Businesses have a right to make a profit. And workers have a right to share in the benefits of the profits their work helped create.
But businesses also have an obligation to reinvest those profits productively for the benefit of the workers and the society that made it possible.
And workers have an obligation to work.
Now it’s time for something we Catholics are familiar with: a confession.
Mr. Pecci wasn’t some secular economist. His views were deeply rooted in his Christian faith.
That is because Mr. Pecci is better known as Pope Leo XIII.
Forgive me, outrage police, for I have sinned. I have once again mixed politics with religion!
In 1891, in the midst of an Industrial Revolution that was transformative and disruptive and the rise of socialism, Pope Leo wrote an encyclical titled Rerum Novarum.
I wanted to revisit what he wrote because we are once again in the midst of transformative and disruptive economic change. And we once again face rising calls for socialism.
The economy he described as the right response was one in which workers and businesses are not competitors for their share of limited resources, but instead partners in an effort that benefits both and strengthens the entire nation.
This describes not just the kind of economy most of us want here in America; it describes the economy during our nation’s most prosperous and secure moments.
Yet for some reason, we have drifted far from this kind of society.
We are quite familiar and enthusiastic about our rights, but not nearly as familiar or excited about our obligations.
On the political right, we have become defenders of the right of businesses to make a profit, the right of shareholders to receive a return on their investment, and the obligation people have to work.
