Work Ownership Implications of Recent Papal Social Thought

Abstract

This paper examines a particular employment inference of recent Papal social thought, for a Western developed economy context. The Papal documents studied are Centesimus Annus (1991), Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987), and Laborem Exercens (1981). The first and shortest section of the paper outlines a number of principles from the encyclicals aiming to guide employment organisation and policy relevant to Western and all economies. To permit their full consideration, an illustration is given how implications affecting forms of employment organization might be drawn from just one of the principles--the right to private property ownership. Private property ownership rights are argued to be constrained in specific ways, to relate instrinsically to employment organization, and to underpin other principles emphasized in the encyclicals, such as the priority of labor over capital. A selection of recent non-official-Church Catholic Social Thought is compared with the approach here. Since the encyclicals deal with issues only at the level of principle, the paper notes cases where attempts have been made to apply some of the employment organizational implications in practice.