Pope Francis denounces ‘trickle-down’ economic theories in critique of inequality

[Bubba_Switzler]

I’m not sure on what you base that historical progression (from private giving to government) or why you seem to expect charities to do better than government in helping people out of poverty. I remain to be convinced (based simply on the track record of large NGOs operating locally and internationally) that the nongovernmental approach is any more efficient.

Let’s take an example from one sector: religious organizations’ involvement in health care provision did not decline because the government took over the work of charitable organizations, but because the charities could no longer keep up with costs. I have nothing against charitable giving, but I don’t see where they have the capacity to take over what governments do. From what I can see, mismanagement and inefficiency happen in the private-giving world too, not just in government, so I would be really interested in finding out why nongovernmental assistance to the poor should be our goal.

I get why it is so important to people that helping the poor be a private venture, but I see no spiritual basis for insisting that it be so. The only nonnegotiable principle here is that the poor ***be helped ***in a manner that is moral, ethical and respectful of human dignity.

And

While subsidiarity is a clear Church principle, we also, at the federal level, should not turn our backs on the poor if the lower levels clearly fail in their moral duties. Social safety nets erupted out of crippling poverty; they are very weak in nature and barely support someone for a very short time (less than 2 years allowed from 18-65), but they help keep people from straight up starving in the streets.

This has been addressed ad nauseum in this thread but I welcome the opportunity to reiterate facts and arguments again.

The thinking behind your argument seems to be something like this: only the federal government can afford to pay people not to work, charities can’t compete with that. And that’s probably true. But it misses the point entirely.

Otto von Bismarc did not institue the welfare state because lower levels of society had failed to provide for the poor. Other countries did not copy him because lower levels had failed there. From the start, and ever since, the welfare state has been an exercise in politics. The institution of the welfare state has never been in response to people starving in the streets. That is pure myth.

Neither has it been an instrument of lifing the poor out of poverty. Instead, as one would expect from its origins, it has served primairly to create a dependent class. Popes have long recognized this reality.

In short, the principle of subsidiarity has never been tried and found wanting, it has been discarded because it does not serve a political purpose.

And subsidiarity does not mean that charity starts with Catholic (or other) institutions. Subsidiarity begins lower than that with the individual and family. Public policies that have the effect of destroying families are yet another impediment to justice and none has been more destructive than the welfare state.

I’ll close with a quote from one of my prior posts:

There several problems with welfare state redistribution (I won’t even bother to address communism):

1. It empowers an uncaring bureaucracy and political class that then pursues it’s own agenda.
2. It separates material and spiritual provision.
3. It turns the virtue of charity into the right to live on the dole.

Church (and other nongovernmental) institutions do not suffer these grave defects.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Last week Pope Francis provided Mr. Maduro cover for his claim that state tyranny is morally justified when the pontiff blasted economic freedom in his first apostolic exhortation. Venezuelans are sinking further into poverty under Mr. Maduro’s anti-market policies. The pope wants the larger role for the state and an emphasis on equality of outcomes that those policies reflect.

Mr. Maduro needs to pin it all on the market. Pope Francis seems eager to help. In the document released last week he admonished those who defend “trickle-down theories, which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world.” There is no empirical evidence for this, he wrote. It is instead “a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.”

Millions of the world’s poor and excluded who landed in the U.S. in the 19th and 20th centuries have been witnesses to the polar-opposite conclusion. Immigrants to the pope’s homeland, Argentina, during the same period have not done as well—precisely because they’ve had to plod along in an economy not unlike the one he advocates

online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303562904579228233172719594

 

[PTL]

newsmax.com/Newsfront/Pope-Rush-comments-capitalism/2013/12/02/id/539541?ns_mail_uid=38614297&ns_mail_job=1548373_12032013&promo_code=15CB2-1

Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh says he admired Pope Francis just fine — until he made “unbelievable” comments castigating elements of modern capitalism.

“He says that** the global economy needs government control.** I’m not Catholic, but I know enough to know that this would have been unthinkable for a Pope to believe or say just a few years ago.”

Could someone please point out where in Pope’s original document actually said about a world government with tight control of the economy??? I cannot believe Pope advocates a world government and bigger control. We need small government, not big government. We certainly do not need a world government to control everyone’s life to the detail.

