Centessimus Annus <\/em> . As one might expect, John Paul puts business into the context of a personalist theology and anthropology. According to the Pope, this determines the meaning and place of economic freedom: \u201cEconomic freedom is only one element of human freedom. When it becomes autonomous, when man is seen more as a producer or consumer of goods than as a subject who produces and consumes in order to live, then economic freedom loses its necessary relationship to the human person and ends up by alienating and oppressing him\u201d (116). <\/p>\n It also affects his assessment of capitalism. The Pope \u201crejects the Marxist term \u2018capitalism,\u2019 which was focused on structures, \u2018labour\u2019 and \u2018capital.\u2019\u201d Instead, he places emphasis on the person: \u201cIf capitalism means \u2018an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property . . . as well as free human creativity in the economic sector\u2019\u201d then it should be defended and adopted as an economic system.\u201d But if \u201ccapitalism\u201d does not put economic freedom \u201cat the service of human freedom in its totality,\u201d then it is a distorting system. In general, John Paul prefers the terms \u201cmarket economy,\u201d \u201cfree economy\u201d or \u201cbusiness economy,\u201d and most fundamentally he wants to shift away from any \u201cmechanistic vision of man . . . o a vision of individual persons and groups meeting their own needs through creative private initiative\u201d (116). <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Michael Miller\u2019s essay in Christian Theology and Market Economics focuses on \u201cBusiness as a moral enterprise.\u201d In part, he offers a summary of John Paul II\u2019s teaching on economics and business, especially as expressed in the encyclical Centessimus Annus . As one might expect, John Paul puts business into the context of a personalist theology […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics"],"yoast_head":"\n
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focuses on \u201cBusiness as a moral enterprise.\u201d In part, he offers a summary of John Paul II\u2019s teaching on economics and business, especially as expressed in the encyclical Centessimus Annus <\/em> . As one might expect, John Paul puts business into the context of a personalist theology and anthropology. According to the Pope, this determines the meaning and place of economic freedom: \u201cEconomic freedom is only one element of human freedom. When it becomes autonomous, when man is seen more as a producer or consumer of goods than as a subject who produces and consumes in order to live, then economic freedom loses its necessary relationship to the human person and ends up by alienating and oppressing him\u201d (116). <\/p>\n