Does Catholic social teaching suitably address the world of finance?
There is an expression in Wall Street, that we “underwrite” the company. The manufacturing companies and, increasingly, service companies of the world would not be able to reach their consumers to the same extent, whom they are presumably serving and not just enticing to consume, unless they had finance. Those companies would not be able to grow, expand, and raise the standard of living. So in itself, finance is basically neutral, tending toward good. The only thing that can make it evil is when the motivation is greed or exploitation, which certainly can take place. In other words, there can be great tragedies when the dignity of the human person is not placed at the heart of the financial world. But if that concept is kept in mind, if we are looking to serve our clients, i.e., companies that in turn are serving human persons, then there is certainly nothing the matter with finance, in fact, quite the contrary. A large and increasing number of people have their savings in the financia
