Summary
1 Definition
2 The context of the working world
3 Social Doctrine of the Church
4 Latin America
5 Systematization
6 Bibliographical references
1 Definition
Work is the sphere of existence in which a person encounters all the aspects that mark their identity as an individual and as a social being. The verb to work comes from the Latin tripaliare (to torture), derived from tripalium, a kind of torture instrument composed of tres and palus. In almost all languages, this verb is used to express the idea of fatigue. The German concept arbeit is used with an equivalent meaning. In Portuguese and Spanish, it is derived from tripalium, just as travailler in French meant “to suffer” at least until the 16th century.
In Western history, the meaning of work undergoes changes according to historical contexts (cf. MERCURE and SPURK, 2005). In Greco-Roman civilization, structured on the mode of production of slavery, work was not an element of a good life. In Histories, Herodotus records that manual labor (cheirotecnai) was rejected by free men. Philosophers like Plato taught that both cheirotecnai and artisanal work (banausia) were inferior activities. Cicero classified manual labor at the lowest level of the hierarchy of values. Work for survival was identified with the word business, literally, “denial of leisure.” Leisure was the noble way to occupy time with the art of governing the polis (politics) and with philosophy (contemplation of ideas). Activities related to material survival were left to servants, slaves, and peasants, people of second category (ARENAS POSADAS, 2003).
Christianity initiates a slow and progressive change of perspective. The monks had unquestionable influence on this. Saint Basil (330-379) taught that “there are plenty of words to show the evils of idleness, as the Apostle teaches: ‘He who does not work shall not eat’ (2Thess 3:10). Just as everyone needs food, so too should they work according to their strength” (BASIL, 1857-1866, p.37).
The monks were not subjected to economic criteria but to spirituality. This explains their concern with the distractions of contemplative life: “Engage in some work, so that the devil always finds you with your hands at work,” exhorted Saint Jerome (347-420). The saying ora et labora from Saint Benedict’s Rule (6th century) is the origin of modern work ethics. The rule about manual labor – De opere manuum Quotidiano – instructs that idleness is the enemy of the soul; therefore, at certain times, monks should engage in it. Monks who occupied themselves in making baskets only to break them and remake them aimed to “store up treasures in heaven” (Mt 6:20). Work was motivated by charity. The concern to ensure sustenance was accompanied by the aid to the needy (JACCARD, 1971).
Saint Augustine (354-430) deepens this connection between work, prayer, and charity. In its original state, work was pleasant to the body and mind, a free exercise of reason, and a way to praise God. Fatigue is a consequence of human finitude and a reminder of primitive infidelity. Its extreme is idleness. Monks of Carthage defended the renunciation of manual labor to dedicate themselves entirely to contemplation. In response, Augustine wrote the book De Opere monachorum. The fundamental reason for work, undoubtedly, is the edification of the city of God, materializing the Christian concept of charitas in human history. Work and well-ordered material goods help build the city of God – the core of well-ordered intention (AUGUSTINE, City of God).
The scholastic-Thomist tradition emphasized new meanings to work. In the Summa Theologica, by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), work is addressed from the universal principle of the preservation of life. The need for survival is its primary reason. Work belongs to the order of matter and should not seek more than sustenance. Another criterion is the common utility. The value of a thing depends on its usefulness to the community (ST II-II q.179-189).
In modernity, there is a radical change in the concept of work (DÍEZ, 2001). The religious sense is abandoned in favor of primarily material ends. The industrial revolution will solidify this process of change. John Locke, one of the fathers of the political economy of liberalism, sees work as the origin of private property (LOCKE, 1990). Adam Smith, founder of modern economic science, sees work as the main origin of the wealth of nations (SMITH, 1996). With the consolidation of capitalism, industrial work and wage relations come to define all other social relations (PARIAS, 1965). The process of proletarianization is a central event in the consolidation of Western modernity. In the market economy, the value of goods is established by the law of supply and demand. Wages are the price of the labor commodity (POLANYI, 2000). The individual shapes their personality through work. The “best” jobs are the most well-paid and prestigious. Max Weber (1864-1920), investigating the origins of Western rationalism in Capitalism, concluded that the work spirituality of the Protestant Reformation propelled a professional ethic (WEBER, 2004). The theory of individual predestination in Calvinism expanded the concept of vocation to all honest professions. Man must please God with his work.
