The Work of Capital. How well-being arises.

Abstract

The distrust of the Catholic Church in the face of free enterprise has been going on for a long time. The time has come to leave behind the idea that there is an antagonism between capital and labor. In his work Christliche Gesellschaftslehre1 the Cologne Cardinal Joseph Höffner, who died in 1987, complained that social debates in Germany were characterized by a misunderstanding of the role of the entrepreneur. He attributed it, among other things, to the influence of the Marxist idea of ​​an antagonistic dualism of capital and labor. Catholic social doctrine has also dealt relatively infrequently with what is specifically business, to which is added that, in the words of Höffner, "when business was approached, it used to be done with undisguised distrust." The cardinal added that, however, there had been a change expressly recognized by Vatican II.