'I'm no Marxist', Pope Francis tells conservative critics

[Bubba_Switzler]

Perhaps you only fear he doesn’t…

I’m more willing to wait and see whatever else the Pope says than I am to immediately suppose he’s hostile to the American economic system, or at least that system as it was intended.

Let’s hope you are right and I am wrong.

But remember also that Pope Francis has not yet issued an encyclical. It may well be that he’s willing to let his leftist bias shine through in casual sermons but will be more circumspect in formal writing.

What has me worried is that he’s got Marxist, atheist, and perhaps even homosexual friends but no friends who understand free market capitalism. But the upside is that by all indications Pope Francis is a humble man. What might have gone unremarked in Peronist Argentina has obviously attracted some fierce criticism worldwide. Perhaps he will call up someone on the phone who disagrees with his characterization of free market capitalism and listen to what they really believe and why.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Possible. And it’s possible that Pope Francis is unconcerned with how his words are used by Satan’s minions but he was responding to Rush Limbaugh, albeit on the invitation of journalists. The Vatican translators are within his control and he certainly had the opportunity to clarify himself if he had been misunderstood or misintepreted by others due to faulty translation.

The simpler explanation, I think, is that Pope Francis sees capitalism through the eyes of a leftist.

And he’s not alone. I was listening to Catholic Radio this morning and some bishop was commenting the budget discussions. He said something that went like this: The Church has a social teaching. Society is ordered by politics. Politics is the domain of government. Therefore government is the institution responsible for the care of the poor.

Now you and I both know that’s not exactly Church teaching but it’s a very common line of thought.

I would readily agree that there are a lot of leftist ideologues among the clergy and the church bureaucracy. It troubles me no small amount that they don’t seem to get purged, though one might indulge in some optimism considering that the younger clergy and new orders of nuns are not into the American version of Liberation Theology as so many of the older ones were and are.

This recent debate about Pope Francis somewhat reminds me of my father’s struggle with Vatican II. A lot of his friends were very traditionalist, and a number of them went over to SSPX. Some of them greatly encouraged him to go with SSPX and, indeed, a lot of what they said made a lot of sense. But my father didn’t do it. He bridled and chafed at some of the things that were being “interpreted” into Vatican II documents, and absolutely despised the ICEL. He wondered why the Pope didn’t or couldn’t control all of that. But he wouldn’t go against the Pope for SSPX. And I won’t do it either, for whatever kind of American rebellion is brewing among some.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

And I won’t do it either, for whatever kind of American rebellion is brewing among some.

I don’t think “rebellion” is the right characterization. I, for one, am disagreeing with him as I undertstand him at the moment. Maybe it was the translator. Maybe he’s just being provocative. Maybe he’s being sloppy to convey a deeper point.

Like you I will wait and see but in the mean time I will argue as I struggle to understand him.

 

[Ridgerunner]

. Perhaps he will call up someone on the phone who disagrees with his characterization of free market capitalism and listen to what they really believe and why.

But what does anybody mean by “free market capitalism”? For some, it means absolutely unbridled free markets governed only by a minimal set of black letter laws. For some, it means what we had 50 years ago. For some it means what we have now.

But I can’t say this country has ever really had total “free market capitalism”. For goodness sake, as I sit here typing this, I am sitting on land that was given to the railroad by the government for free. The railroad sold it to settlers for little, in order to induce them to come and farm and open shops and engage in shipping freight.

In alternate sections here, the government gave it away to people who would build a house on it and enclose it and farm it. That was a very long time ago, and nobody seems to think it was “Marxism”.

My mother attended a land grant teachers’ college where tuition was free because the state needed teachers. I attended a Catholic college, but I could have gone to a state college which, back then, guaranteed admission and tuition to anybody who had graduated from a high school in the state. Nobody called that “Marxist”. That was just good old America.

As Popes after Pope Leo XIII said, times change and productive assets change, and yet all of them have encouraged the individual and family acquisition of productive, inheritable assets. All condemned Marxism.

We are now in an era in which it seems the political game is Alinskyism…buying votes in the middle class with middle class welfare. Thus “Cash for Clunkers”. At the same time, we see government loaning millions to Petrobras to drill for oil off Brazil right after George Soros invested heavily in that company, while telling the elderly in South Dakota that their utility bills have to “skyrocket” because of fossil fuels. There are lots of examples like that.

