Wealth

RICCHEZZA. – Useful, limited, and material things are called r. The usefulness and limitation of a thing are understood in a subjective sense, with respect to the needs of the individual. Unlimited things, however useful, are not r.

I. ECONOMIC-SOCIAL ASPECT

In substance, these can be traced back to three principal phases. In the Greco-Roman age, the rudimentary state of productive technology confers the character of r. only upon the possession of immovable property (houses and land) and that particular form of human capital constituted by slaves. The attribution of the character of r. to land, as an economic good capable of spontaneously producing other goods, continues throughout the entire medieval period. In the centuries nearer to the modern age, however, the spread of manufacturing crafts, together with increasingly advanced techniques for processing natural products themselves, brings about an initial change in the notion of r.: it is extended to include capital goods, that is, instruments capable of producing or transforming other goods, as well as the materials required by human beings. In the modern age, finally, the gradual and complete industrialization and mechanization of the productive process, together with the large profit margins associated with this activity, transfer the notion of r. to a great extent from possession of land to possession of financial capital.

This occurs all the more decisively the more such capital becomes concentrated and endowed with higher profitability in relation to its power of control and supremacy over the market. In this sense, one speaks of the concentration of r. as a characteristic aspect of the capitalist economy. This concentration is an inevitable product of the successive industrial revolutions which, from the eighteenth century to the present, have required an ever greater availability of financial means, their risky immobilization, and the progressive elimination of those holding minimal shares of them, all to the advantage of the stronger monopolists.

The means invoked and put into practice to remedy these negative consequences of the economic structure are various and often conflicting. It is nevertheless general, wherever it is held necessary to contain, neutralize, and eliminate such consequences, to move toward social control over the economic activity that employs and produces r., control

exercised either by the public authorities or by the economic and professional groups of citizens.

At the extreme position of this critical attitude stands Marxist doctrine, with its consequences (v. PROPRIETÀ).

It is nevertheless possible—and has been historically demonstrated—to approach substantially a process of forming, distributing, and employing r. that reduces negative consequences to a minimum. This occurs when individual and national income (that is, the flow of goods and services annually produced by a community and expressed in money, which precisely corresponds to the most current modern notion of r.) is formed and distributed within the framework of a rationalization of economic life. According to Christian social doctrine, the cornerstones of this rationalization are the continuous reform of customs and structures: that is, the task is to find increasingly perfect instruments and techniques for the production, distribution, and use of goods and services (structural reforms and reforms within a given structure), and to lead people to use them in the best manner for the benefit of the human person (reform of consciences).

Here, with regard to reforms within structures and of the structures themselves, all the problems of productivity return (from the standardization of products to human relations; to the various forms of incentive wages, piecework, proportional wages; profit-sharing, etc.), as do the problems of reforming the enterprise, whether by incorporating workers into ownership of the firm (workers’ shareholding, etc.), by transferring ownership to the workers (various forms of cooperation, capital loans, etc.), or by initiating associative forms (e.g., capital-labor associations); moreover, all the problems of reforming the market economy itself, with the transition from economic liberalism to a directed economy (the planned economy in its various meanings); and finally all the problems of distributing the r. produced, whether at the enterprise level (equitable distribution of r. among those who contributed to producing it), at the national level (problems of the distribution of national income, taxation, social security, etc.), or at the international level (the problem of raw materials, the exchange of information, depressed areas, etc.).

With regard, instead, to the reform of consciences, the problem of the demands of natural law and revealed law returns (problems concerning the development of philosophy and moral theology), together with all the means established by Christian tradition and offered by continuous human progress. Thus it will be «easy to see again»—as Pius XII says (Radio Address for the fiftieth anniversary of Rerum novarum)—that the economic r. of a people does not properly consist in the abundance of goods, measured according to a purely and strictly material calculation of their value, but rather in the fact that such abundance truly and effectively represents and provides the sufficient material basis for the proper personal development of its members. If such a just distribution of goods were not implemented, or were achieved only imperfectly, the true purpose of the national economy would not be attained; for however much a fortunate abundance of available goods might assist it, a people not called upon to share in them would not be economically rich, but poor.

II. RELIGIOUS-MORAL ASPECT

1) The idea of retribution in the first books of the Old Testament tends to assume an immediate and earthly character; the affirmation that good will be rewarded and evil punished tends to be translated into these others: good will be rewarded immediately, in this life, indeed even materially; evil will be punished immediately, in this life, indeed even materially. See, for example, ch. 26 of the Lev. and ch. 28 of the Deut.: «If you walk in my precepts and observe my commandments and put them into practice, I shall send you the rains in their seasons, and the earth shall yield its produce...» (Lev. 26, 3-4; cf. also the story of Job and chs. 3 and 4 of

Wisdom). Hence a peculiar concentration of poverty and wealth, as though the former were the counterproof of a situation of inward immorality and the latter, in turn, counterproof of inner moral goodness: the poor person tends to be identified with the wicked person and with one abandoned by God; the rich person tends to be identified with the good person and with one protected by God.

