What a shame that the “capitalism” that the pope is blasting here is really a mixed economy quite far from true economic capitalism, that is to say the private ownership of ALL the means of production (land, labor, and produced means of production, i.e., capital goods). In such a situation, if one wishes to profit, one must “serve” his fellow man by producing a good or service that satisfies a demand. Individualism and self-interest in this sense provide a “public service,” and all who voluntarily participate benefit by the exchange, whether financially, spiritually, physically, emotionally, or however else a specific action’s ends are intended to provide the actor satisfaction. Still hanging “free market” nomenclature on a system riddled with interventions, and blaming that so-called “free market” when the interventions, no matter how well-intentioned, fail to deliver a more just and prosperous society. This opinion is confirmed by the facts of logic and sound economic reasoning.
Some people have made similar arguments for slavery, but the admittedly unfinished abolition of slavery has not impoverished everyone; it’s up to you to show that the abolition of capitalism would do so.
I’ll grant you that this pope seems a lot better than the Nazi he replaced, and yeah, he’s stuck with a lot of shit because the church he’s heading is rotten to the core. Silk purse, sow’s ear, I guess.
But kudos to him for trying a bit, I suppose. He could be a lot worse.
Look into the distribution of wealth in Russia, pre and post Soviet takeover. Sure, the czars were far from capitalist, and I really don’t think the pope is advocating Soviet-style communism, but there is a fair look at an extreme case that you could say is a full abolition of all capitalistic economic characteristics (excepting of course the pricing and trade information from abroad that planners had to rely on in order to be able to produce anything at all). How many millions of poverty-stricken Russians were there before and after? There were, of course, some very wealthy Russians, but their number was miniscule compared to the masses who lost out (to say the very least) in the transaction.
Historically, capitalism has referred to the power of the owners of capital. And as we see from public-private cronyism, intellectual robbery, etc. political influence can bring profits, and political influence can be defined as property and capital. So at present it is the power of the owners of power, and markets are sometimes a cover, sometimes an inconvenience to the powerful.
Yes, your opinion is true because it was written in the holy scripture of Ayn Rand and Mises who were perfect minds and bastions of the one Truth derived from pure infallible reason. And of course the more the ideas fail in practice, the more you fall back to the Marxist style of reasoning of explaining more ideological purity and extremism is needed. The ideas are perfect and can’t fail - only people trying to implement them can fail.
Capitalism doesn’t “create” anything either, it’s a system of distribution. Potential monetary profit is an incentive for people to create food/clothing/shelter. But moral suasion and a ticket through the Pearly Gates are incentives also. A priest is no more of a parasite than a hedge fund manager is, he’s just not as good at it.
State capitalism is capitalism.
Yes. That would clearly be only fair…
Oh good grief, where’d you lot come from? Yeesh.
Errrr, you do realize that Rand and Mises disagreed viciously on capitalism?
Might I ask for an example of when how real free-market ideas have failed? For my part, I’m still looking for a point when a true free market has actually existed. The issue is not one of “ideological purity,” it’s about recognizing the sort of activities that cause distortions in the economy and realizing how detrimental these distortions are to the long-term health of that economy, and therefore the prosperity of all who participate in it. Ideological purity is worthless to argue about at any point of the spectrum – we live in an impure, imperfect, dare I say Fallen(?) world, no true ideal can be realized in practice on any meaningful scale. That’s the nature of reality. My primary concern is the blame that is so consistently laid on capitalism, when it is crony-ism and interventionism that are the cause of the problem.
Actually, the Catholic Church is a massive institution with very disparate orders, some of whom support the conservative, wealthy status quo, but many of which (and many of the largest) go to the darkest, poorest and most violent places on earth to care for the needy and sick. The Jesuit order, to which Pope Francis belongs, has lost many priests defending the poor against Reagan’s death squads in Central America, just for one of thousands of stories. And if you think the priests and nuns “in the trenches” don’t provide birth control/family planning and support services to those they care for you would be very wrong. The Church is massive, and Pope Francis is a brilliant and quiet man who is carefully weeding out and removing the enemies of the poor from the Vatican and the sickest diocese – for example he just remove the “Bishop of Bling” from Germany who spent over $40 million of church money renovating his church and apartments. Francis has turned Bling’s fancy church into a homeless shelter. He has also removed the entire corrupt Curia (those who control the money) and is divesting the Church’s investments from corrupt and criminal endeavors. He is also removing the Cardinals and Bishops that covered up and protected priests in the pedophilia scandals, and those who live as if the church is their personal piggy bank, and replacing them with modest and decent men who understand that the church hierarchy exists to serve the laity, not to centralize power. He cannot ordain women priests because of the work done by JPII, but he has hinted at ordaining women Cardinals, and is basically overturning the authority of the church over the people and creating councils of non-ordained people to oversee and direct the church’s missions.
In other words in the few short months he has been in office, he has entirely overturned the church hierarchy and is redirecting its mission to the mission envisioned by Pope John in Vatican II, which was cut short by John’s untimely death. Francis is a deeply humble and spiritual man who himself admits his fallibility (another first for popes) and failings.
