LABOREM CONTEMPLATIVUS: WORK AS CONTEMPLATION AMIDST ECONOMIC PROGRESSION.

In the field of economics, work is typically considered a form of barter for wages. This perspective reduces work to a mere activity serving profit, productivity, and, ultimately, the economy. Such a reduction also diminishes the person performing the work, treating them merely as a "cog in a machine." To fully appreciate its true meaning, work must be seen as labor serving temporal goods and as a pathway to contemplation. This paper argues that personalist economics is necessary to achieve contemplative labor, affirming the totality of the person--as composed of both body and soul--involved in work and economic activity. Consequently, both the person and their work are irreducible to mere profit, productivity, and economic activity. In this light, the paper seeks to answer the question: Is it possible to retrieve the meaning of the person in today's economy through labor? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]