To "recover" a social idea, embedded
in the Social Doctrine of the Church,
we like to propose the "manifesto"
of good work and good business,
launched by the Argentine pontiff
by Mario Bozzi Paths
May 1st, Labor Day, this year cannot fail to be marked by the
recent death of Pope Francis, a “Peronist” Pontiff, he said, and therefore
populist and sensitive to labor issues. It is to “recover” a social idea,
rooted in the Social Doctrine of the Church, very different from the genericism
of certain journalistic “reconstructions” read in recent days, that we like to
re-propose the “manifesto” of good work and good business, launched by Pope
Francis, during his pastoral visit to Genoa, on May 27, 2017, on the occasion
of the meeting with the workers of Ilva. It is a manifesto that we feel we
should share for its ethical-social value and that we propose, in its
essentiality, for its “programmatic” strength.
Pope Francis:
*The dignity of work
It is important to recognize the virtues of workers. Their
need is the need to do the job well because the job must be done well.
Sometimes it is thought that a worker works well only because he is paid: this
is a serious disregard for workers and work because it denies the dignity of
work that begins precisely in working well for dignity, for honor.
The good entrepreneur
The true entrepreneur knows his workers because he works
alongside them, he works with them. Let's not forget that the entrepreneur must
first of all be a worker! If he does not have this experience of the dignity of
work he will not be a good entrepreneur. He shares the workers' efforts and
shares the joys of work, of solving problems together, of creating something
together.
He who sells his people sells his own dignity
No good entrepreneur likes to fire his people! Who thinks he can solve the problem of his company by firing people is not a good entrepreneur, he is a merchant. Today he sells his people, tomorrow he sells his own dignity. An illness of the economy is the progressive transformation of entrepreneurs into speculators. The entrepreneur should not be confused with the speculator, they are two different types. The speculator is a figure similar to the one that Jesus in the Gospel calls a mercenary, to contrast him with the good shepherd. He sees the company and workers only as means to make profit, he uses the company and workers to make profit, he does not love them. Firing, closing, moving the company do not create any problem for him, because the speculator uses, exploits, eats people and means for his profit.
Against the faceless economy
When the economy is inhabited by good entrepreneurs,
companies are friends of the people. When it passes into the hands of
speculators, everything is ruined. It is a faceless, abstract economy. Behind
the decisions of the speculator there are no people, and therefore you do not
see the people to be fired and cut.
When the economy loses contact with the faces of real people
it becomes faceless and therefore ruthless. We must fear speculators, not
entrepreneurs.
Work is a friend of man and man is a friend of work.
Lack of work is much more than the loss of a source of income
to live. Work is also this, but it is much more, by working we become more
people, our humanity flourishes, the Social Doctrine of the Church has always
seen work as participation in the creation that continues thanks to the hands,
mind and heart of workers. On earth there are few greater joys than those
experienced by working. Just as there are few greater pains than when work
crushes, humiliates, kills. Work is a friend of man and man is a friend of
work. Through work men and women are anointed with dignity.
Building the social pact
The entire social pact is built around work, when people
don't work, work poorly or work little, democracy enters into crisis, the
entire social pact enters into crisis. This is also the meaning of the first
article of the Italian Constitution: Italy is a Republic founded on work. We
can say that taking away people's jobs or exploiting people with unworthy or
poorly paid work is unconstitutional, according to this article! If it were not
founded on work, the Italian Republic would not be a democracy because the
place of work has always been occupied by privileges, castes, and incomes.
The social goal to be achieved is not income for all, but
work for all
We must look at technological transformations and not resign
ourselves to the ideology that imagines a world where perhaps half or two
thirds of workers will work, and the others will be supported by a social
security check. It must be clear that the social objective to be achieved is
not income for all, but work for all. Because without work for all there will
be no dignity for all. The work of today and tomorrow will be different,
perhaps very different, think of the industrial revolution. There will be a
revolution, but it will have to be work, not pensions! Not pensioners, work!
