Katolicka nauka społeczna o liberalizmie

Abstract

Catholic social science has steadily evolved in its assessment of liberalism: from a very negative approach to capitalism at its beginnings to a reflection on the annulment of capital and work dialectic, which made a contribution to a new reflection on contemporary capitalism. Three issues on which the development of Church instruction has depended are pointed out: 1. Throughout the centuries catholic thought, accustomed to astatic world was fascinated – and with reason, too – with the ethics of distribution rather than the ethics of production. 2. The attitude of catholic science to money was long based on outdated bases – there was no understanding of productive power of a wisely invested capital. 3. The Church was rightly proud of the feeling of unity it had successfully implanted even in the feudal system. The tendencies to idealise long gone communities were strong and understanding of the new situation in which the Church was put due to a democratic, capitalist revolution was lacking. John Paul II’s encyclical “Centesimus annus” for the first time in the history of the Church social teaching stresses essential merits of the free market economy. A positive character of free market is that it is the most efficient tool in exploiting resources and fulfilling needs. Market mechanisms facilitate the exchange of products, but they also focus on the will and preferences of a human being thus enabling him/her to encounter the will and preferences of another human being at the moment of concluding a contract. At the same time it becomes clear that Christian thought was a real inspiration for many democratic and free market economy institutions. The discovery of the values inherent in Catholicism by liberalism and the continuing evolution of catholic social science in the times of a complete defeat of the Marxist thought arouse hopes for further fruits of these explorations.