Social question

The term social question denotes the opposition between capital and labour[2][3][4] (also described as the gap between rich and poor).

It was characterized by a rapidly growing population that created a wage-earning proletariat, peasant liberation, rural exodus and urbanisation, the decline of the old trades and a gradual emergence of the factory industry.

"[5][6][7] The core problems of the social question were pauperism and the existential insecurity of peasants, rural servants, artisans, laborers, and small clerks.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto trying to give an answer to the problems resulting from the industrialisation.

In 1991, Pope John Paul II pointed out in the encyclical Centesimus annus, that "it is still possible today, as in the days of Rerum novarum, to speak of inhuman exploitation.

As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.