Evangelii gaudium 54 (“trickle-down economics”). Significant translation error...

“In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories [’trickle down economics’] which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will by itself succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world.”

It's not that this is untrue, just that it's a strawman argument. I don't know anyone who thinks this. I don't read anyone who thinks this. Pretty much most folks who are economically-sophisticated understand that capitalism actually doesn't work so well in societies that don't abide by a fundamental public morality that includes: respect for property rights; respect for contracts; respect for the rule of law; respect for individual liberties. These things put all persons in a society on an equal footing, legally, and that permits the genius and hard work of individuals to cause them to flourish and prosper.

I don't know any serious folks who think that capitalism can thrive outside of a society without a strong legal and juridical system protecting property, contracts, individual rights, etc.

It's the folks who abridge capitalism, free enterprise, by using government to enforce economic rents for government cronies, by changing the laws after the fact, by INCREASING the power of the regulatory state so that no one REALLY knows what the law is until the regulators, and then the judges have their say. The one with the most expensive lawyers, the most connected lobbyists, and the biggest slush fund wins. The guy practicing actual free market capitalism, well, he may get left out in the cold.

Increasing inequality isn't a result of red-in-the-tooth capitalists run amok, but rather than those who are already rich and powerful buy politicians and REDUCE the function of the markets, and use government to further enrich them, to create regulatory barriers to entry to markets, and to plain old steal from the public purse.

The pope's words seem to be directed at folks that don't exist, and give cover to evil-doers who actually do exist.

But Rome is blamed for this. And as for the reforms, they owe more to Cranmer who was certainly a reformer, and a correspondent of Calvin. As to the liturgy and to the government of the Church, both Cranmer and Calvin thought of themselves as the true catholics. Calvin was willing to accept bishops, as we learn by his letters to the Polish reformers, and his own order of service , as opposed to that used by his church, was not much different from Cranmer’s. Let us never confuse Calvin and Knox. Calvin’s mind was subtle.

I am not defending the pope’s words, but as I have said above, We cannot separate out a theory of capitalism from the actual practice of it. The capitalist system emerged from a particular history,our own, and probably could not have emerged from another. I also believe that modern science could only have merged from our western society, this despite the achievements of the Chinese culture. One invented, however, capitalism, like science, can be taken up by very different cultures, like for instance, Japan’s. and now China’s. Once the instrument is invented, it is no longer dependent on the inventor.

Dear RobbyS,

“We cannot separate out a theory of capitalism from the actual practice of it.”

Why not? We can recognize when the economy of a given nation more closely obtains to free markets, or when it obtains less closely. What happens in China (and even in Japan) isn't free markets, isn't really capitalism. It's a deformation of capitalism.

It's state capitalism, and in China especially, it's crony capitalism. In China, major economic projects usually have the government, via the People's Liberation Army, as a major shareholder. Imagine if the United States government owned a huge chunk of GM or Chrysler. Or the banks.

Oops. Been there. Done that. No one called it capitalism. Everyone willing to tell the truth called it corporatism, state capitalism, or even fascism or socialism. The difference is that in the US, it was somewhat unusual. In China, it's the norm.

Neither China or Japan are about free markets. In fact, what's happening in these countries, especially China, is corporatism, which is really the economic program of fascism, which is a form of socialism.

The cause of the financial problems that the pope cites is actually a form of socialism that uses some forms of capitalism - the corporation, putative private ownership of the means of production (but that is actually directed in its operation by the government), state-controlled banking. You can find many of these features in the economic system of fascist Germany, you know, the Germany of the national SOCIALISTS.

sitetest

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