Work and solidarity in recent Catholic social teaching

Abstract

The Social Question has assumed a global dimension. Science and technology are making us into a unified planetary society. Historical forces have drawn all mankind into a single, interdependent, economic and social continuum. Three hundred years of Western colonialism have involved a tremendous transformation. The world received its first introduction to a single, unified world economy. The Western colonizing powers have furthered their own interests, power and glory in order to integrate the colonies into a wider web of commerce and to establish monopoly control over their resources and trade. This also determined the economic map of the world. In the 17th and 18th centuries Western Europeans wanted monopolistic control over Asian and African exports. Hence they fought incessant wars to manoeuvre each other out of the profitable territories and trading stations. By the 19th century, the introduction of industrialization in Europe and North America changed the nature of trade. This continued to intensify the rivalry. The colonies were now producing foodstuffs, metals and plantation crops, which were sent in their natural state from the colonies to the factories of the West and paid for with Western manufactured exports. [...]