 

[estesbob]

Still a one-trick pony, aren’t you? Better change your act before the shepherd’s crook protends from Stage Right and snatches you from the stage.

Guess im in good company. This was also in the document:

1. Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us.
   Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this.
   Frequently, as a way of ridiculing the Church’s effort to defend their lives, attempts are made to present her position as ideological, obscurantist and conservative.
   Yet this defense of unborn life is closely linked to the defense of each and every other human right.
   It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development.
   Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems.
   Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defense of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be.
   Reason alone is sufficient to recognize the inviolable value of each single human life, but if we also look at the issue from the standpoint of faith, “every violation of the personal dignity of the human being cries out in vengeance to God and is an offence against the creator of the individual”.
2. Precisely because this involves the internal consistency of our message about the value of the human person, the Church cannot be expected to change her position on this question.
   I want to be completely honest in this regard.
   This is not something subject to alleged reforms or “modernizations”.
   It is not “progressive” to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life.
   On the other hand, it is also true that we have done little to adequately accompany women in very difficult situations, where abortion appears as a quick solution to their profound anguish, especially when the life developing within them is the result of rape or a situation of extreme poverty.
   Who can remain unmoved before such painful situations?

Read more: ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/pope-francis-new-document-evangelii-gaudium-9-things-to-know-and-share/#ixzz2mR7WDQ3u

 

[Elizabeth502]

I need to add to my post 507 that my position is not ideological. It is, as the Pope recommends, practical. The fact that local efforts also fit within the principle of subsidiarity is a consequence, not a reason.

 

[PTL]

newsmax.com/Newsfront/Pope-Rush-comments-capitalism/2013/12/02/id/539541?ns_mail_uid=38614297&ns_mail_job=1548373_12032013&promo_code=15CB2-1

Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh says he admired Pope Francis just fine — until he made “unbelievable” comments castigating elements of modern capitalism.

Could someone please point out where in Pope’s original document actually said about a world government with tight control of the economy??? I cannot believe Pope advocates a world government and bigger control. We need small government, not big government. We certainly do not need a world government to control everyone’s life to the detail.

Can anyone help me to find what Rush Limbaugh said in the original document?

 

[Crossbones]

Guess im in good company. This was also in the document:

1. Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us.
   Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this.
   Frequently, as a way of ridiculing the Church’s effort to defend their lives, attempts are made to present her position as ideological, obscurantist and conservative.
   Yet this defense of unborn life is closely linked to the defense of each and every other human right.
   It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development.
   Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems.
   Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defense of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be.
   Reason alone is sufficient to recognize the inviolable value of each single human life, but if we also look at the issue from the standpoint of faith, “every violation of the personal dignity of the human being cries out in vengeance to God and is an offence against the creator of the individual”.
2. Precisely because this involves the internal consistency of our message about the value of the human person, the Church cannot be expected to change her position on this question.
   I want to be completely honest in this regard.
   This is not something subject to alleged reforms or “modernizations”.
   It is not “progressive” to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life.
   On the other hand, it is also true that we have done little to adequately accompany women in very difficult situations, where abortion appears as a quick solution to their profound anguish, especially when the life developing within them is the result of rape or a situation of extreme poverty.

The thing that catches me here is “On the other hand, it is also true that we have done little to adequately accompany women in very difficult situations, where abortion appears as a quick solution to their profound anguish, especially when the life developing within them is the result of rape or a situation of extreme poverty.”

What does this mean to you? Is this a calling for Catholics to do more to support the woman or is he suggesting that the state (which the Catholic Church calls upon to protect the life of the child) has a role to support the woman through profound anguish due to povetry?

 

[CaptFun]

Can anyone help me to find what Rush Limbaugh said in the original document?

rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/11/27/it_s_sad_how_wrong_pope_francis_is_unless_it_s_a_deliberate_mistranslation_by_leftists

rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/11/27/it_s_sad_how_wrong_pope_francis_is_unless_it_s_a_deliberate_mistranslation_by_leftists

 

[estesbob]

The thing that catches me here is “On the other hand, it is also true that we have done little to adequately accompany women in very difficult situations, where abortion appears as a quick solution to their profound anguish, especially when the life developing within them is the result of rape or a situation of extreme poverty.”

What does this mean to you? Is this a calling for Catholics to do more to support the woman or is he suggesting that the state (which the Catholic Church calls upon to protect the life of the child) has a role to support the woman through profound anguish due to povetry?