Things change considerably as one approaches the New Testament and, in any case, with the New Testament itself. The idea of correspondence between good and reward, evil and unhappiness is strongly emphasized; not, however, necessarily in the sense of immediate, still less material, correspondence (cf., for example, the parable of Lazzaro and the rich Epublone; the former does good and nevertheless suffers in this life; the latter does evil and nevertheless lacks nothing in this life: Lc. 16, 20 ff.). Thus, little by little, the idea of wealth as a reward for good done and of poverty as a punishment for evil committed is abandoned: both are presented as conditions that may accompany virtue as much as vice, situations that may be used and abused.

2) With regard to the relationship between wealth and morality, it is necessary to define the concept of wealth more precisely and then to examine the historical conduct of the rich person. Wealth could be defined either according to the amount, usually expressed today in money, of the goods one possesses, or according to the benefit accruing to the owner. In the first sense, wealth is identified with a considerable mass of goods; in the second sense, it is identified with an abundance of economic resources. This abundance of economic resources comprises two components: a) the amount of income received in a given period of time (e.g., a month, a year); b) the capacity to endure over time.

The second component is the more important. Even a very substantial income may not constitute wealth if there are sound reasons for believing that it will not last at all or will last only with great difficulty; conversely, even a not excessive income may constitute genuine wealth if there is moral certainty that it will last for a long time. Now, speaking concretely, wealth, in the sense indicated, behaves essentially in the following ways: a) it more easily and more frequently stimulates idleness than work. That this is really so is amply demonstrated by history; the reason why it is so follows obviously from the state of wealth. What incentive to work can the rich person have? However things may turn out, since his income is secure, he will always have more than is necessary. Why wear out one’s life in order to increase one’s assets and income? Nor should the figure of the miser be raised, with his insatiable desire to increase his possessions: first of all, he does not represent the rule but the exception; and moreover, he does this insofar as, whether through illness or through fault, he does not consider himself sufficiently secure, that is, not «rich». His attitude arises from the conviction that he is not rich, not from a behavior of wealth different from the one described. Put another way: wealth strongly stimulates the pursuit and enjoyment of pleasure (cf. Lc. 12, 17-19). And in the pursuit of pleasures, the appeal of earthly enjoyments is inevitably stronger (cf. Mt. 13, 17-22); b) it often constitutes an incentive to vice and an instrument for oppressing the freedom of others. Whoever possesses gold in considerable measure can open almost every door. Wealth therefore makes it possible, always speaking concretely and historically, to do even what morality and the laws do not always permit. On the other hand, for the same reason, wealth also sometimes makes it possible to dominate another’s will, easily bending it to one’s own desire; c) it makes trusting confidence in God more difficult. It is well known that recourse to him is easier the greater one’s perception of one’s own insufficiency. Proof of this is found in the greater religiosity of the child and the old person as compared with the adult, of primitive peoples as compared with civilized peoples, and of moments of individual danger (e.g.: illnesses) or collective danger (e.g.: war) as compared with moments of tranquility. The same must be said of economic conditions. Whoever does not have a secure life is more inclined to recognize that everything depends on God, that we can do nothing without his help and protection. For the rich person, however, the necessary and even the superfluous arrive at fixed deadlines, often in the familiar form of a banknote or check, almost with the regularity of atmospheric phenomena and the certainty of physical phenomena; hence he has the impression that the future lies in his own hands. The counterproof is found in a certain religiosity observed among the possessors of wealth when clouds appear on the horizon and no other means of dispelling them is visible apart from divine intervention: then religious feeling is reborn and the invocation of God becomes almost spontaneous. One may therefore say that, although wealth is not in itself evil, it constitutes in fact, concretely and statistically speaking, an occasion of evil. In particular, wealth behaves antithetically to the reasons for which the institution of private property is defended in the Christian tradition. It constitutes not an embodiment of that institution but a corruption of II.
Since it is a danger to moral life, an incentive to fail in one’s duties, everyone must avoid placing himself in it; he must seek, insofar as possible, to escape from it; and, when there are reasons for not doing so, he must seek by every means to neutralize the evil consequences that wealth normally brings with II. This must be said especially of those who find themselves wealthy without personal effort, by virtue of events that are more or less fortuitous (social upheavals, wars, inheritance, etc.): they in particular must remember that, if they find themselves in a condition that is «humanly» enviable, they are «Christianly» in a dangerous condition. In this sense Christ’s frequent warnings against wealth must be understood. Jesus lived within an economic-social structure founded on a system of private property and did not condemn it; indeed, he condemned theft (cf. Mt. 19, 18 and parallels). He repeatedly taught that wealth can be an instrument of goodness and eternal life (cf. the parable of the ten talents, the episode of Maddalena, etc.). Wealth, however, is not the greatest good (cf. Mt. 16, 26). Indeed, it is such a grave danger that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven (Mt. 19-22). The heartfelt warning against the dangers of wealth therefore does not, by that very fact, signify an exaltation of poverty as such (cf. Prov. 30, 8-9).

It is now possible to answer an objection that may readily arise: that the Christian attitude toward wealth constitutes an obstacle to progress. Let us observe first of all that, for us, progress means drawing closer to the human ideal and to the conditions necessary for its genuine realization; for this ideal and for the approach to it, material goods are one component—not the only one, nor the most important—and that Christian distrust of wealth arises precisely from the fact that, rather than constituting an incentive to work, it provides an encouragement to idleness; in other words, rather than operating in a productivist and progressive direction, it works in an anti-productivist and indeed regressive one.