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Iād take his words more seriously if Francis shuts down the so-called āInstitute for Works of Religionā, better and more accurately known as the Vatican Bank. Capitalism is big business at the Vatican.
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It isnāt just big, itās crazy shady. Itās been a while since Roberto Calvi; but given that the details of that case read like an Italian-language case of delusional paranoia, with a colorful cast of characters too implausibly villainous for a Bond film, nothing short of wholesale incineration could possibly have cleaned the operation up, not that there has been too much of a rush to tryā¦
Errā¦ Capitalism was abolished in Eastern Europe and most of Asia. Pretty big experiment by any standards Iād have thought.
Hereās a fun thought experiment:
The Pope issues a statement asking his followers and fellow Christians to refrain from holiday shopping this year as a means of protesting the current state of capitalism and the exploitation of the holiday.
I have no idea what would happen but the thinking about it makes me smile
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Nah - you make it sound like the two two extremes are all that exists, except that socialism is now pushing up daisies?
I think youāre slightly missing the point am80256 tries to make. Itās not about seeing socialism as a viable alternative for the people but as a deterrent for capitalism.
Socialism at that time was an alternative and therefore capitalism had to compete for the minds of the people. The people in power had to reign in the excesses of capitalism, give people a decent living wage and affordable education for their children or otherwise they wouldāve risked a drift towards socialism or even a revolution ā and the USSR wouldāve provided funding, weapons and training. Look at the McCarthy era to see how serious they took that threat.
Now with the socialist block gone, who challenges capitalism? Look how shameless the 1% plunder the country, safe in the knowledge that thereās no USSR to provide support for dissidents. And before you get me wrong: No, Iām not advocating socialism or communism, a working democracy would do fine, thank you.
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From what I gather, Francis is much more savvy about internal politics, and is careful not to piss off the hidebound old guard too much. The more perceptive among them may realise that their time is up, but he has them by the unmentionables, so to speak. They canāt break off from the church when one of their most important arguments has been unwavering loyalty to the pope.
Based upon what I read in German press as well, his position could also be summed up as āwe are not going to change this because we have other, more pressing problems. Focus elsewhere, please, this is just not a high priority!ā
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The alternative to the war on drugs is regulation. The problem is that ācontrolled substancesā are in no way controlled, theyāre just outlawed.
Iām sure there are plenty of conservatives that agree with informed drug policy.
So whatās the point youāre trying to make?
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Something something, moonbat, donāt blame the money?
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I misread the title - I thought it said āPope blasts Catholicismā. Disappointed when I got here 
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Damn liberals, always thinking!
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Ha, I always hope that the Church is exactly like Father Ted - in that world, that would have been the headline.
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Actually, thatās a result of technological progress. The fact that many, many more people do not have access to these niceties, and even more basic things like food and water is, in fact, the result of capitalism run amok.
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Holy shit, all that stuff about Pope Francis is incredible news!
I truly never wouldāve thought Iād consider the Pope an ally. Iād even forgotten there was a new once since the Emperorā¦
And this oneās admittedly fallible! Sounds like heās cut from the same cloth as Father Bob.
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Surely the nail would pull through his hand before the beam of the cross broke?
What? Feudalism was abolished, most of these areas had never been capitalist, and then state capitalism was imposed. Although it had more state monopolies than crony monopolies, the Soviet changeover from feudalism to capitalism had a lot in common with the British changeover in the era of enclosure, combination acts, and certificates of settlement.
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Call it what you want. The fact is, before WW2, at least in Eastern Europe, you could start a business and reap the rewards. Shortly after WW2, you couldnāt. Iād call that abolition of Capitalism, but I can see why you are reluctant to do so.
Iād like to agree with you, but the forging of the modern capitalist world itself was quite violent and bloody, and involved nasty things like slave labor, impoverishment of the peasantry, and the warping of governments to serve the needs of the few, well before the neo-liberal period. Think about the what the populist and progressives were opposing for example. I do think itās time to ask if exploitation is a bug of capitalism or a core feature. Even the supposedly less exploitative New Deal Keynsianism rested in part on givnig a leg up to some but not others - in order to get it past southern dems, they had to make sure that black southerners, or at least most of them, were left out. While we expanded the middle class, we made sure that middle class was white (even if they did expand that definition of white to include most European ethnic groups and Jews). Redlining is just as much a part of the New Deal order as was the GI bill.
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It has when itās been effective controlled by government. The first waves of capitalism tended to destroy the means of protection for the peasantry. See for example Mike Davisā Late Victorian Holocaust, where the English moved grain out of areas hit by famine, when previously, before colonization, stores of grain held by landlords would be used to feed people during famine (or theyād risk riots). So, not always so. When it expanded and raised people out of poverty, it did so because of pressure from below, not because the rich willingly shared their wealth.
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