The term ‘socialization’ in Mater et Magistra has given rise to some misunderstanding and the uses of the word can be profitably examined so that the particular sense it has in the encyclical may be better appreciated.

In general, one can distinguish several uses of the word: (i) its broader sense in Mater et Magistra; (2) a limited, economic sense used by French writers to signify the way in which property and the firm are no longer isolated but are interdependent; (3) it can be used in a positive sense as implying something morally desirable, the idea of an institution being made responsible to society so that it fulfils a task of service to the community; (4) it can be used in a variety of different ways connected with public ownership; (5) it can be used in an unfavourable sense particularly by Americans e.g. ‘socialization of agriculture’, used as another term for collectivization, or ‘socialized medicine’; (6) in sociology the term ‘socialization’ describes the way in which a child acquires habits and is ‘conditioned’ through its upbringing.

The suggestion that John XXIII in this section of the encyclical has in some way approved the welfare state should be dismissed (whether paragraph 136 gives any approval of the idea of the welfare state is a different matter). The section on socialization (paras 59 to 67) immediately follows the section on subsidiary function in which the Pope has emphasized the importance of a man’s right to be primarily responsible for his own upkeep and that of his family (para 55). The section on socialization makes no direct reference to industry so that socialization in the public ownership sense of the term is not intended.