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Back12/12/2025

Advent reflections: money and happiness

Mandiner spoke with Sarolta Laura Baritz, economist, Corvinus University lecturer and Dominican sister. How capable are economic actors of behaving in a way that reflects a people-centred outlook? What kind of economic link might exist between human relationships and happiness?
Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem

As she explains in one of her answers, she sees an encouraging shift in how not only economic actors but also Corvinus students have started to think about the relationship between profit and the common good. 

I’ve been working on people-centred economics based on the Church’s social teaching for twenty to twenty-five years, and I’ve been in touch with many companies, economists, directors and senior executives. Speaking with them, I see that business leaders and market players are now far more aware that instead of profit maximisation, a people-centred approach is something to aim for, where profit is a tool for achieving value-based goals and serving the common good. Under the former approach we often subordinate every other aim to profit, whether moral, environmental or human. Many businesses still think in terms of profit maximisation, but more and more recognise that they should be doing more for the common good. In my book I interviewed large, successful, market-leading companies, such as the Danish Grundfos group, which manufactures pumps and works in water technology, has twenty thousand employees and operates in sixty countries. Years ago they already stated that tackling climate and water issues and helping communities are economic goals for them, and profit is a means to that end. There is also an American outdoor clothing company, Patagonia, which channels most of its profit towards the benefit of the planet. Today there is a growing chance of creating a fairer economic system, in contrast with the trends that dominated the 1970s and 80s. Students at Corvinus are also more open to these ideas now than they were a decade ago.” 

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