After the crisis, a new paradigm of development is emerging: more solid, anchored to shared values and projected to the construction of a future beyond the ordinary handling of the emergency. Over recent months, there has been discussion on the wave of moderate optimism brought on by commentators and economists, with figures in hand, to pronounce the imminent end of the economic and financial storm that occurred after 2008. This was thrashed out again after the crash of Greece, the devaluation of the euro, and the fears of a domino effect on the rest of the Old Continent, in particular in the Mediterranean countries.
There has been a change in the basic scenario. The terms of the debate over the reasons for the crisis and the search for a model of sustainable growth that can restore identity to Western capitalism, hit hard by the world recession have not changed. First, there was a question as to whether and how to correct the distorted paradigm of development and create a new model of growth, based on solid ground and capable of bearing the thrust of the new challenges facing the international community – which is increasingly exposed to often turbulent and unpredictable changes.
The call for values and the appeal not to ignore the lessons of the crisis have a connotation that goes beyond the analysis of the macroeconomic context. Instead, it affects the very essence of the Western world, its roots, and its ability to question itself and rise again. In this prospect, the debate, originally only technical, became a general discussion on culture, requiring the contribution of those – the secular and the religious, humanists, and technicians – who have the instruments to decode the most painful fracture of contemporary life, and propose solutions.
In this sense, Catholic reflection – which culminated in the text of the Papal Encyclical Caritas in veritate – is a workable reference for full understanding of the real situation. The appeal for respect of human beings (and most of all among them), is explicated from a secular point of view in the call to review the criteria of production and distribution in the global economy, eliminate old and new forms in inequality, and respond to the requirements of the neediest. There is growing agreement on the need for a different kind of progress that will be long-lasting, because of our awareness that available resources are not infinite, and sustainable because it will be based on more rational consumption and therefore greater equity in allocation of goods and services.
From this viewpoint, employment once more becomes unquestionably central to the equation. As far as values are concerned, the importance of the dignity of work can and must be the basis of change in the behavior and decisions affecting the population’s base of growth. This growth must be both human and professional at the same time, based on the ethics of work, the satisfaction of seeing one’s sacrifices recognized, fatigue as an engine of mobility and individual and collective advancement, people and the community at large. since the leading class should be protecting the interest of a community, really responsible leaders should be involved in this difficult (and still ambiguous) phase of evolution of our model of development. In order to overcome the limited antimony between state and market, the prevailing opinion is that politics must resume its original function, even etymologically. In other words, we need a synthetic analysis of the opinions and needs of all the actors of society and the economy, carefully and selectively evaluating the interests of each. While this will inevitably lead to some conflict, the values that we must share must also be kept in mind.