Prof. Franz Josef Stegmann Bethlehem Social ... - Ordo Socialis

Stegmann
Economic Administration, the predecessor of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and made
this demand at its first meeting in 1948.)
The main reasons for Von Nell-Breuning's assertion were - and are - as follows: material
resources, when compared with the material needs of mankind, are in short supply. The
commandment of solidarity therefore demands that sufficient material goods necessary for life
are made available to as many people as possible. Competition and market - more than all the
other economic system known to date - are able to utilise the scarce and limited economic
potential in the best possible way and thus, on the whole, to stimulate more productive activity.
"No other system has so far shown itself superior", the previously mentioned statement of
the English Bishops states. "Centrally commanded economies, in contrast, have been seen to
be inefficient, wasteful, and unresponsive to human needs." 89 Economic inefficiency and
squandering of resources in the socialism which existed in Russia, Eastern Europe, East Germany
and elsewhere, and which has broken down in our time, are obvious and concrete proof.
The more the volume of goods that are necessary for life can be increased, and at the same
time, the more the consumption of resources to produce these goods can be decreased (for
example, the consumption of scarce energy and the demands made an the natural environment
to produce these goods), the less the living conditions of future generations will be burdened.
Uneconomic utilisation of limited economic resources and the squandering of the economic
potential violates human solidarity, or – in Christian words - breaks the commandment to love
one's neighbour. The moral quality and value of a competitive economy therefore lies
primarily in its ability to use scarce and limited economic resources to the optimum. This is
also Christian Social Teaching's answer to the question: market economy or centrally planned
and controlled economy?
3.4 Main problems of a centrally planned and controlled economy
1 mentioned above the socialism that existed in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. hut
deliberately avoided the expression "socialist economy" since I would first have to explain
what that is. This would not be easy because people understand it differently. The term
"centrally planned and controlled economy" was first used by Friedrich Engels, a friend of
Karl Marx. Walter Eucken, a high-profile economist and one of the founders of Social Market
Economy, introduced the term into the literature of economics.
The expression "centrally planned and controlled economy" describes an economic system in
which a central state authority plans and controls the whole national economic process as well
as the activities of the individual economic participants. This is its crucial characteristic. The
central authority draws up the economic plan, directs the economic process and determines
economic activities: production and consumption, prices and wages, investments and income,
etc. The single economic units are executors of the plan: their managers are officials of the
state. Its central authority plans and controls both the micro-economic and macroeconomic
processes. The economies of the former Eastern bloc states or the German economy during
the war are illustrative examples of such a centrally planned and controlled economy.
However, these economies and economies like these are by their nature unable to meet the
needs of the people.
This insight is of some topical importance. Recently, the Southern African Catholic Bishops'
Conference published "Economic Justice in South Africa. A Pastoral Statement". In part 3,
Discerning Economic Justice, it states that poverty, unemployment, the gap between rich and
89 The Common Good (1996). No. 78 (see note 7).
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