Von der gesellschaftlichen Ermöglichung der Geldwirtschaft

Solidaristische Impulse für die Wirtschaftsethik

Abstract

The article assumes that Christian Social Ethics is on a fundamental level a methodologically controlled ethics that supports the contributions of Christians and their church(es) in public discourses and that participates in debates of applied ethics. Three models of Catholic Social Teaching and of the Catholic tradition of Solidarism are used to exemplify that Christian Social Ethics is able to make comprehensible and relevant contributions to contemporary debates in economic ethics if it strives for a contemporary, responsible reception of some of its own traditional themes. An almost holistic understanding of the economy, the demand for a just family wage and Catholic ethics of property can be modified in such a way that they help to take into account those services that are provided outside the sphere of monetarily valued economic activities, but are indispensable to such activities. These three prospects offer valuable starting points for orienting the political shaping of the relationship of the economy to society as a whole.