The Keystone pipeline can’t be built because Warren Buffett profits from moving the oil by rail instead. No dummy that Buffett. He bought Burlington Northern knowing full well that the pipeline would never be built while Obama is in power. And I can see immensely long Burlington Northern trains hauling oil to refineries in (I think) Louisiana, that very same railroad to which the government gave the land long ago so settlers could acquire farms for little. Something is wrong with this picture.

Does anybody really think that making George Soros or Warren Buffett wealthier somehow benefits this country, particularly when it costs others jobs and misery?

Meanwhile, those on SSI depend on food banks. Good that we have them. Good that we have some rich people with consciences, and we do.

Not that I care whether Soros or Gates or Buffet are rich. I don’t. But I do care that it’s terribly difficult now for people, especially young people, to acquire much of anything in the way of assets, and I particularly do if any part of the cause of the difficulties young people are having is due to the government’s feeding its contributing buddies. And I firmly believe it’s so.

But that’s not “free market capitalism” in a pure sense, is it? It’s only what we have and call it “free market capitalism”.

But is there a role, different now, of course, for “the system” to encourage wealth acquisition like the gifts of land to the railroads and to homesteaders, and the land grant college system? Can I define it; the proper role of government in encouraging (as the popes have) the individual and family acquisition of productive, inheritable assets?

Not well. In any event, that’s another story, isnt’ it?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Got to go now. Be of good cheer!

 

[Robert_Bay]

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[Bubba_Switzler]

But what does anybody mean by “free market capitalism”? For some, it means absolutely unbridled free markets governed only by a minimal set of black letter laws. For some, it means what we had 50 years ago. For some it means what we have now.

But I can’t say this country has ever really had total “free market capitalism”.

This is part of the probelm. I would have to go back to EG for quotes but it seemed quite clear to me that Pope Francis was clear on free market capitalism as an ideal vs. practice though many who ran with his words were not. The problem is that there is ideal of free market capitalism that I am aware of that fits what he was criticizing. In fact, with all the qualifiers that he had added it’s hard to escape the impression that he was deliberately setting up a straw man. If he had merely attributed one recognized school to everyone I would be less concerned.

For goodness sake, as I sit here typing this, I am sitting on land that was given to the railroad by the government for free. The railroad sold it to settlers for little, in order to induce them to come and farm and open shops and engage in shipping freight.

In alternate sections here, the government gave it away to people who would build a house on it and enclose it and farm it. That was a very long time ago, and nobody seems to think it was “Marxism”.

Nobody calls that Marxism because it was not the aim, nor the effect, to help some by taking from others. (Let’s ignore that the land was taken from Native Americans for the moment, they were not US citizens.) The policy was designed to encourage settlement and it was a reward to those who were willing to take the risks.

My mother attended a land grant teachers’ college where tuition was free because the state needed teachers. I attended a Catholic college, but I could have gone to a state college which, back then, guaranteed admission and tuition to anybody who had graduated from a high school in the state. Nobody called that “Marxist”. That was just good old America.

As Popes after Pope Leo XIII said, times change and productive assets change, and yet all of them have encouraged the individual and family acquisition of productive, inheritable assets. All condemned Marxism.

We are now in an era in which it seems the political game is Alinskyism…buying votes in the middle class with middle class welfare. Thus “Cash for Clunkers”. At the same time, we see government loaning millions to Petrobras to drill for oil off Brazil right after George Soros invested heavily in that company, while telling the elderly in South Dakota that their utility bills have to “skyrocket” because of fossil fuels. There are lots of examples like that.

This is part of what concerns me. “Marxism” is really not the right description though obviously those on the left still carry the torch. The probem today is probably more accurately called statism or corporatism. Whatever it is, we may be witnessing the reducio ad absurdum.

The Keystone pipeline can’t be built because Warren Buffett profits from moving the oil by rail instead. No dummy that Buffett. He bought Burlington Northern knowing full well that the pipeline would never be built while Obama is in power.

Does anybody really think that making George Soros or Warren Buffett wealthier somehow benefits this country, particularly when it costs others jobs and misery?

Meanwhile, those on SSI depend on food banks. Good that we have them. Good that we have some rich people with consciences, and we do.

Not that I care whether Soros or Gates or Buffet are rich. I don’t. But I do care that it’s terribly difficult now for people, especially young people, to acquire much of anything in the way of assets, and I particularly do if any part of the cause of the difficulties young people are having is due to the government’s feeding its contributing buddies. And I firmly believe it’s so.

