Role of Ethics in Creation, and Use of Wealth - Essay Example

Those who own wealth do so area under discussion to a communal mortgage, so to speak. And, in the Catholic social tradition, the lien is held by an authority senior to that of any bank. If wealth is produced by contributing with others in the application of advancing knowledge to further the common good, then its creation does not produce scarceness, but profusion. The significant scope here is contribution and instrumentation. The production of wealth ought to support contribution, not prohibiting; profusion, not scarceness.

Wealth is a tool, certainly not an end in itself. Its societal conclusion is communal justice and, "communal justice is essentially communal participation--not only access to the distribution of material goods but also to the very process of wealth creation" (Simona Beretta, pp. 137-38). According to Adam Smith, the Creation of wealth includes the four factors of production that are land, labor, capital, and organization. The ethical part related to land is whether the land or resources which are owned by the owner is fairly inherited or owned.

There shouldn't be an illegal act for obtaining the resource for the production of wealth. For example, people prepare illegal papers to show ownership of the land and claim to be the owner of such land which doesn't belong to them. This is an unethical part. Generally, labor is the mental or physical work that is done for the sake of reward. The ethical part of this factor is that the mental or physical work done to create money should be acceptable to society and its norms and values. For example, burglars do unethical physical work to create or produce money.

Ethically production of wealth includes laborers working in restaurants, shopping malls, hospitals, etc. The creation of wealth also includes capital and organization. Capital is the manmade resource that could be used by the organization to produce goods and services. Now ethics has to do much with it. The capital employed to earn profit is the right of every organization but again it should not commit such illegal actions to earn profit which are not tolerated by society. Reflection on the Catholic Tradition on Wealth Robert Kennedy, in "Wealth Creation within the Catholic Social Tradition," indicates the past of Catholic philosophy on wealth from its scriptural sources to the present encyclicals.

In this institution, wealth is evaluated ethically in light of the human profession. The resources of the earth are destined to please our desires in society and to create genuine profusion, but they can easily divert us from idols and turn out to be a nuisance to both the wealthy and the deprived. For example the production of such medicines which are off low quality and can affect the health of the consumer. This is not an ethical way to produce wealth. It takes us towards a materialistic approach and away from God.

Organizations should be careful to avoid unethical activities to create wealth.