Businesses should be characterized by their capacity to serve the common good of society through the production of useful goods and services. In seeking to produce goods and services according to plans aimed at efficiency and at satisfying the interests of the different parties involved, businesses create wealth for all of society, not just for the owners but also for the other subjects involved in their activity. Besides this typically economic function, businesses also perform a social function, creating opportunities for meeting, cooperating and the enhancement of the abilities of the people involved. In a business undertaking, therefore, the economic dimension is the condition for attaining not only economic goals, but also social and moral goals, which are all pursued together. A business' objective must be met in economic terms and according to economic criteria, but the authentic values that bring about the concrete development of the person and society must not be neglected. In this personalistic and community vision, “a business cannot be considered only as a ‘society of capital goods'; it is also a ‘society of persons' in which people participate in different ways and with specific responsibilities, whether they supply the necessary capital for the company's activities or take part in such activities through their labour”.707John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 43: AAS 83 (1991), 847.
All those involved in a business venture must be mindful that the community in which they work represents a good for everyone and not a structure that permits the satisfaction of someone's merely personal interests. This awareness alone makes it possible to build an economy that is truly at the service of mankind and to create programmes of real cooperation among the different partners in labour. A very important and significant example in this regard is found in the activity of so-called cooperative enterprises, small and medium-sized businesses, commercial undertakings featuring hand-made products and family-sized agricultural ventures. The Church's social doctrine has emphasized the contribution that such activities make to enhance the value of work, to the growth of a sense of personal and social responsibility, a democratic life and the human values that are important for the progress of the market and of society.708Cf. John XXIII, Encyclical Letter Mater et Magistra: AAS 53 (1961), 422-423.
The social doctrine of the Church recognizes the proper role of profit as the first indicator that a business is functioning well: “when a firm makes a profit, this means that productive factors have been properly employed”.709John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 35 AAS 83 (1991), 837. But this does not cloud her awareness of the fact that a business may show a profit while not properly serving society.710Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2424. For example, “it is possible for the financial accounts to be in order, and yet for the people — who make up the firm's most valuable asset — to be humiliated and their dignity offended”.711John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 35: AAS 83 (1991), 837. This is what happens when businesses are part of social and cultural systems marked by the exploitation of people, tending to avoid the obligations of social justice and to violate the rights of workers. It is essential that within a business the legitimate pursuit of profit should be in harmony with the irrenounceable protection of the dignity of the people who work at different levels in the same company. These two goals are not in the least contrary to one another, since, on the one hand, it would not be realistic to try to guarantee the firm's future without the production of useful goods and services and without making a profit, which is the fruit of the economic activity undertaken. On the other hand, allowing workers to develop themselves fosters increased productivity and efficiency in the very work undertaken. A business enterprise must be a community of solidarity,712Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 43: AAS 83 (1991), 846-848. that is not closed within its own company interests. It must move in the direction of a “social ecology” 713John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 38: AAS 83 (1991), 841. of work and contribute to the common good also by protecting the natural environment.
Although the quest for equitable profit is acceptable in economic and financial activity, recourse to usury is to be morally condemned: “Those whose usurious and avaricious dealings lead to the hunger and death of their brethren in the human family indirectly commit homicide, which is imputable to them”.714Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2269. This condemnation extends also to international economic relations, especially with regard to the situation in less advanced countries, which must never be made to suffer “abusive if not usurious financial systems”.715Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2438. More recently, the Magisterium used strong and clear words against this practice, which is still tragically widespread, describing usury as “a scourge that is also a reality in our time and that has a stranglehold on many peoples' lives”.716John Paul II, Catechesis at General Audience (4 February 2004), 3: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 11 February 2004, p. 11.
Businesses today move in economic contexts that are becoming ever broader and in which national States show limits in their capacity to govern the rapid processes of change that effect international economic and financial relations. This situation leads businesses to take on new and greater responsibilities with respect to the past. Never has their role been so decisive with regard to the authentic integral development of humanity in solidarity. Equally decisive in this sense is their level of awareness that “development either becomes shared in common by every part of the world or it undergoes a process of regression even in zones marked by constant progress. This tells us a great deal about the nature of authentic development: either all the nations of the world participate, or it will not be true development”.717John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 17: AAS 80 (1988), 532.