A Social Sense

70. We would also say a word to those who travel to newly industrialized nations for business purposes: industrialists, merchants, managers and representatives of large business concerns. It often happens that in their own land they do not lack a social sense. Why is it, then, that they give in to baser motives of self-interest when they set out to do business in the developing countries? Their more favored position should rather spur them on to be initiators of social progress and human betterment in these lands. Their organizational experience should help them to figure out ways to make intelligent use of the labor of the indigenous population, to develop skilled workers, to train engineers and other management men, to foster these people's initiative and prepare them for offices of ever greater responsibility. In this way they will prepare these people to take over the burden of management in the near future.

In the meantime, justice must prevail in dealings between superiors and their subordinates. Legitimate contracts should govern these employment relations, spelling out the duties involved. And no one, whatever his status may be, should be unjustly subjected to the arbitrary whim of another.

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Signs of Social Unrest

9. At the same time, social unrest has gradually spread throughout the world. The acute restlessness engulfing the poorer classes in countries that are now being industrialized has spread to other regions where agriculture is the mainstay of the economy. The farmer is painfully aware of his "wretched lot." (9)

Then there are the flagrant inequalities not merely in the enjoyment of possessions, but even more in the exercise of power. In certain regions a privileged minority enjoys the refinements of life, while the rest of the inhabitants, impoverished and disunited, "are deprived of almost all possibility of acting on their own initiative and responsibility, and often subsist in living and working conditions unworthy of the human person." (10) Cultural Conflicts

10. Moreover, traditional culture comes into conflict with the advanced techniques of modern industrialization; social structures out of tune with today's demands are threatened with extinction. For the older generation, the rigid structures of traditional culture are the necessary mainstay of one's personal and family life; they cannot be abandoned. The younger generation, on the other hand, regards them as useless obstacles, and rejects them to embrace new forms of societal life.

The conflict between generations leads to a tragic dilemma: either to preserve traditional beliefs and structures and reject social progress; or to embrace foreign technology and foreign culture, and reject ancestral traditions with their wealth of humanism. The sad fact is that we often see the older moral, spiritual and religious values give way without finding any place in the new scheme of things.

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