Looking forward to session 5 November

The coming session this Wednesday will be focusing on: Dignity of work and property. The special claim of the poor. Social exclusion.

I think one of the keys to the Catholic understanding of work and property is a distinction between the subjective and the objective side of work:


 Human work has a twofold significance: objective and subjective. In the objective sense, it is the sum of activities, resources, instruments and technologies used by men and women to produce things, to exercise dominion over the earth, in the words of the Book of Genesis. In the subjective sense, work is the activity of the human person as a dynamic being capable of performing a variety of actions that are part of the work process and that correspond to his personal vocation: “Man has to subdue the earth and dominate it, because as the ‘image of God' he is a person, that is to say, a subjective being capable of acting in a planned and rational way, capable of deciding about himself, and with a tendency to self-realization. As a person, man is therefore the subject of work”.

Work in the objective sense constitutes the contingent aspect of human activity, which constantly varies in its expressions according to the changing technological, cultural, social and political conditions. Work in the subjective sense, however, represents its stable dimension, since it does not depend on what people produce or on the type of activity they undertake, but only and exclusively on their dignity as human beings. This distinction is critical, both for understanding what the ultimate foundation of the value and dignity of work is, and with regard to the difficulties of organizing economic and social systems that respect human rights. [Compendium, 270] [Link here]

In essence, work is important because it produces external goods but also because it reflects human creativity. The lack of suitable work or property excludes people from society in both of these ways: it cuts them off from the goods of wealth, but also from the internal goods which flow from the exercise of one's full human potential.

Looking forward to the discussion on Wednesday!