For Karl Marx, work is, primarily, an anthropological category, as it is an essential activity of human nature. Economic and cultural progress happens around the improvement of means of work (MARX, 2013). Free work is the essence of man and the driving force of the history of civilizations. Universal history is the creation of man through work (cf. MARX, 2007). However, political economy led it to a process of degradation translated by the concept of alienation. The worker was turned into a work beast, whose needs are reduced to the essential physical needs of animals (MARX, 2004). The mechanism of surplus value and private property reduced the worker to this condition (MARX, 2013). Alienated work represents a true mutilation of humanity and a new form of slavery (cf. MARX, 2004). Here lies the origin of the conflict between labor and capital, the class struggle (cf. MARX, 2007).
2 The working world in context
Unemployment and precariousness, globalized neoliberal capitalism, and financialized economy, new technologies, and competitiveness are concepts that bring a new way of understanding work. The convergence between technological development and information has produced a profound mutation. Technologies adjust the human being to the market and the worker to the machines. Factory floor work loses space to immaterial work, which creates goods like knowledge, information, design, image, emotions, and ideas (GÓRZ, 2005). New technologies have strengthened the expansion capacity of the financial system. While the part of capital applied to the production of goods and services decreases, the value of capital applied to finance increases. Jobs disappear at the same speed as finance grows. The worker’s status is replaced by temporary contracts (CASTEL, 1998). Outsourcing policies eliminate legally guaranteed rights. Unions lose bargaining power. The working class has a more heterogeneous, fragmented, and impoverished profile. Slavery-like work is a reality.
Population growth floods the labor market with millions of people; agribusiness drives small farmers to cities, converting them into a cheap labor reserve. Religious, political, and economic conflicts and environmental disasters force thousands of people to move in search of survival, exposing them to fragility that can lead to exploitation.
Racial and gender discrimination is another characteristic of the working world. Black people and women earn proportionally less than white men. Unemployment affects the black population more intensely. Black women are doubly discriminated against, by race and sex. Women have been occupying spaces in the market. However, this incorporation has been unequal compared to men. Contracts are usually short-term, and salaries are lower. Many women have a double shift, that is, they perform domestic work and company work. The sexual division of labor remains.
3 Social Doctrine of the Church
a) Rerum novarum
The starting point of ecclesial awareness about worker exploitation imposed by capitalism is the encyclical Rerum novarum (RN) by Leo XIII (1878-1903). The condition of the workers was the reason for the publication of the first social encyclical of the DSI (GASDA, 2011). Workers were thrown into a situation of undeserved and terrible misery (RN n.1). The idea of work as a commodity is rejected by the Church: “It is shameful and inhuman to use men as vile instruments of profit, and to value them only in proportion to the strength of their arms” (RN n.10). Work is a natural right, it is personal and necessary (RN n.32) and the fruits of the worker’s labor, that is, the right to property, correspond to the worker (RN n.3, 33). Pius XI, in 1931, echoes these words: “Work is not a simple commercial product, but the human dignity of the worker must be recognized in it, and it cannot be exchanged like any commodity” (Quadragesimo anno n.5).
b) Second Vatican Council
The theological element of human labor is highlighted in the Second Vatican Council. All work done to achieve better living conditions somehow contributes to the construction of the Kingdom of God. The question about the meaning of human activity (GS n.33) is also directed at work: “The individual and collective human activity, that immense effort with which men, over the centuries, have tried to improve living conditions, corresponds to God’s will” (GS n.34). Work can be a co-participation in the work of Creation:
Men and women who, in earning sustenance for themselves and their families, exercise their activity in such a way that they provide convenient service to society, can rightly consider that they extend the Creator’s work with their work, help their brothers and sisters, and make a personal contribution to the realization of God’s designs in history (GS n.34).
