A Catholic Perspective on Development

By Jacob C. Maichel

Development is a word that gets thrown around a lot and seems to get conflated with progress, or at least reduced to a strictly economic initiative. While there is an economic aspect, development needs to occur on many more areas to allow humans to flourish. Such areas include religious freedoms, the right to share in building society, the organizing and forming of unions, and the ability to take economic actions. These other aspects are just as, and likely more, important than meeting our material needs and wants. Without the ability to enjoy these privileges we are deprived of fulfillment. Pope John Paul II was very clear in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis that underdevelopment in any of these areas is detrimental to the human condition, as is over development that leads to consumerism and unfulfilling desires.

Four decades ago Pope John Paul II urged us to consider our relationship with goods, and perhaps we should have listened better. I think we have come to a point where goods are meant to simplify our lives and make things as easy and mindless as possible, whereas they should be tools to not only enrich our lives but further us along in our vocations. Pope Paul VI in Populorum Progressio offered us a new framework with which to view development, calling for the economies of the world to serve all mankind rather then the few. What Paul VI and John Paul II refer to as "authentic development" puts humanity at the center of development, serving as a morally preferable guide to growth. Seeing growth as purely economic, focusing only on GNP or GDP, completely ignores the spiritual dimensions of human existence. This disregard for the human can only be overcome with solidarity, not only between communities, but nations themselves.

Relationships among nations is a chief concern in achieving authentic development. Development is something that we must work together on, a common goal for all of humanity. The status quo of giving massive loans by multi-government organizations is actually hampering the growth of developing nations. Countries take on massive loans to fund all types of economic development, but then soon are bogged down by interest payments. To continue to improve or even maintain the quality of life more loans continually are taken out as countries struggle to service existing debt. For example, in 2017 $1.3 trillion was given in the form of loans or investments to developing nations while $3.3 trillion came back out to repay debts. Perhaps rather than just dumping money into countries we should allow them to create their own micro-financing institutions that support local small- to medium-sized businesses. Many entrepreneurs in developing countries lack access to important capital and are not large enough to attract foreign investment or traditional bank loans. Giving people in developing countries the tools to grow and support their own communities shows much more solidarity than usurious lending.

In addition to concerns about the human person, the largest concern for authentic development is environmental impact. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis reminds us that God has called on us to use the resources that have been gifted to us in this life. In Genesis we are called to live with creation and are granted dominion over the creatures Earth. In the parable of the talents we are again reminded to use our abilities and be fruitful with the limited resources God has given us. John Paul II gives us 3 important considerations regarding alteration of the environment:

• Awareness that creation is not to be used however one wishes. Purely economic justifications are not sufficient to destroy creation.
• Understanding that resources are limited. Not everything we have been given on this Earth is renewable and acting as such endangers future generations. Although we have been able to stay ahead of catastrophe with technological advancement everything has a natural limit.
• Realization of the impact of development on the quality of life in developed zones. A great example of this is pollution that harms the health of entire populations.

This understanding of our relationship with the environment goes much further than trying to internalize negative externalities through regulation. Only when we comprehend that we are failing to act as good stewards of creation can we grasp the true severity of environmental abuse.

The solution to achieving authentic development is beginning to think of it as a human problem, rather than a technical problem. Seeing development as purely a technical problem that we can, through our own social, political, and technological means, solve removes the human from the equation, leading to very shortsighted and damaging pseudo-solutions. Traditional Church teaching offers knowledge that is not rooted in liberal capitalism or Marxist collectivism, but rather a response based on thousands of years of human history and divine revelation. By respecting cultures and putting the well-being of the human first we can overcome the detriments of purely economic development and instead see development as the new word for peace, just as Pope Paul VI called for back in 1967.

Jacob C. Maichel is a Graduate Assistant at the Gwartney Institute and an MBA student at Ottawa University