Welfaer state human dignity and the common good

Abstract

With a new crisis at the gates, resulting in a sharp rise in unemployment, inequality and precarity, we hear recurrent calls for a Welfare State. In this context, I reflect upon the juridical concept of equality and the nature of social rights, as well as (appealing to human dignity) the material means that need to be allocated to vulnerable members of the community in order to guarantee their full status as citizens, and to introduce an acceptable degree of equality which, in turn, may provide the community with an adequate level of
social cohesion.
Likewise, this paper vindicates the Social Doctrine of the Church (SDC) which –since
the encyclical letter Caritas in veritate– defines the social question as belonging to the
anthropological realm. In this sense, the SDC actualizes the experience of Christian fraternity in terms of engagement and action, aimed to overcome injustices and inequalities in
contemporary globalised societies, while linking these practices with the SDC’s doctrinal
content.