Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

One of the higher priority issues in economics is the utilization of resources,^{725Concerning the utilization of resources and goods, the Church's social doctrine offers its teaching regarding the universal destination of goods and regarding private property; cf. Chapter Four, Part III of the present document.} that is, of all those goods and services to which economic subjects — producers and consumers in the private and public spheres — attribute value because of their inherent usefulness in the areas of production and consumption. Resources in nature are quantitatively scarce, which means that each individual economic subject, as well as each individual society, must necessarily come up with a plan for their utilization in the most rational way possible, following the logic dictated by the “principle of economizing”. Both the effective solution of the more general, and fundamental, economic problem of limited means with respect to individual and social — private and public — need, and the overall structural and functional efficiency of the entire economic system depend on this. This efficiency directly involves the responsibility and capacity of the various agents concerned, such as the market, the State and intermediate social bodies.