Unemployment and the Principle of Solidarity

This paper focusses on the problems of unemployment in industrial societies and their interpretation by using a theoretical scheme (a "pure production model"), which is alternative to the one at the basis of dominant economic theory. The author reflects, among other things, on how and where to draw a distinction - and thus a separation - between that field of analysis in which economic theory is autonomous and can therefore claim a right to no outside interference, and the realm in which economic investigations are not only open to contributions from the outside (for example in the form of the Church's pronouncements on social matters), but are actually in need of such outside contributions. It is shown that this distinction emerges very clearly within the theoretical scheme that is here referred to (the "pure production model"), while it creates difficulties in the more traditional scheme of dominant economic theory.