LABOREM EXERCENS

Pope John Paul II's encyclical on labor, dated Sept. 14, 1981. The intermediate occasion for the encyclical was the ninetieth anniversary of rerum novarum, Pope Leo XIII's social encyclical of 1891—the start of what has come to be known as "papal social thought." Laborem exercens defined the human being as "worker." Humans differ from animals because humans alone must create the conditions of their survival and well-being by labor. The encyclical significantly expanded the notion of work. John Paul II indicated that labor does not refer principally to industrial labor, as it tended to do in previous encyclicals, but included agriculture, clerical, scientific, service-oriented and intellectual work (nn. 1, 4).

The encyclical presented Catholic social teaching as a radical critique of communism and capitalism. Oppression and inequality in the world are caused by a disorder in the organization of labor. While capital (including the mechanical means of production and the natural resources made available for production) is "the result of labor" (n. 12), i.e., accumulated labor, and therefore should be united with labor and serve labor, in actual fact capital has organized itself against labor in Western society.

The encyclical formulated the fundamental principle of "the priority of labor over capital." In today's world in which industries are interconnected and related to public institutions, capital is meant to serve the entire laboring society. State ownership of the industries in itself offers no guarantee that the priority of labor over capital will be respected. The encyclical defended private ownership of productive goods, but added that ownership, whether private or public, is always conditional. "Isolating the means of production as separate property in order to set it up in the form of capital in opposition to labor— and even to practice exploitation of labor—is contrary to the very nature of these means … because the only legitimate title to their possessions is that they should serve labor" (n. 14).

Laborem exercens argued that the dignity of labor is such that laborers are entitled to co-own the goods they produce and thus share in the decisions regarding the use of these goods. Workers are also entitled to share in the decisions concerning the work process. According to John Paul II, workers are meant to be "the subjects," the fully responsible agents, of production. The encyclical encouraged all movements that seek to extend workers' participation in ownership and management. (At the time the encyclical appeared there was still hope that the union movement Solidarity would transform Polish society).

What strategy must be adopted to transform the economic systems of West and East so that the priority of labor be respected?

To achieve social justice in the various parts of the world, in the various countries and in the relationship between them, there is a need for ever new movements of solidarity of the workers and with the workers…. The Church is firmly committed to this cause, for it considers it to be its mission, its service, a proof of its fidelity to Christ, so that it can truly be the Church of the poor (n. 8).

This radical teaching was reinstated in the "Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation" (March 1986), published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: "The serious socio-economic problems which occur today cannot be solved unless new fronts of solidarity are created: solidarity among themselves, solidarity with the poor to which the rich are called, solidarity among the workers and with the workers" (n. 89).

Bibliography: For the text of Laborem exercens, see Acta Apostolicae Sedis (1981): 57–647 (Latin); Origins 11, no. 15 (Sept. 24, 1981): 225, 227–244 (English); The Pope Speaks 26 (1981): 289–336 (English). For commentaries and summaries of the encyclical, see: g. baum, The Priority of Labor (New York 1982). d. dorr, Option for the Poor (Maryknoll, N.Y. 1983). j. w. houck and o. f. williams, eds., Co-creation and Capitalism: John Paul II's "Laborem Exercens" (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1983).

[g. baum]