{"id":9044,"date":"2014-01-26T17:59:27","date_gmt":"2014-01-26T17:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=9044"},"modified":"2014-01-26T17:59:27","modified_gmt":"2014-01-26T17:59:27","slug":"on-papal-economics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/on-papal-economics\/","title":{"rendered":"On Papal Economics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"OLYMPUS<\/a>Cross-posted on Ricochet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Over at City Journal<\/em>, Guy Sorman has something to say<\/a> about the pope\u2019s demagogic attack (although he\u2019s too polite to describe it as such) on the free market:<\/p>\n

In his December apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium <\/em>(The Joy of the Gospel), Pope Francis had harsh words for \u201cthe new invisible tyranny of the market.\u201d This familiar denunciation of capitalism brings to mind a famous text by the French economist Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bastiat, published in 1848. Addressing the socialists of his day, who were already attacking the market economy, Bastiat replied that it is easier to identify and criticize what one can see (poverty or inequality) than it is to discern what one cannot see: the relentless economic growth that the market engenders.<\/p>\n

With all due respect to the pope, he has fallen into a rhetorical trap. In the name of the poor, to whom his life as a priest has been devoted, he denounces the visible and ignores the invisible\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s too kind. The pope did not fall into \u201crhetorical trap\u201d. Francis is a smart man and he knew exactly what he was doing. And no, that says nothing good about him.<\/p>\n

Then Sorman throws in some history:<\/p>\n

One of Francis\u2019s predecessors, John Paul II, also pronounced on political economy. When Poland was freed from the Soviet empire in 1990, John Paul tried to prevent his country from slipping into capitalism, which he then abhorred as much as does Pope Francis. John Paul II believed sincerely in a Third Way, neither socialist nor capitalist, which would lead Poles from poverty to prosperity and social justice. Lech Wa\u0142esa, who had moved from union leadership to the presidency of the Polish republic, was singing the same tune. Post-Communist Poland soon sank deeper into poverty. John Paul II, honestly concerned, then took some lessons in economics. He chose as one of his mentors Michel Camdessus, then managing director of the International Monetary Fund and a fervent Catholic. Camdessus helped convince him that the market economy was only a mechanism, which, however imperfect, was the most effective means ever discovered for reducing mass poverty. Poland, still Catholic and converted to capitalism, is now the only European country to have escaped the crisis of 2008. Average income there has doubled over 20 years.<\/p>\n

Camdessus was right: we should judge the market economy by its results, not by its values. Thus, Pope Francis is mistaken when he claims, in Evangelii Gaudium<\/em>, that \u201cthe market is held up as divine.\u201d I know no one who considers the market \u201cdivine\u201d\u2014certainly neither economists nor entrepreneurs. Similarly, when Pope Francis recommends \u201creturning the economy to the service of human beings,\u201d we can only agree, while observing that the market never functions except in the service of human beings. What human beings do with the products of growth, as well as how they distribute them, is an entirely different matter, and the Church has a legitimate interest in employing moral suasion in this area.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, as the economic crisis deepens<\/a> in his native Argentina, the pope has an excellent opportunity to see where the sort of economic policies and attitudes that he advocates tend to lead. It will be interesting to hear what, if anything, he has to say about it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted on Ricochet. Over at City Journal, Guy Sorman has something to say about the pope\u2019s demagogic attack (although he\u2019s too polite to describe it as such) on the free market: In his December apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[609,678,998,1056,403],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9044"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9046,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9044\/revisions\/9046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}