But that’s not “free market capitalism” in a pure sense, is it? It’s only what we have and call it “free market capitalism”.

But is there a role, different now, of course, for “the system” to encourage wealth acquisition like the gifts of land to the railroads and to homesteaders, and the land grant college system? Can I define it; the proper role of government in encouraging (as the popes have) the individual and family acquisition of productive, inheritable assets?

Not well. In any event, that’s another story, isnt’ it?

One thing that I think you are overlooking is the rise of the “Third World”. It’s not just China and India, though they are huge, but virtually the entire world outside of Africa. They are getting plugged into the global economy. It will not be smooth, and it will often increase local inequality worse while reducing it internationally, but it is a big change and one that the Church ought to be involved in.

 

[SuperLuigi]

That sounds more like a HUMAN affliction as common and as generalized as sin itself: grab all I can and fight to keep it at any cost.

It is, and I’ve noted it numerous times among conservatives, but it’s important to determine motives sin some cases too.

It’s just been my observation in talking to those folks in general that they don’t seem to think they’ll be making sacrifices; it comes from an attitude of them supporting whomever will give them the most and then building up, well, excuses around that.

As Catholics, we should not have that kind of mentality.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Who exactly promised “that when the glass was full, it would overflow, benefitting the poor”? Who is presenting this as free market capitalism?

That’s the problem. Clarification is needed.

 

[SuperLuigi]

As a whole I don’t think we benefit the best although the drug trafficking increase in Mexico is a result of 9/11 and airplane standards changing in and out of the US but US corporations benefit big time at the expense of poor people, the American people not standing up for justice, to me, makes us just as guilty. Our clothes and household items are cheap at the expense of human labor that our country would most likely outlaw and that we would never subject ourselves to.

People have the option of avoiding those products and under Catholic morality intention plays a big role.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Originally Posted by seekerz View Post
That sounds more like a HUMAN affliction as common and as generalized as sin itself: grab all I can and fight to keep it at any cost.

I really don’t think most people think like that, except on Black Friday.

Personal selfishness is not confined to any one particular ideology, and we as Catholics should be wary of our motives. Our special graces from God and knowledge of the Truth demand higher standards for all of us.

 

[Darryl1958]

I wonder if anyone has asked Pope Francis if he has met any anarcho-capitalists and whether they are good people too.

In spite of the fact that Marxists have killed more people and committed more genocides because of their ideology than any other group in history, including fascists, it is still not politically incorrect for a major world leader to praise Marxists for being essentially good people.
I imagine fascists and racists find the time to dote on their children and scratch their pets behind their ears, but this is a social price to be paid if ever any major world leader would go out on a limb and praise some of them for being essentially nice people.

 

[Ridgerunner]

One thing that I think you are overlooking is the rise of the “Third World”. It’s not just China and India, though they are huge, but virtually the entire world outside of Africa. They are getting plugged into the global economy. It will not be smooth, and it will often increase local inequality worse while reducing it internationally, but it is a big change and one that the Church ought to be involved in.

I am sometimes afflicted by what I think of as the “obligatory second thought”. “A” is correct, and yet “B” must be considered.

We all know working conditions in the third world are terrible. But we have to remember they were also terrible in the First World for a long time. Did that have to be? Did it serve any useful purpose?

In the development of a national economy, I understand, certain things are needed. In many, there needs to be an agricultural surplus. In many, there needs to be industry and the cities to accommodate it. There needs to be infrastructure to support both.

Perhaps most of all, there needs to be capital. Without the “capital” of an extra haunch of meat to trade for spear points, the ancient man could not tip his spear and get another haunch of meat. It’s interesting that, since the government has kept records on it, capital’s contribution to GDP is always about 1/3 of the whole. The machinist can’t produce goods without the machine,and somebody has to buy the machine.

So, with the terrible wages in, say, Bangladesh, does any capital get accumulated? When people move out of the starving countryside to take jobs that pay (however little) cash, what happens? Does capital accumulate, however little at a time it may be? Do bigger farmers move in and take over the 1/4 acre plots new industrial workers have left, and produce more than subsistence? Is that process as a whole somehow necessary, however miserable it may seem to us? How do Bangladeshis view it?