Personal growth is pointed out as an important aspect: “When acting, man not only transforms things and society, but realizes himself (…). This well-understood development is worth more than the external goods that can be achieved” (GS n.35). In the light of Revelation, the value of work is fully clarified in Christ: “offering their work to God, man associates himself with the redemptive work of Christ, who conferred a sublime dignity to work, working with his own hands in Nazareth” (GS n.67). Work is a temporal effort that greatly interests the Kingdom of God” (GS n.39).
In socio-economic life (GS n.63-72), work is framed within the scope of the principle of human dignity: “man is the author, center, and end of socio-economic life” (GS n.63). Therefore, work is far superior to other elements of the economy since these have no other function than to be instruments (GS n.67). There is no work without rest. The responsible and arduous effort dedicated to work must be followed by “time of rest and relaxation that allows the cultivation of family, cultural, and religious life. Even more, it should develop energy and qualities freely, which in professional work is only possible to preserve” (GS n.67).
c) Laborem exercens
The encyclical Laborem exercens (1981) by John Paul II is the most important DSI text on this topic. In it, “the workers’ question is no longer a class problem, and must be considered in the global context of inequalities and injustices” (LE n.2). The document identifies the anthropological question at the origin of social conflicts. It is a reversal in the order of concepts, that is, the primacy of “capital” over “labor,” which results in the alienation of the person (GASDA, 2011b). Capital transformed work into an instrument of material accumulation (cf. LE n.13). It is against this inversion, which causes exploitation, slavery, and alienation, that the primacy of labor over capital must be reaffirmed (LE n.11). The primary value of work is linked to the fact that the one who performs it is a person created in the image and likeness of God (LE n.4). “Above all, work is for man and not man for work” (LE n.6).
From this essence of work emerge its objective sense and its subjective sense. The objective sense refers to the set of activities, resources, instruments, techniques, management forms, and technologies. These are contingent factors that vary in their modalities with the change of technical, cultural, social, and political conditions (LE n.5). In the subjective sense, it is human action while carrying out the actions that belong to the work process and correspond to its vocation. Work proceeds from people created in the image and likeness of God, called to prolong, helping each other, the work of Creation (LE n.6). The subjectivity prevents considering work as a simple commodity. Work is superior to any other element of the economy (LE n.10). This principle is particularly valid regarding capital (LE n.12). Capital is also the fruit of work. It is about the “translation, in economic terms, of the ethical principle of the primacy of people over things” (LE n.12). The ownership of the means of production must be at the service of labor (LE n.14). Laborem exercens integrates labor rights into the set of Human Rights (LE n.16). Such rights are based on human nature. Unions and workers’ organizations are exponents of the struggle for social justice (LE n.20).
The subjective sense of work reveals the spiritual dimension of the human person, their openness to transcendence, that is, the spirituality of work. John Paul II recovers the theological elements mainly developed in GS in a synthesized form in the last four paragraphs of the encyclical (cf. LE n.25-27): man, created in the image and likeness of God, participates in his creative work; he has in Christ, the man of work and announcer of the Kingdom, his reference point. The world of work is an indispensable place to assume this commitment to the transformation of society in the light of the Kingdom (cf. LE n.27). Considering work solely in its economic sense is to mutilate it in its essence and reduce it to a mechanical task. Work must be thought of as liberating the potential to care for and cultivate Creation (Gen 2:15).
d) Benedict XVI and decent work
Benedict XVI, in line with the ILO (International Labor Organization), integrates labor rights within the framework of human rights. Currently, the Decent Work Program is the convergence point of the ILO’s proposals and conventions. The quality of employment is as important as the quantity.
