In his encyclical Laborem Exercens, John Paul II asserts the principle of the priority of labor over capital. The purpose of this article is to examine this principle. The conflict between labor and capital is often noted as an essential part of capitalism. There is a long tradition of assigning more significance to labor than to capital. In fact, the classical economists argued that labor determined the “value” of a good. To understand this conflict, we must first review what is capital and its role in capitalism. We will then look at John Paul II’s assertion of the principle of labor over capital, followed by a review of how economists have understood the relationship between labor and capital. Neoclassical economists dismiss labor and capital as classes, so they believe there is no conflict. We examine one neoclassical economist’s claim of a gap in the principle of the priority of labor over capital by not including finance capital in the analysis. We demonstrate that the Church’s teachings on usury answer the objections raised. We conclude with a review of the implications of the priority of labor over capital.

中文翻译：

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论劳动力优先于资本

在他的周期性Labourem Exercens中，约翰·保罗二世主张劳动优先于资本的原则。本文的目的是研究这一原理。劳资冲突通常被认为是资本主义的重要组成部分。长期以来，赋予劳动力比赋予资本更多的重要性是一种传统。实际上，古典经济学家认为，劳动决定了商品的“价值”。要理解这种冲突，我们必须首先回顾什么是资本及其在资本主义中的作用。然后，我们将研究约翰·保罗二世关于劳动力胜于资本原理的主张，然后回顾经济学家如何理解劳动力与资本之间的关系。新古典经济学家将劳动和资本视为阶级，因此他们认为没有冲突。我们在分析中不包括金融资本，从而检验了一位新古典经济学家关于劳动优先于资本原则存在差距的主张。我们证明教会关于高利贷的教义可以回答提出的反对意见。最后，我们回顾了劳动优先于资本的含义。