracy and communism- he also finds himself and is compelled to ask the fundamental questions of what he is and to make wrenching decisions in line with his personal vision.

Common in the encyclicals are the following convictions on man the worker:

1. Man’s dignity as the image of GOD.2. The essential nature of his body and soul.3. The interdependence of person and

society.4. The common good and the need to go

beyond an individualistic mind set.5. Responsibility as well as participation in

the body politic.6. Special attention on the underprivileged

and the disadvantage: need for justice and equality, avoidance of exploitation.

7. Economic development in the service of man.8. Special rights of workers, especially of forming unions and of the right to strike.9. Relations between employers and employees: a cooperative activity. Employers also have rights.10. The social character of private property which, as Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno says, is the “ unquestionable need that the goods which where created by GOD for all men should flow equally to all according to the principles of justice and charity.11. The individual character of private property: one’s right to own private property is a natural right right of man, for he needs it to live, to save for the future, to marry and raise a family, to develop his talents, to receive just compensation for his work, and to retain his identity as a individual.

12. On work, which is exercised in the production and exchange of goods or in the provision of economic services, surpasses all other elements of economic life, for the latter are only means to an end.

COMMUNISM

A German of Jewish descent.Studied at the universities of Bonn and Berlin where he joined the group of young Hegelians.An admirer of Hegel, but later on disagreed with the laters teachings.1948- he joined the Communist League where the first of his most important writings appeared: the Communist Manifesto, a summary of the principles and aims of communism, which he prepared with Friedrich Engels (1820-1895).

KARL MARX

•Das Kapital- second most important work.-the first volume was published in 1967.-the second and third volumes were published after his death by Engels.

Ideas that revolutionized the world are:1. Need for a classes economic society.

2. Religion is man’s opium, for it only creates a world of illusion for man who cannot find his happiness in this world.

3. Society should be changed, but philosophizing about it is inadequate. Action is called for.

4. This action is in the form of social revolution, led by proletariat, the oppressed class. The revolution can be done by abolishing private property.

5. The reason for this is that “the fundamental form of human work is not thought but manual labor” the product of which, by self-alienation in the present society, does not belong to laborer.

6. The capitalist system exploits the workers, for the capitalist does not pay the worker the full value of the commodity he produces.

7. Man is not primarily contemplative but active. His activity is in production. This production is of goods to answer his basic needs.

Marx’s theory of history is known as the dialectic materialism-materialist in the sense that the basic factor in history is for him man’s economic activity, his physical needs.

The Marxist Conception of Work to Plattel

Martin G. Plattel compares the Marxist and Christian analogy of work. To him the main differences are:

1. The Marxist view extols work as the highest value. He “humanizes” nature through his work, and nature “naturalizes” him by activating the forces dormant in him

2. To the Marxist, the value of work has no imperfection, while to the Christian, it will always imply an imperfection since it belongs only to the sphere of the useful.

3. To Marx, “in the final stage of society, everyone will work according to his capacities” and be rewarded according to his needs.” To the Christian, work is for this earth alone, though self-fulfi lling and oriented towards love for others.

4. Marx talks of work often in terms of pure love. But because he is atheistic, his love is only of this earth. The Christian regards human love as part of divine love and, therefore, goes beyond the Marxist concept.

Plattel cautions us though when we contrast the two ideals of work. They are different and we cannot employ the same standards for both.To the Christians, work is also an “essential category of human existence” and it is also on the level of this life, but it finds its rewards and completion in a “workless co-existence” on the level of the supra-wordly.

Implications for the Filipino Workers

The Philippine labor is in ferment.

The Philippine economy still has the vestiges of the traditional type, it is due to this that we have the following economic problems:

1. Land reform

2. Unemployment

3. High prices

4. Lowered productivity due to a number of causes.

5. Plight of overseas contract workers.

6. Prostitution, especially child prostitution.

Two main causes of the problems of the Filipino workers are:

POVERTYUnjust social

structure

1. The government2. The Church3. the left and its different kinds

Unjust structures of exploitation are still around, but there are attempts to address them. The answer comes

from three sources:

Father Joaquin G. Bernas. S.J., one of the commissioners who formulated the Constitution, discusses the socio-

historical context of the labor provisions. He cites the beginnings of our labor

concepts in the American Constitution, where the Cen tral ideology is liberty in

its various ramifications

The Constitution on Labor

,

Father Joel Tabora, S.J., an expert on Marxism, strongly urges the involvememnt of the grassroots sector. There is a need

for these to be organized– along Christian Lines– interactng with the intellectuals

and the bourgeoisie but nit being manipulated by the latter.

Thank You!!!!!Thank You!!!!!

Reported by:JANET J. LAGSACMAED-EM