I am not Catholic, but my wife is, and she has been estranged from the church for years despite having been taught by deeply humble and fierce defenders of the poor in the Jesuit and other orders (many of the nuns and Franciscans, as well as others). Nuns run the world’s foremost charity for the poor called “Catholic Relief Services” which is so efficient that 93% of its donations make it directly to helping people. CRS is everywhere there is something horrible happening in the world. Without them and the rest of the church’s truly good works fighting for the poor and indigent this world would be a much darker place.
I don’t think most Americans have any idea of the true diversity of the Catholic church. And as most know, any institution that large is going to have negative as well as positive works. Francis is doing his best to break apart the negative and strengthen the positive after decades of conservative/capitalist-supporting papal rule. This speech is just a tiny part of what he is doing.
I’m a non-practicing Jew, who gave up his religion largely because it seemed to have little connection to the real needs of people. Rabbis preach good works but I don’t find much real charity in the Jewish faith these days. I find Francis to be a ray of hope in a sea of neoliberal monstrosity decimating our world. One thing anyone who truly cares for the poor and common people cannot do is ignore allies. Pope Francis is a true ally of the good. I am still non-religious (I see myself as an agnostic) but I can’t help but think that this is a truly dark era for the common people of the world: the plutocracy has promoted the ideal of selfishness and greed and twisted morality in such a way that many feel they are completely justified in their pursuit of personal wealth and power. This philosophy is neoliberalism, and its what allows a man like President Obama to protect and coddle the criminal bankers, showering them with trillions of taxpayer dollars while pushing to impoverish poor senior citizens with social security cuts and forcing us to pay very high prices for health “insurance” that doesn’t even kick in until we’ve spend thousands of dollars out of pocket with his health care “reform”. This is the ideology that has ensured that 93% of income gains over the past 5 years have gone to the top 1%. This is the ideology that insists there is little role for government in promoting the common good (indeed it tries to deny the very existence of the common good). This ideology is rotten to its core, and Francis knows this. We need his help if we are every going to triumph over this ideology. Sure, he has not condemned the conservative sections of the church as I’d like him to, but we have to remember that it is a big church and they are his people as well. He has done much to tamp down their sick fetishistic focus on abortion and homosexuality (he even met with US cardinals and told them to cut that shit out. seriously. ), and we are still in the first year of his papacy. There is more I could say but I’ve gone on too long already. Cheers to all and Happy Thansgiving!
The environment. Food safety. Safety of medicine and medical treatments. Regulatory agencies don’t appear in a vacuum, they are responses to market failures.
OMFG, who the hell could read the teachings of Jesus and figure they direct us to pursue personal wealth?
Of course. You do realize I was making fun of someone? Libertarians are perfect mirror-marxists so of course they have their schisms too.
JPII basically made it church law to refuse the ordination of women. It will be very hard for Francis to overturn that. He has already placed women in powerful positions overseeing church activities though, and has said that while JPII’s “papal bull” against women priests doesn’t allow for their ordination as priests, it said nothing about women Cardinals ;).
He also has embraced homosexuals and instructs regularly that they are gods children as well and must be protected and embraced. He even placed a very effective forensic accountant in charge of overseeing the church’s accounts who is a homosexual. Francis is leading by example in areas where he can’t outright denounce and reverse church law.
He has done much more as well, especially with regard to the pedophilia horrors, much of which is internal and goes unnoticed by the media. Give him a chance, Francis is on the right side of history.
All issues in which a degree of moral hazard existed due to intervention (protection of polluting or slipshod quality controlling firms/industries by those with political influence). Without those “responses,” would we all be neck-deep in refuse and suffering from e. coli and hoof-in-mouth? I highly doubt it… what firm, assuming that it cannot rely on a bailout (a real free market characteristic), stands to exist (i.e., turn a profit) for very long if it squanders its environmental resources or poisons its clientele? Why do regulatory agencies have any more wisdom or reason to be vigilant regarding these issues than the people who stand to lose their companies and their reputations with their customers if they fail to take account of them? Indeed, the agency will probably get MORE funding if something slips through… clearly they don’t have the resources to keep us all properly safe, you see. Sorry, not responses to market failure… responses to previous interventionary failure. Or, responses to the lobbying of very large companies that can gain a lot financially if they can get sanctioned to help “solve a problem.” Besides, how many food safety scares have there been in, say, the last decade? Last I checked, they all passed regulatory muster before the funny food hit shelves. Anyway, off to enjoy a little apple pie – Happy Thanksgiving, all!
Yes cronyism is to blame. But intervention is necessary in order to maintain a free market if you define free as fair competition. Unregulated markets inevitably tend towards domination by a few who gain unfair advantage in various ways. In order to limit that advantage requires intervention by government regulation. The problem comes when regulation is ignored, gutted and distorted. That is our biggest problem market-wise currently: the regulators have been coopted and made toothless by those who control the markets. The result is monopoly, cronyism and looting. Free markets that exist free of regulation and domination are not an ideal, they are a myth.
I know right? 30 minutes ago the Bat signal went off at Capitalism Defence Headquarters, and teams have been dispatched throughout the interwebs.
