ECONOMIA. — The proper and prudent administration of goods. Etymologically (from the Greek οἰκονομία; οἶκος = house; νέμειν = to administer), e. would signify the administration of the household, that is, of the goods, patrimony, and family resources. But the meaning was broadened and came to include, in addition to the notion of domestic society, that of the city and the State. Indeed, until not long ago, e. was considered solely in relation to the State and public wealth (political e.); now, however, it is also considered in relation to society and the social classes (social e.), to the various fields in which it is practiced (rural, industrial e., etc.), and finally in relation to the family (domestic e.).
E., therefore, embraces the complex of goods useful and suited to satisfying our needs, with the aim of preserving and improving our existence; and it is realized through the voluntary exercise of physical and intellectual powers for their acquisition. Now, these goods (called by the general term: wealth) are not only produced; once produced, they circulate and are distributed throughout the social body and are applied to satisfy our needs (consumption); hence four primary economic phenomena: production, circulation, distribution, consumption.
E. will therefore be the systematic body of secure knowledge concerning order, activity, and economic phenomena; and it may be regarded as both a science (the exposition, verification, and systematization of the general laws governing the production and consumption of goods) and an art (the application of these laws to individual, family, social, and national life).
Insofar as it is a human activity, e. cannot claim to be autonomous, but must necessarily submit to the moral laws regulating the life and relations of human beings, on pain of producing sad and deplorable consequences.
E. AND MORALITY. — Economic science was born amoral with Adam Smith (An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776). Subsequently—thanks to other illustrious masters—still on the plane of absolute freedom, it underwent highly flourishing developments. Then, descending from the spheres of speculation into the practical field, here too, strengthened by perfected technology and without ethical restraints, it held sway freely, until degenerating into tyranny. Public e., especially in Great Britain, and, to some extent everywhere, also private e., above all in the industrial sector, immensely fostered the development of capital; but at the expense of human labor. The latter, not considered at all as a factor of production alongside the magnified capital, was reduced by it to wretched slavery. In the production phase it was exploited for as many as 14 and up to 16 hours a day; in the distribution phase of the wealth produced it was silenced with the minimum compensation of a starvation wage.
These excesses, somewhat generalized and also justified by liberal doctrine, exasperated the proletarians, who, relying only on the strength of their numbers, united to spring into revolt. The struggle was opened by the celebrated manifesto of C. Marx in 1848; it was skillfully continued under the leadership of socialism; today it is more insidious and bitter than ever. Despite the many claims that have been secured, human labor is still fighting to the bitter end, and no longer solely against capital. Many other obscure elements have infiltrated the struggle. The numerical strength of the workers is supported by the formidable political machinery of Russian communism, to which, however, they must pay the tribute of another form of slavery.
While Catholics have always and in every way endeavored to restore capital and labor to their natural position of collaboration, in the scientific sphere they have generally recognized the character of a distinct science in e., while at the same time affirming its subordination to morality.
Only a few authors in the second half of the last century, for example Fr. M. Liberatore, carried this subordination to extremes, reducing e. to a mere chapter of ethics. This was perhaps the spontaneous reaction to capitalist tyranny, the offspring of rampant liberalism, which was combated in every field with the intransigence of the first fervors of the reviving scholasticism. Today, the constant Catholic thesis is expressed in clear terms and sanctioned by the supreme authority in Quadragesimo anno: «Although e. and moral discipline, each within its own sphere, rest upon their own principles, it would be an error to affirm that the economic order and the moral order are so disparate and foreign to one another that the former in no way depends upon the latter».
On the opposite side, absolute economic freedom is no longer defended, but neither is it entirely renounced. A position is generally accepted which, in the golden age of liberalism, had the character of a compromise. A distinction is made, that is, between speculative and practical e., and it is admitted that the latter must be subject to ethical precepts, but the former need not. Thus the proof of the great disorders which it itself had provoked has forced economic liberalism to retreat on the practical field and defend itself at least on the lofty heights of speculation. But even here its resistance is impossible. This will become clear from what will be said in justification of the Catholic thesis.
Just as e. provides for material needs, so ethics provides for the spiritual needs of man, insofar as he is a conscious and free person and therefore responsible for his acts. The evident distinction and difference between their aims justifies the distinction and difference between the two disciplines and their respective principles and procedures. But this difference cannot break their contact at one common point.
The needs which they respectively meet, although differing in content, are nevertheless equally human needs. This is evident. And this human character is essential not only to ethics but also to economic science. It is so true that the latter is an exclusively human science; nor is there an economic science for beasts or for natural energies. These have their place in e.; but, without taking part in its final phase, they exhaust their task in its instrumental phase. It is quite different with man. The physical and psychic forces of man too, according to the laws proper to their performance, are employed in the production of wealth; and, up to this point, man is on the same instrumental plane as physical and animal forces. But e. does not consist entirely in production, which represents only one of its phases, and not even the most important. The other phase, the circulation and distribution of wealth with a view to its consumption, is also essential to II. This second phase constitutes the end of e., while the first is only the means. And it is known that means must be proportionate to the end. In e., therefore, the distributive phase is not only essential but also principal, because it is the final phase, from which the instrumental phase of production derives its reason for being, its nature, and its limits.