Benedict XVI explains the word decency at work:
It means a work that, in each society, is the expression of the essential dignity of every man and woman: work freely chosen, that effectively associates workers, men and women, with the development of their community; work that, in this way, allows workers to be respected without any discrimination; work that consents to satisfy the needs of families and provide schooling for children, without them being forced to work; work that allows workers to organize freely and make their voices heard; work that leaves enough space to reconnect with their roots at the personal, family, and spiritual level; work that ensures retired workers a decent condition (CV n.63).
The concept includes all people who live from their work. In principle, all human work should be decent, generating relational, ethical, and spiritual values.
The implementation of the Decent Work Program depends on the articulation of the workers themselves. The Church expresses its support for the labor movement (RN n.34.39-40; GS n.68; CDSI, n.305-309). Unions face the challenge of redefining themselves in the face of the reconfigurations of the labor market (ANTUNES, 2005; GORZ, 1982). Benedict XVI recognizes that “the set of social and economic changes creates great difficulties for union organizations in fulfilling their role of representing the interests of workers” (CV n.25). Although the labor movement fights for the interests of the category, it cannot ignore the problems of the entire society (SANTANA and RAMALHO, 2003): “civil society is, in fact, the most appropriate place for action in defense of work, especially for exploited and unrepresented workers, whose bitter condition goes unnoticed by society’s distracted eyes” (CV n.64).
e) Pope Francis
Pope Francis, in Laudato si (LS), links integral ecology to decent work, sustainability, and social justice: “an integral ecology requires considering the subjective value of work alongside the effort to provide access to stable and dignified work for all” (LS n.191). Integral ecology involves two aspects: the dignity of the worker and care for the environment.
Sustainable work involves ensuring universal access to decent work and promoting health. Providing every human being with education and resources to ensure safe working conditions. Including the vulnerable by enabling them to develop their capacities. To continue to provide employment, it is essential to promote an economy that favors productive diversification and entrepreneurial creativity (LS n.129).
Sustainable work implies care for the environment.
The future of the human species depends on the relationship between nature, work, and capital. The world of work is part of the solution to the environmental crisis.
In any approach to integral ecology that does not exclude the human being, it is essential to include the value of work. In the biblical account of creation, God placed the human being in the newly created garden (cf. Gen 2:15), not only to care for what exists (guard) but also to work in it so that it produces fruits (cultivate) (LS n.124).
Pope Francis has been emphatic in defending workers: “Land, shelter, and work – what you fight for – are sacred rights. To claim this is the Social Doctrine of the Church… There is no worse material poverty than the one that does not allow you to earn bread and deprives you of the dignity of work” (World Meeting of Popular Movements, Rome, 2014).
4 Latin America
The world of work was addressed in the CELAM (Latin American Episcopal Council) Conferences. Gathered in Medellín, the bishops addressed
all those who, with daily effort, create the goods and services that allow the existence and development of human life. We think especially of the millions of Latin American men and women who make up the peasant and working sector. They, for the most part, suffer, hope, and strive for a change that humanizes and dignifies their work. Without ignoring the full human meaning of work, here we consider it as an intermediate structure, as it constitutes the function that gives rise to professional organization in the field of production (Doc. Justice).
In Santo Domingo, the theme was treated more systematically in item n.2.2.5 – Work). One of the realities that most concerns the Church in its pastoral action
is the world of work, due to its humanizing and salvific significance, which has its origin in the co-creative vocation of man as a “child of God” (Gen 1:26) and which was rescued and elevated by Jesus, a worker and “son of a carpenter” (Mt 13:55 and Mk 6:3). The Church, as the bearer and servant of Jesus’ message, sees man as a subject who dignifies work by realizing himself and perfecting God’s work, to make it a praise to the Creator and a service to brothers and sisters (Santo Domingo n.182).
