“The social doctrine of the Church recognises the proper role of profit as the first indicator that a business is functioning well:  ‘when a firm makes a profit, this means that productive factors have been properly employed. But this does not cloud her awareness of the fact that a business may show a profit while not properly serving society.’

For example, ‘it is possible for the financial accounts to be in order, and yet for people – who make up the firm’s most valuable asset – to be humiliated and their dignity offended.’ This is what happens when businesses are part of social and cultural systems marked by the exploitation of people, tending to avoid the obligations of social justice to violate the rights of workers.”

Studies have indicated that the human resources in companies are essential and very important to business success. In fact the social doctrine of the Church states that labour is more important than capital, because without labour, capital is worth nothing.

If human beings do not work with, develop or apply their skills and abilities to capital, it is useless. All this says is that without labour profit cannot be made. For profit to be made people must create relationships that allow them to work with others, in a creative, innovative and industrious manner to generate ideas that lead to the production of useful goods and services.  

It therefore becomes “essential that within a business the legitimate pursuit of profit should be in harmony with the irrenounceable protection of the dignity of the people who work at different levels in the same company.”

“These two goals are not in the least contrary to one another, since, on the one hand, it would not be realistic to try to guarantee the firm’s future without the production of useful goods and services and without making a profit, which is the fruit of the economic activity undertaken. 

On the other hand, allowing workers to develop themselves fosters increased productivity and efficiency in the very work undertaken. A business enterprise must be a community of solidarity that is not closed within its own company interests.

 It must move in the direction of a ‘social ecology’ of work and contribute to the common good also by protecting the natural environment.”

The Church also speaks out strongly against the use of excessively high interest/lending rates (usury) as a way of making profit. “Although the quest for equitable profit is acceptable in economic and financial activity, recourse to usury is morally condemned: ‘Those whose usurious and avaricious dealings lead to hunger and death of their brethren in the human family indirectly commit homicide, which is imputable to them.’

 Many of us are familiar with debt, and the headaches that it can cause, especially when we think of the amount we have to pay back in relation to what we have borrowed.

This in excess is to be condemned; at times many persons actually, as we say in local parlance, “hang their hats where their hands can’t reach”. This leads to undue stress and at times hunger. In these instances the person may have been better off, had they not entered into debt. 

“This condemnation extends also to international economic relations, especially with regard to the situation in less advanced countries which must never be made to suffer ‘abusive if not usurious financial systems’. 

More recently, the Magisterium used strong and clear words against this practice, which is still tragically widespread, describing usury as “a scourge that is also a reality in our time and that has a stranglehold on many peoples’ lives.”

The fact that there are large disparities between countries’ development and financial situations as often highlighted in the United Nations’ Human Development Reports and World Bank’s World Development Reports indicates to us that much needs to be done in terms of the economic relations between countries.

The terms and conditions regarding trade issues and lending rates from development institutions are some of the things that need to come to the forefront if we are to have a just world where every world citizen regardless of the part of the globe is able participate in the world economy and improve his human condition and is able to make a profit.

In the next article we look the whole issue of businesses making profit from a global perspective. 

Interested in purchasing the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church? Please contact the Catholic Commission for Social Justice, Archbishop’s House – 622-6680.