Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

development worthy of man, for the individual and the social structures. The encyclical Quadragesimo
anno remarks in this regard: „These goods ought indeed to be enough to meet the
demands of necessity and decent comfort and to advance people to that happier and fuller
condition of life which, when it is wisely cared for, is not only no hindrance of virtue but
helps it greatly“(Quadragesimo anno, 75). Human reason is able „clearly“ to show, the encyclical
adds, „on the basis of the individual and social nature of things and of men, the purpose
which God ordained for all economic life“(Quadragesimo anno, 42). Christian social teaching
stands here in sharp contradiction to many modern scientists who - as Max Weber, for example
-declare that we cannot „ask reason for advice“ in the question of „good and bad,“ since it
stands „before a mystery in this respect,“ and „an insoluble one for it“ at that. 4
2. The economy is neither the only nor the highest end; rather, it must take its proper place in
the „universal order of purposes“(Quadragesimo anno, 43). The dignity and freedom of man,
marriage and family, religion and morality, cultural values and „the final end of all things,
that is God, stand higher (Quadragesimo anno, 43). The attempt to upset this harmony and to
make higher values objects of economic process would be technocracy and a degradation of
man (Cf. Gaudium et spes, 64). The goal is not a ceaselessly growing provision of goods, but
service to total human values, especially the social ones. In recent decades, succeeding new
goods have been offered to people which they had not asked for because they could not know
that their manufacture was possible. A new development is gradually coming about: man and
society are making demands on the economy, as, for example, with respect to environmental
protection (the construction of ecologically beneficial motor cars and machines and the like).
„It pains us“, writes John XXIII, to observe „so many people“ by whom who „ spiritual values
are ignored, forgotten or denied“ and who instead overestimate the fruits of material prosperity
in such a way „as though material well-being were the be-all and end-all of life.“ Even
if a blossoming science, technology, and economy imply great progress for culture and civilization,
it must still be borne in mind that „they are essentially instrumental in character. They
are not supreme values in themselves“(Mater et Magistra, l75-l76).
CHAPTER TWO: THE ORDER OF THE ECONOMY
The realization that the economy possesses an immanent factual end leads to the question of
what order is to be given to the economy so that it can reach this end. It is advisable first to
describe briefly the models of the economic order proposed by Liberalism and Marxism, and
then to put forward the thoughts of Christian social teaching on the economic order.
§ 1 The Economic Order According to the Ideas of Liberalism
l. The economic Liberalism (Paleoliberalism)
The economic Liberalism founded by Adam Smith (l723-l790) summarized its profound ideas
about the order of the economy in five theses:
a) There is a ‘natural’ order of the economy.
Under the influence of the deistic philosophy of the Enlightenment, Paleoliberalism believed
in ‘natural’ man, ‘natural’ forces, and a ‘natural’ order of society and the economy. Just as the
cosmos is permeated by order and harmony, so also the economy possesses a natural, pregiven
order, a ‘pre-established harmony’, in which everything runs correctly if one allows the
natural forces to develop. Man may not intervene in this system through economic planning;
otherwise, everything would fall into disorder. Concern for the general happiness of all ra-
4 Max Weber, Jugendbriefe (n.d.), 260ff. Cited in H. Schoeck, Soziologie (Freiburg, Munich, 1952), 262.
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