Louis-Joseph Lebret was a French Dominican

Dominican Order

The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

 social scientist and philosopher who sought to "put the economy at the service of man" and advanced the notion of the "human economy". He was also responsible for introducing concern for development to the Catholic Church. He was aware of the challenges posed to the Church and the Western by underdevelopment and pushed the argument for an increased solidarity with poor countries. He was invovlved with the drafting the documents Gaudium et Spes

Gaudium et Spes

Gaudium et Spes , the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, was one of the four Apostolic Constitutions resulting from the Second Vatican Council...

, an influential voice in the crafting of Populorum Progressio

Populorum Progressio

Populorum progressio is the encyclical written by Pope Paul VI on the topic of "the development of peoples" and that the economy of the world should serve mankind and not just the few...

and a founder of the Economy and Humanism movement.

Goulet

Denis Goulet

Denis Goulet was a human development theorist and a founder of work on development ethics as an independent field of study. Goulet's definition of Development Ethics is that it is a field that examines the ethical and value questions related to development theory, planning, and practice.Goulet was...

singles out Lebret as an early voice in defense of ethically-based development and reports his definition of development as

the series of transitions, for a given population and all the population groups which comprise it, from a less human to a more human pattern of existence, at the speediest rhythm possible, at the lowest possible cost, while taking into account all the bonds of solidarity which exist (or ought to exist) amongst these populations and population groups.

Goulet argues that Lebret's use of the normative expressions - more or less human should be understood in terms of Lebret's distinction between to have more (plus avoir) and to be more (plus être).

Goulet argues that Lebret left legacy with five lessons for the increasingly globalised world:

1. that development decision-makers must study the expressed needs of populations in whose benefit they profess to work
2. the need to link micro issues to macro questions
3. the priority of needs over wants or preferences (expressed by effective purchasing power).
4. that development is multidimensional: embracing economic, social, political, cultural, environmental, and spiritual components of human well-being.
5. the need to globalize solidarity.

Other sources

Garreau (Lydie), Louis-Joseph Lebret, 1897-1966. Un homme traqué, Villeurbanne, Éditions Golias, 1997.

Houée (Paul), Louis Joseph Lebret. Un éveilleur d’humanité, Paris, Éditions de l’Atelier, 1997.

Lavigne (Jean-Claude), Les écrits spirituel du Père Lebret, Paris, Cerf et Éditions de l’Atelier, 1996.

Malley (François), Le Père Lebret: L'économie au service des hommes, Paris, Cerf, 1968.

Becker (Charles), Missehougbe (Pierre-Paul) et Verdin (Philippe), Le père Lebret, un dominicain économiste au Sénégal (1957 - 1963), Paris, Karthala, 2007