The world of work is a pastoral field, therefore
it is warned of a deterioration in its living conditions and the respect for its rights; a scant or no compliance with established norms for the most vulnerable sectors; a loss of autonomy by workers’ organizations due to dependencies or self-dependencies of various kinds; the abuse of capital that ignores or denies the primacy of work; few or no job opportunities for young people. It is warned of the alarming lack of work or unemployment with all the economic and social insecurity that this implies (Santo Domingo n.183).
Given this harsh reality, the uncompromising defense of workers’ rights is imposed as the most important challenge: “Workers’ rights are a moral heritage of society that must be protected by adequate social legislation and its necessary judicial instance, ensuring reliable continuity in labor relations” (Santo Domingo n.184). Three pastoral lines are proposed: to promote and support a pastoral of work in all our dioceses, to promote and defend the human value of work; to support the organizations of working men for the defense of their legitimate rights, especially of a sufficient wage and just social protection for old age, illness, and unemployment; to promote the training of workers, businessmen, and rulers in their rights and duties, and to provide spaces for meeting and mutual collaboration (Santo Domingo n.185).
In Aparecida, the bishops encouraged entrepreneurs, economic agents of productive and commercial management, both private and community, to be wealth creators in our nations, when they strive to generate decent employment. They also encouraged “those who do not invest their capital in speculative action, but in creating sources of employment, caring for workers, considering them ‘themselves and their families'” (DAp n.404). One of the greatest challenges consists in
training in Christian ethics that sets as a challenge the achievement of the common good, the creation of opportunities for all, the fight against corruption, the enforcement of labor and union rights; it is necessary to prioritize the creation of economic opportunities for traditionally marginalized sectors of the population, such as women and young people, recognizing their dignity. Therefore, it is necessary to work for a culture of responsibility at every level that involves people, companies, governments, and the international system itself (DAp n.406).
Two lines of action were indicated for social categories that suffer most in the world of work, young people, and women: it is imperative to train young people so that they have opportunities in the world of work and avoid falling into drugs and violence (DAp n.446); promote dialogue with authority for the elaboration of programs, laws, and public policies that allow harmonizing the working life of women with their duties as mothers (DAp n.458). In Aparecida, an unprecedented challenge was raised: “the formation of thinkers and opinion leaders in the world of work, union, cooperative and community leaders” (DAp n.492).
5 Systematization
The complexity of the working world involves anthropology, politics, law, culture, economics, and philosophy. The human being’s relationship with God is the perspective of theological thought on work. Any reflection on work must reference the principle of human dignity. Every person, regardless of age, condition, or capacity, is an image of God and, therefore, endowed with irreducible value. Each person is an end in itself, never an instrument valued for its utility. The recognition of this dignity is the first criterion for evaluating economic models and the organization of the division of labor. Its status is consolidated in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Human work is an activity that generates social relations. By virtue of imago Dei, individual beings are also relational beings. Individuality and sociability are objectified in structures and relationships. The meaning of work is not exhausted by professional success. My relationship at work tells who I am to another. “The principle, subject, and end of all social institutions are and must be the human person, who, by his very nature, has an absolute need for social life” (GS n.25).
Putting work at the service of human dignity is to aim at the common good (GS n.27). No social group, individual, company, or state can disregard the common good. Human work is at the origin of the company as an organization of people. Through work, companies produce many of the important conditions that contribute to the common good of society. The creation of jobs is an essential aspect to achieve the common good. Human work is not understood disconnected from rest. In this sense, the
apex of biblical teaching on work is the commandment of Sabbath rest. The memory and experience of the Sabbath constitute a bulwark against the enslavement of man to work, voluntary or imposed, against all forms of exploitation, hidden or manifest. The Sabbath rest, in fact, more than to allow participation in God’s worship, was instituted in defense of the poor; it also has a liberating function from the antisocial degenerations of human work (CDSI n.258).
