The only way to combat both the forces of big business and big government is with a society of owners, families who own their own property, workers who own their own businesses. Worker ownership is not only more respectful of the dignity of the person, but it produces goods of greater quality.
If we say that any earthly good that has been entrusted to our stewardship may be held back from another because we believe that we deserve to keep it, we dishonour GOD. In fact, we make ourselves gods by denying another what we have in surplus, and we do so to our own detriment.
The warm papal endorsement of cooperatives is particularly significant since previous social encyclicals and addresses did not give much attention to this form of enterprise, according to Fr. Cronin.
What can we do, what is to be done? First of all, we can admit that our so-called American way of life has meant great inequalities, and that there does indeed exist a great mass of poor and unemployed people who are in need of help in this country as well as abroad. We need to study ways to change the social order.
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