Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Gaudium et Spes 85 deals with international economic cooperation: The present solidarity of (hu)mankind also calls for a revival of greater international cooperation in the economic field. Although nearly all peoples have become autonomous, they are far from being free of every form of undue dependence, and far from escaping all danger of serious internal difficulties.
The problem of farming, sustenance versus cash cropping, comes to mind.
The development of a nation depends on human and financial aids. The citizens of each country must be prepared by education and professional training to discharge the various tasks of economic and social life. But this in turn requires the aid of foreign specialists who, when they give aid, will not act as overlords, but as helpers and fellow-workers.
A good summation of a proper attitude of those in mission work, too.
Developing nations will not be able to procure material assistance unless radical changes are made in the established procedures of modern world commerce. Other aid should be provided as well by advanced nations in the form of gifts, loans or financial investments. Such help should be accorded with generosity and without greed on the one side, and received with complete honesty on the other side.
Creditors have a hard enough time keeping their hands out of the pockets of the poor, encouraging debt and charging usurious interest rates on their own people. What prevents them from exploiting the Third World?
If an authentic economic order is to be established on a world-wide basis, an end will have to be put to profiteering, to national ambitions, to the appetite for political supremacy, to militaristic calculations, and to machinations for the sake of spreading and imposing ideologies.
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