You retire at the right age, it is an act of justice but against the dignity of
people to send them into retirement at 35-40 years old, with a state check.
The excesses of competition
The values of work are changing very quickly and many of
these values of big business and big finance are not in line with the human
dimension and therefore with Christian humanism. The emphasis on competition,
in addition to being an anthropological error, is also an economic error
because it forgets that business is mutual cooperation. When you create a
system that puts workers in competition with each other, maybe it can obtain
some advantage in the short term but it ends up undermining that fabric that is
the soul of every organization and so when a crisis arrives the company frays
and implodes, because there is no longer any rope that holds it up. This
competitive culture is a mistake, it is a vision that must be changed if we
want the good of business, workers and the economy.
The excesses of meritocracy
Another value that is actually a disvalue is meritocracy,
which is so much praised today and is very fascinating. Beyond the good faith
of the many who invoke it, meritocracy is becoming an ethical legitimation of
inequality. The new capitalism, through meritocracy, gives a moral guise to
inequality, because it interprets people's talents not as a gift but as a
merit, determining a system of cumulative advantages and disadvantages. Thus,
if two children are born with different talents or social and economic
opportunities, the economic world will interpret the different talents as
merit, and will reward them differently. And so, when those two children
retire, the inequality between them will have multiplied. A second consequence
of the so-called "meritocracy" is the change in the culture of
poverty. The poor are considered undeserving, and therefore guilty. And if
poverty is the poor's fault, the rich are exempted from doing anything. This is
the old logic of Job's friends who wanted to convince him that he was to blame
for his misfortune, but this is not the logic of the Gospel and of life.
Meritocracy in the Gospel is found in the figure of the elder brother of the
prodigal son who despises his younger brother and thinks he must remain a
failure. The father instead thinks that no son deserves the acorns of the pigs.
The dignity of work
Those who lose their job and can't find another one feel they
are losing their dignity. Like those who are forced to accept bad and wrong
jobs. There are still bad and wrong jobs in illegal arms trafficking,
pornography, gambling and in all those companies that do not respect workers
and the environment, like those who are paid a lot because work takes up their
whole life, without hours. Without work you can survive, but to live you need
work and the choice is between surviving and living. A monthly state check that
allows you to support your family does not solve the problem. The problem must
be solved with work for everyone.
Work and the Party
A paradox of our society is the presence of a quota of people
who would like to work and cannot, or others who would like to work less, but
cannot because they have been bought by companies. Work becomes a brother when
next to it there is a party, free time. Without this, it becomes slave labor,
even if overpaid. In families where there are unemployed people it is never
truly Sunday, because there is no work on Monday. To celebrate holidays it is
necessary to be able to celebrate work, they go together, one marks the time of
the other. Consumption is an idol of our time, consumption is the center of our
society and therefore pleasure. Today there are new temples open 24 hours,
which promise salvation, points of pure consumption and pure pleasure. Work is
toil, and sweat, when a hedonistic society sees and wants only consumption, it
does not understand the value of toil and sweat, it does not understand work.
All idolatries are experiences of pure consumption. Without rediscovering a
culture that values toil and sweat, we will not find a new relationship with
work and we will continue to dream of the consumption of pure pleasure."
Work and consumption
Work is the center of every social pact, not a means to be
able to consume. Between work and consumption there are many things, all
important and beautiful: freedom, honor, dignity, rights for all. If we sell
work to consumption, we will soon sell these sister words too.
Spirituality of work
Many of the most beautiful prayers of our parents and
grandparents were prayers of work recited before, after and during work. Work
is present every day in the Eucharist whose gifts are the fruit of the earth
and the work of man. The fields, the sea, the factories, have always been
altars from which beautiful and pure prayers have risen that God has welcomed
and collected, recited but also said with the hands, the sweat, the fatigue of
the work of those who did not know how to pray with their mouths. God has
welcomed all these and continues to welcome them even today. For this reason I
would like to end with a prayer: the come Holy Spirit: "Send us a ray of
light, come father of the poor, of workers and of workers".