The Bolsheviks tried to force the process, as we know, emptying the countryside by confiscation and murder and slavery. Slave labor built the Bratsk High Dam and the aluminum plants that ran on the electricity produced. Workers in the plants barely eked out subsistence while slave-driving Chekists in leather overcoats lived well. All in all a miserable show, but we have to admit it worked in capital accumulation of a sort. Communism, as we know, consumed all capital and wasted much of it, perhaps most of it. That was one of its great failings, though not its greatest. Is life in Bangladesh more miserable than all of that, or do those workers have a trifling bit of money in the bank or, as in India, in the form of those silver bracelets on their womens’ arms that really represent savings, not cosmetic effect?

So, when we look at something like the factory collapses in Bangladesh, we think we must do something about it. Well, perhaps so, but perhaps the workers, being free men and women, need to do that “something” themselves, which they seem to have done at least to some degree. Can prosperity and decent working conditions really be imposed from outside, or even from inside by government fiat? Or is there a very bumpy process of capital accumulation that must somehow happen organically? Can we, by boycotting the products they make, (as some urge) somehow fix the situation, or would the Bangladeshis prefer that we leave it alone lest we, not understanding the economics of it, cause them to lose their employment entirely and thus their chance for a better tomorrow? One thing we do know; if those people are able to save anything at all, it’s theirs, not that of some governing elite. Maybe those silver bracelets are a signification of the freedom and dignity of those who wear them?

Our minds and hearts rebel against the notion that there is nothing we can do about such things other than perhaps reduce a bit of the misery at the margins, and that perhaps some countries are going through processes that we went through a long time ago but now think unworthy of human experience.

And so, if that’s the way it is, what is our role? What is the role of the Church? I don’t have the answers, but I suspect they’re a good deal more subtle that we sometimes think.

And bringing it closer to ourselves, is there some reason why our own savings rate is miserable? Are the women with the silver bracelets more advanced in their thinking than we are in some way? Have we, as we drift closer to government dependency and corporate consumerism, seriously lost our way?

Got to go now, but it’s interesting to think about such things.

 

[seekerz]

**If the left continues to insist on using government, then some of us will just have to tell the poor and unemployed to call Washington DC **

When did the right opt out of “using government”?

 

[seekerz]

No , Marxists can’t be good people, because a good person will naturally tend to see through its erroneous ways and reject its ideology. That may be the difference between it and Capitalism. Capitalism came out of a perspective from a protestant / English sea change, Marxism came out of a jewish atheist’s perspective.

Pope Francis seems to be focused on people and the reporters. That remark shows his misguidedness to be subtle in defending himself personally. Marxism as an ideology is wrong, and marxists don’t have to be good people for him not to be offended.

It’s the same as when he was actually aware of himself being criticized about the abortion issue by an actual bishop, and then being defensive about it.

Why should he address a conservative commentator overseas…and then justify himself? He needs prayers.

The only difference between Marxism/Socialism is it is defined pretty clear in its incompatibility with man’s nature.

Capitalism has too many cluttered definitions, which is why some think it is the “best system” and depends on the way it is exercised for it to be “Good”. It ignores that the inherent monetary system it requires currently does not lend itself to proving the belief that Capitalism is the best. Also it has nothing to do with being a complement to Christianity which some people who are of a conservative bent talk as if it is, since Reagan’s shining city on a hill rhetoric.

It is understandable for some to want to defend certain insights that Adam Smith provided which were true about economic exchange, but not to the point of almost religious zealousness for certain things are incompatible in regard to its belief of the invisible hand and the idea that there should be no moral impetus in economic exchange.

" Too much capitalism means too few capitalists " - Chesterton

A Marxist can’t be a good person? And you base this on which infallible teachings of the Church?

 

[seekerz]

There were many Nazis that “were good people” too. There are many Muslims that “are good people”. Of course the Pope wouldn’t label himself as a Marxist. He surely doesn’t see himself that way. That doesn’t mean his beliefs about economics aren’t Marxist.

Point is, if everything the Pope said was rooted in Catholic thought and practice anyway, as the Pope’s defenders say, why say it in the first place? Why say something as intellectually lazy as “unfettered capitalism”? Why single that out?

The worst ideology in the world today is humanism, followed closely by Islamism. Regarding the former, as pope at least, he has not been harsh in criticism of homosexuals, etc. And I understand why he did that. He has been relatively silent on Islamism. Again, that isn’t too troubling. But why the harshness against capitalism? That is what doesn’t make sense at all.

