I think it’s always safer to limit oneself to the words spoken (or written.) The Pope never said or suggested/implied that Hong Kong is not possible as you allege. I am certain that he understands what has happened in Hong Kong as well as we do. It is also worth noting that he spoke to the world and to the conditions in many other countries not just in the United States, Hong Kong and Singapore. All is not well in this world of ours, and our naive American style theoretical Libertarianism has not been tried anywhere any more than the ideal textbook Communism. I know from reading the paper that he is not proposing “socialism”, or any more involvement of government than we have here already in this welfare state. In the past couple of years, I had a friend, a Chinese economist scholar visiting a university here with whom I discussed for many hours various political and economic issues, and we both concluded that the US was more of a welfare state than the Communist China.
>The Pope never denied that Hong Kong could, by adopting the “trickle down theory,” experience rapid economic growth.
Looks like it’s put up or shut up time for me.
Paragraph 54. “This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts.”
“Never” … maybe that’s a translation error … but in English it means I can’t cite even one example that shows that the “trickle down theory” works.
And Hong Kong is not the exception to the rule. The rule is the more capitalist is the country, the richer it is.
Furthermore, the more capitalistic is a country, the more honest and less violent it is, the more civil liberties are enjoyed by the people, the longer is life expectancy, the cleaner is the air and water, the more generous the country is with the poor, the more intelligent are the people, and the more competitive their athletes are in Olympic sports.
I even checked out the correlation of capitalism and how and successful are their girls in international beauty pageants, and found that to be positive but insignificant.
If you will look at paragraphs 52 to 60, there are very few references to scripture or to prior encyclicals. There is a reference to Ex. 32 that - what? - proves the Aaron was a supply-side economist? There is also a quotation from St. Chrysostom, a early Doctor of the Church. I think that’s it. Two tie-ins. So, this entire section is almost entirely fresh. But, maybe I’m wrong. Check it out for yourself. I make no claim to be infallible.
Regarding St. Chrysostom, here is a short but balanced commentary of his teachings regarding the poor (which includes the very quotation cited by Pope Francis). St. Chrysostom said the rich had a moral obligation to share of their wealth to the poor; and, that forced redistribution of the wealth would be useless. Sounds like my kind of Christian. But, who is St. Chrysostom anyway? He’s not infallible. And, why should you trust me to summarize him. Check it out:
http://blog.acton.org/archives/18664-chrysostom-on-the-poor.html
Some future Pope will apologize for this attack on capitalism, as John Paul II apologized for the Pope who denied that Jupiter had moons. The wild accusations of tyranny and murder. The name-calling. And calling those who disagree, some of whom have whom the Nobel Prize in economics, calling them naive.