Now it is precisely in this final phase of distribution that e. asserts itself as an exclusively human science, because only man takes part in it; machines and beasts do not. Certainly machines are also repaired and beasts fed; but in what capacity? Not by way of remuneration and distribution of the wealth realized in the preceding productive cycle, but solely in order to preserve them, as efficient means, for a subsequent cycle of production. It is not so with man. He takes part in the distribution of the wealth for which the preceding productive cycle was initiated, and which now, in this distribution, reaches its purpose, namely: to provide man with the means necessary for his development, according to the demands of his nature. Man too repairs the machine of his body, more or less worn out in a productive cycle; but he does not do this merely to preserve himself as a valid instrument for further production. For him, preserving his physical forces is, in the scale of his human needs, the least noble but the most necessary task. Thus, with the goods produced and made his own through distribution, he immediately restores his physical forces; then he proceeds to satisfy his higher needs, until he attains, insofar as possible, the complete perfection of his conscious and free nature.
Who does not see from this that e. is essentially and exclusively the science of man, insofar as he distinguishes himself from and rises above other beings?
Three evident conclusions follow:
1) Since man is a unitary being, notwithstanding the duality of his integral parts, body and spirit, it is clear that the requirements of the body must be satisfied without conflict, indeed in positive harmony with the requirements of the spirit. Consequently, economic science, which provides for material needs, is inferior and subordinate to morality, which instead provides for the higher needs of the spirit. Therefore, in a negative sense, it must accept its limits; in a positive sense, it must adopt its directives.
2) The distinction between speculative and practical e. cannot be admitted. The former would be the totality of cause-and-effect relationships relating to the production, circulation, distribution, and consumption of wealth; these relationships, however, would be considered in their absolute value, independently of any relation to man. The same relationships, viewed as operative in human life, would instead constitute practical e., the only kind subject to morality.
Ma - è stato constatato sopra - tutta l'e. è scienza umana, cioè la relazione con l'uomo e quindi dipendente dalla morale. Sì, ci sono nell'e. delle parti, le quali, staccate dalle altre e considerate isolatamente, possono prescindere da ogni relazione con l'uomo: p. es., i rapporti di produzione e circolazione come tali. Ma così considerati sono solo rapporti matematici o meccanici o tecnici, sfruttabili dell'e. senza essere ancora rapporti formalmente economici. La scienza economica non è nella somma delle sue parti, ma nell'armonia di tutte quelle; e tale armonia le deriva dalla sua finalità ultima, che è certamente nel provvedere all'uomo i mezzi materiali per il suo sviluppo completo, materiale e spirituale.
Quindi ogni parte dell'e., come ogni somma delle sue parti, o la si considera avvisa da questa finalità ed allora non è l'e., ma solo elemento pre-economico; o la si considera in funzione di questa finalità, ed allora essa diviene nello stesso tempo scienza economica, umana, e in quanto tale, subordinata alla morale.
3) La morale, cui l'e. deve subordinarsi, non può essere una morale qualsiasi, ma deve essere la vera morale. Ora l'unica vera morale - dopo la redenzione di Gesù
Cristo - è quella che si eleva alla altezza della teologia ed in essa si trasfigura. Ogni l'e. deve procurare i mezzi materiali, con i quali l'uomo possa soddisfare ai bisogni del corpo e dello spirito, naturali ed anche soprannatural
i. E poiché i valori soprannaturali da Gesù Cristo furono affidati alla custodia infallibile della Chiesa Cattolica romana l'e
per essere davvero tale - la deve interpellare ed ascoltare. Per la storia e lo sviluppo dell'e., V. SISTEMI ECONOMICI.BIBLIOTHE: Encicli, Rerum novarum (15 maggio 1891); Quadrupsiamo anno (15 maggio 1931); Novae impundet (4 ott. 1931); Caritate Christi compulsi (3 maggio 1932); C. Anticino, Corso di e. sociale, trad. it., Siena 1901; S. Deploie, Le conflict de la morale et de la sociologie, Partin 1923; H. Weber-P.Tischleder, Handbuch der Sozialistik, I, Wirtschaftsistik, Essen 1931; M. Marvili Libelli, La moralità nelle azioni economiche, in La moralità e le professioni, Firenze 1934, pp. 113-42; G. Bicchierati, Il mondo degli affari e la morale, Brescia 1933; F. Vito, La concezione biologica dell'e., Milano 1935; I. Aspiato, Moral professional economics, Madrid 1940; G. Dougherty, The moral basis of social order, Washington 1941; A. Fanfani, Per l'orientamento cristiano della vita economica, in Riv. internazionale di scienze sociali, 51 (1943), pp. 27-31; F. Vito, Di alcuni concetti basilari della teoria economica, ibid., 51 (1943), pp. 238-48; G. Stammat, A proposito dei rapporti tra etica, politica ed e., ibid., 51 (1943), pp. 288-92; G. Gonella, Principi di un ordine sociale, Città del Vaticano 1944, pp. 147-58; I. Aspiato, La moral del hombre de negocios, Madrid 1944; A. De Marco, L'aspetto morale dei piani economici, in Civ. Catt., 1945, II, pp. 11-21; G. Toniolo, L'odierno problema sociologico, Città del Vaticano 1947, passim; I. Detmino, Jugement moral sur le capitalisme, in Revue diocèse de Tournai, 2 (1947), pp. 229-34; R. Goor, Economie et humanisme, ibid., pp. 437-45.