The people of Israel, who began with that experience of liberation from a group of workers subjected to forced labor, feed on the fulfillment of the promise of full liberation, the irruption of the Kingdom, and rest in God (cf. Heb 4:10-11). In Israel’s legislation, the institution of the Sabbath as a memorial of the exodus from the alienation of work is the foundation that sustains the six days remaining.
The Son of God, by assuming the condition of manual laborer, redefines the meaning of work. The world of work is a place of irruption of the Kingdom of God and his justice (Mt 6:33). For Christians, the true Sabbath is Christ, celebrated on Sunday. He is the Lord of the Sabbath (Mk 2:27) who inaugurated the eternal Sabbath (Heb 4:10) already prefigured on the seventh day of creation (Gen 2:1-3). Sunday reveals the eschatological dimension of work. Rest is identified with the situation of God’s creation (Gen 2, cited in Heb 4:4). Sunday is a prefiguration of this rest, not just a pause from work. The self-realization achieved in work is always penultimate. Work is a form of expression of human identity, but not of all identity.
Nature also needs rest. The seventh day represents a limit to the transformative power of human work understood as protection and cultivation of creation. In work, the person discovers themselves as a creator but also as a fragile creature. Humanity, united in its capacity for work, is also united in its weakness and in the limits of nature.
Pius XI stated that the greatest scandal of the 19th century was the Church losing the working class. To ensure that this scandal is not repeated in the 21st century, it is not enough to accumulate documents and declarations of good intentions. Solidarity with workers is a way to concretize the preferential option for the poor. “The poor appear, in many cases, as a result of the violation of the dignity of human work” (Laborem exercens, n.8). Since the Industrial Revolution, the reality of the poor and the world of work have been interconnected. The establishment of a liberating worker pastoral is the main challenge for Christians in Latin America. The commitment to free labor from an “economy that kills” (Pope Francis) and emancipate workers is implicit in the praxis of Christians. Liberate labor from financial interests, unbridled competitiveness, and obsession with wealth. Rescue the economy as an instrument at the service of life.
Élio Gasda, SJ. FAJE, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Original text in Portuguese.
6 Bibliographical references
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ARENAS POSADAS, C. Historia económica del trabajo. Madrid: Tecnos, 2003.
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For further reading
ANTONCICH, R. Trabalho e liberdade. Liberation Theology and Laborem exercens. São Paulo: Loyola, 1989.
ARENDT, H. A condição humana. Rio de Janeiro: Forense, 1993.
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CAMPANINI, G. Trabalho. In: Diccionario enciclopédico de Teología Moral. Madrid: Paulinas, 1974, p.1094-1111.
CHENU, M-D. Hacia una teología del trabajo. Barcelona: Estela, 1965.
______. Trabajo. In: RAHNER, K. (dir.) Sacramentum Mundi.v.VI. Barcelona: Herder, 1974 p.671-684.
GASDA, E. Fe cristiana y sentido del trabajo. Madrid: San Pablo, 2011.
______. Christianity and economics. Rethink work beyond capitalism. São Paulo: Paulinas, 2014.
COENEN, L.; BEYREUTHER, E.; BIETENHARD, H. Work. In: Theological Dictionary of the New Testament – v.III. Salamanca: Sígueme, 1986. p.188-198.
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DUSSEL, E. Ethics of work. In: Community Ethics. Free the poor! Petrópolis: Vozes, 1986. p.129-139.
ELLACURÍA, I. Conflict between capital and labor. A key point of Laborem exercens. Central American Studies, n.37, 1982. p.1008-1024.
GORZ, A. Farewell to the Proletariat. Rio de Janeiro: Forense-Universitária, 1982.
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LEÓN-DUFOUR, X. Work. In: ______. Vocabulary of biblical theology. Barcelona: Herder, 1967. p.796-800.
MATTOSO, J. Disorder of work. São Paulo: Scriptta, 1995.
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PINTO, G. A. Organization of work in the 20th century. Taylorism, Fordism, and Toyotism. São Paulo: Expressão Popular, 2007.
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