LibGuides: "Catholic Social Thought": THE "NEW THINGS" IN THE ECONOMIC SECTOR

GLOBALIZATION: OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS

“Our modern era is marked by the complex phenomenon of economic and financial globalization.”

“Globalization gives rise to new hopes while at the same time it poses troubling questions. Globalization is able to produce potentially beneficial effects for the whole of humanity.”

“In analyzing the present context, besides identifying the opportunities now opening up in the era of the global economy, one also comes to see the risks connected with the new dimensions of commercial and financial relations.”

“Looking after the common good means making use of the new opportunities for the redistribution of wealth among the different areas of the planet, to the benefit of the under-privileged that until now have been excluded or cast to the sidelines of social and economic progress.”

“Trade represents a fundamental component of international economic relations, making a decisive contribution to the specialization in certain types of production and to the economic growth of different countries.”

“An adequate solidarity in the era of globalization requires that human rights be defended.”

“As globalization spreads it must be accompanied by an ever more mature awareness on the part of different organizations of civil society of the new tasks to which they are called on a worldwide level.”

“Special attention must be given to specific local features and the cultural differences that are threatened by the economic and financial process currently underway.”

“Financial markets are certainly not an innovation of our day: for a long time now, in different forms, they have been seeking to meet the financial needs of the productivity sector. The experience of history teaches that without adequate financial systems, economic growth would not have taken place.”

“A financial economy that is an end unto itself is destined to contradict its goals, since it is no longer in touch with its roots and has lost sight of its constitutive purpose. In other words, it has abandoned its original and essential role of serving the real economy and, ultimately, of contributing to the development of people and the human community.”

“The loss of centrality on the part of States must coincide with a greater commitment on the part of the international community to exercise a strong guiding role.”

“The more the worldwide economic-financial system reaches high levels of organizational and functional complexity, all the more priority must be given to the task of regulating these processes, directing them towards the goal of attaining the common good of the human family. There is the clear need not just for States but for the international community to take on this delicate chore with adequate and effective political and juridical instruments.”

“The sphere of politics too, just like that of the economy, must be in a position to extend its range of action beyond national boundaries, quickly taking on an operative worldwide dimension which alone will permit it to direct the processes now underway not only according to economic parameters but also according to moral criteria.”

“For the Church’s social doctrine, the economy ‘is only one aspect and one dimension of the whole of human activity.’”

“Faced with the rapid advancement of technological and economic progress, and with the equally rapid transformation of the processes of production and consumption, the Magisterium senses the need to propose a great deal of educational and cultural formation.”