Keynote III: Back to Aristotle: Catholic Social Thought’s Plea for the Economy as ‘Oikonomia’​

July 1, 2023 from 8:30 am to 9:30 am

Speaker: Ellen van Stichel

 

Aristotle already made the distinction between chremastikè and oikonomia, with the former being focused on the mere accumulation of wealth and the latter taking the needs of all members of the ‘household’ into account. A theological perspective critiques our current economy as it is indeed too much like chremastikè, while its function and goals should more be that of the ‘oikonomia’, doing justice to its original meaning. But what does this mean? In this paper I want to retrieve some of that original meaning, in light of Catholic social thought’s (CST) view on the role and function of the economy which should serve humanity and not the other way around. The notion of integral development, as developed by the Dominican economist Lebret is still extremely relevant. Moreover, in recent years, CST has developed a broader understanding of ‘oikonomia’, by not only including a relational perspective, but also extending the notion of the ‘home’ in ‘oikonomia’ to the material resources, nature and the earth. What the implications are for its view on the economy, and how it differs from neoclassical economics will be explored in this paper.