The fact is, the USA, home of capitalism, is the most generous country on earth. Clearly, Christians in this country adhere to being generous with money.

So, again, what was the point of attacking capitalism, at this place and time, when he has treated real threats to the world (humanism and its pandora’s box of evils, Islamism) with kid gloves?

And by the way, according to the UN, world poor/rich inequality is shrinking. Not in the US thanks to Obama, but across the world. Why? Capitalism, development, etc.

This is what I fear with all of our popes. Like Obama veering off the teleprompter, when a pope veers into the political, he often relies on the doctrines he was taught in his formative years. He goes on his prejudices…

“Who am I to judge” said the pope. But regarding capitalism, it seems as if that question is irrelevant. Trust me, Homosexuality, abortion, gay marriage, and Islamism do more to hurt civilization than buying and selling goods.

He’s pope. He speaks for Christ. He references long established Church teachings, the words of saints, martyrs and Christ Himself. Your opinions come from… remind me where again?

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

In spite of the fact that Marxists have killed more people and committed more genocides because of their ideology than any other group in history, including fascists, it is still not politically incorrect for a major world leader to praise Marxists for being essentially good people.

I imagine fascists and racists find the time to dote on their children and scratch their pets behind their ears, but this is a social price to be paid if ever any major world leader would go out on a limb and praise some of them for being essentially nice people.

It is an interesting quirk of human nature. I’m willing to believe that modern Marxists are not inclined to repeat those attrocities but it’s helpful to remember that most at the time didn’t either. The Marxists I’ve known have been civil and peaceful but I would not be so confident that they would not cheer on those of a more violent bent if the cause was “just” and the opportunity ripe.

Meanwhile, we are told that the real enemies of civilization and God are those who counsel against institutional violence and coercion. Ah, well. Such is life in a fallen world.

 

[mcrow]

Regardless of how it’s interpreted, capitalism works best.

Pope Francis saying it does or doesn’t will not change that.

Problem in the West there are too many liberal politicians who use the force of government to pick and choose winners and losers. :tsktsk:

That’s the problem.

Free Markets, work but if only truly free. When the government gets into buying out and bailing out companies and funding others it’s no longer a free market and it breaks the system.

OTOH, redistributionist economics are far worst for everyone. Eventually you run out of other people’s money to spend and not only are the poor still poor but so are those that used to be rich and nobody has any upward mobility.

 

[RPRPsych]

I think that, if we remove the ideological glasses that we’re all wearing, what Pope Francis says makes a good deal of sense.

Raising a hand to point out that capitalism isn’t a sacred cow does not make one a Marxist, just as criticizing liturgical abuses doesn’t make one a sedevacantist.

I’m no economist (though I have read a basic textbook, and found its tenets on the free market quite sensible) and I live with the idiocies of “big government” everyday, but the fact is that no human economic system is “perfect”. Christ’s kingdom is not of this world. In the meantime, we have to muddle on, choosing what is good from various systems while discarding anything that is opposed to the love of God and neighbour.

It’s also important to remember that material prosperity is not an end in itself. There are a few politicians in India who run on a “prosperity” platform, but whose people are unhappy in other ways.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I am sometimes afflicted by what I think of as the “obligatory second thought”. “A” is correct, and yet “B” must be considered.

We all know working conditions in the third world are terrible. But we have to remember they were also terrible in the First World for a long time. Did that have to be? Did it serve any useful purpose?

…

Our minds and hearts rebel against the notion that there is nothing we can do about such things other than perhaps reduce a bit of the misery at the margins, and that perhaps some countries are going through processes that we went through a long time ago but now think unworthy of human experience.

And so, if that’s the way it is, what is our role? What is the role of the Church? I don’t have the answers, but I suspect they’re a good deal more subtle that we sometimes think.

And bringing it closer to ourselves, is there some reason why our own savings rate is miserable? Are the women with the silver bracelets more advanced in their thinking than we are in some way? Have we, as we drift closer to government dependency and corporate consumerism, seriously lost our way?

You are dipping your toe into a huge and fascinating question that I have pondered at length: the nature and role of suffering. I think to do justice to your post would entail sidetracking this thread. If you are as interested in this as me I suggest we start a new thread, perhaps in the Moral Theology forum.

My short answer is this: there is no simple answer to suffering and it is especially subtle and complicated in the domain of economics. Simplistic answers ought to be rejected on their face.