This week the local Chapter of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation organised a conference with the title, The individual, the family: The centre of economic activity.
One might think that this was a most strange name for a conference; the family is a social structure and as such has nothing to do with economic activity. Moreover, the individual is a saver, a consumer, possibly an investor, and on his own has little impact on the economy.
One may understand why such a line of thinking exists, although one can never really agree with it. Today, we speak of the need to create a work – life balance, based on the false premise that one’s working life is at conflict with one’s non-working life.
We ignore the fact that a healthy personal life requires an individual to work in a psychologically and physical healthy environment. We also speak of a conflict between the individual and the common good.
Again we ignore the fact that the common good is best served through the development of the individual, and the development of the individual is not served at all through the pursuit of selfish interests.
Another conflict that we speak of is that between enterprise and the worker. This is a conflict that is artificial in its foundation because the good entrepreneur knows that he has to have his employees’ interests at heart, while the employee knows that he has a more satisfying working life if he maintains a healthy relationship with his employer.
Thus any conflict between one’s s working life and one’s non working life, the common good and the individual and an employer and his employee are not intrinsic to the relationship, but are the result of man made situations.
Even so such apparent conflicts (which in effect are all based on false premises) may not allow us to think of a positive linkage between the individual, the family and the economy.
The positive linkage between these three elements are in effect very evident in a country such as ours. The constitution enacted in 1964 makes reference in various places to the rights of the individual, to the right to private enterprise and family values based on the concept of permanent marriage.
This point was well illustrated at the conference I have referred at the beginning of this week’s contribution. Therefore, the linkage exists in the supreme law of the country.
The linkage becomes even more evident whenever we make the claim (and there is general agreement on this claim) that human resources are our only resource and, therefore, our economic well being depends on the development of our human resources.
The development of our human resources should not only be seen as the development of the skills base, but also as the development of the whole person. The positive development of the whole person depends on the person’s mental well being, and there is no doubt that our mental well being is greater within a healthy family environment.
Our economy is better off, the stronger the values of the family, the better our society.
The linkage between the individual, the family and the economy also has a strong historical basis. Private enterprise does not know its origins to big multinational conglomerates that employ thousands of people.
It rather owes its origins to small businesses that were owned and managed by the family. All too often the only employees were members of the family. These small businesses would meet at the market place and exchange their goods. In this manner private enterprise grew and eventually became what we know it today.
Nowadays, we also make a great deal of emphasis on two concepts – the need for more social dialogue and corporate social responsibility. Both create a strong linkage between private enterprise and its impact on society, hence the individual and the family. I believe that it is against this background that we need to understand that the family is the place where the individual first acquires those values that will eventually reflect themselves in the role that he plays in the economy, and more specifically in his place of work.