Social Doctrine of the Church and Theory Economic: two divergent approaches for a world in transformation

Abstract

This article’s central subject is the importance of the intervention of the Church in social-economic issues. The author starts from two questions: the reason why the Social Doctrine of the Church was established only by the end of the XIX century and not before, and the reasons that led to the breakdown between the Social Doctrine of the Church and the prevailing economic theory. To give an answer to these points, Pasinetti dates back to the origin of Christianity, and makes a historical analysis of the development of economic theory until the proclamation of the Rerum Novarum encyclical in 1891. The author explains that this doctrinal corpus came up from three historical events: the Industrial Revolution, the impact of Karl Marx’s work, and the failure in formulating an economic theory able to solve the problems of a new world. The Social Doctrine of the Church, therefore, is meant to overcome these difficulties because it possesses the tools required to achieve this task.