33. Individual initiative alone and the interplay of competition will not ensure satisfactory development.
No, it won’t.
We cannot proceed to increase the wealth and power of the rich while we entrench the needy in their poverty and add to the woes of the oppressed.
Can’t do that either. Trickle-down has been exposed as a fairy tale.
Organized programs are necessary for “directing, stimulating, coordinating, supplying and integrating” (Mater et Magistra: AAS 53 (1961), 414.) the work of individuals and intermediary organizations.
It is for the public authorities to establish and lay down the desired goals, the plans to be followed, and the methods to be used in fulfilling them; and it is also their task to stimulate the efforts of those involved in this common activity. But they must also see to it that private initiative and intermediary organizations are involved in this work. In this way they will avoid total collectivization and the dangers of a planned economy which might threaten human liberty and obstruct the exercise of man’s basic human rights.
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CC BY 2.5, Link“>The image is of Lady Justice at the Central Criminal Court of London.
Catholic Sensibility 