I counseled at a Crisis Pregnancy center for over 5 years. we provided clothing, rent assistance, parenting classes,prenatal counseling, assistance in obtaing WIC, cribs, child care seats and even a JUCO scholarship for women who found themselves in a crisis pregnancy. How about you?

 

[Crossbones]

I counseled at a Crisis Pregnancy center for over 5 years. we provided clothing, rent assistance, parenting classes,prenatal counseling, assistance in obtaing WIC, cribs, child care seats and even a JUCO scholarship for women who found themselves in a crisis pregnancy. How about you?

I was aware of your counseling; God bless you.

My question was a “How do you interpret the document?” question, not a “What have you personally done?” question. I’m sorry I wasn’t clear.

 

[estesbob]

I was aware of your counseling; God bless you.

My question was a “How do you interpret the document?” question, not a “What have you personally done?” question. I’m sorry I wasn’t clear.

He has reaafrimed the Churchs commitment to helping the poor and needy and reminded Catholics of their personal responsibility to do so. The Pope sees our commitment to the Poor and our commitment to the right to life as crucial in bringing people to Jesus Christ.

I think everyone, myself included, has over politicized this document-we view it through the prism of US politics. The Pope is asking us to look beyond that. Instead we have concentrated on one or two paragraphs in a 51,000 word document and proclaimed “see the Pope supports my political views”!

Oh and I got forgot to mention in my previous post. the most important think i do to help the poor and needy is employee people.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Here’s the problem though. You’re saying (correctly) that the GOP platform is closer than the Dem platform for social teachings, which are basically abortion & marriage and issues pertaining thereof. Their platform is about 10% to the Democrats’ 0% on marriage, and they are 90% to the Democrats’ 0% on abortion. That much is true and completely uncontested by us.

HOWEVER, what KSU was arguing was that the economic policy of the GOP was Catholic doctrine, which also means that to oppose the GOP on matters of economics would make one a heretic. Neither of these points are true and merely stating them as capital-T Truth is blasphemy, and I would also call it much worse things but I wish to remain charitable.

There is a HUGE difference between what you just said and what KSU said. I have no problem with what you said.

Never did I say GOP policies are on all fours with the doctrines of the Church. What I intended to say was (and I obviously didn’t say it well) that the GOP economic policies are closer to what the Social Encyclicals teach than are those of the current administration.

That is certainly not saying they’re identical. The GOP notably fails in adequately providing for those most in need; the disabled poor. It must be noted, however, that the Dems are equally negligent toward that group and, by shifting reimbursement from chronic care to well care, disproportionately harm those who can’t help themselves.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

He has reaafrimed the Churchs commitment to helping the poor and needy and reminded Catholics of their personal responsibility to do so. The Pope sees our commitment to the Poor and our commitment to the right to life as crucial in bringing people to Jesus Christ.

I think everyone, myself included, has over politicized this document-we view it through the prism of US politics. The Pope is asking us to look beyond that. Instead we have concentrated on one or two paragraphs in a 51,000 word document and proclaimed “see the Pope supports my political views”!

This, I think, is overly naieve. This is the news forum. And this thread is one referring to one of many mainstream press stories that focused on those one or two paragraphs to the exclusion of the others saying exactly that: the pope hates free market capitalism.

It deserves a reply quite apart from the virtue of the rest of the document.

It was the pope’s decision to include those one or two paragraphs. It was the press’ decision to focus on them. Now we are left to deal with them.

Were those one or two paragraphs essential to his message? DId they reflect his understanding of economics and the morality thereof?

And, most important of all, I keep returning to the same question:

If a person gives charitably of his own resources and time but refuses to steal from the rich to give to the poor or to support politicians who do the same is he a sinner? Is he violating Church doctrine?

It’s a fair question, one worthy of discussion.

 

[Havard]

I’m conservative, and I will fully admit that the GOP has a “poor problem”. That is to say, the GOP fails to address issues concerning the poor directly much at all. I support most Republican policies, but the Party needs to go a lot further in affirmatively addressing poverty, even if their solution is based on a primarily free market / private charity model.

 

[KSU]

Originally Posted by KSU
My friend, the haters on MSNBC say the same thing, e.g., youtube.com/watch?v=3VmuMhkVgFw

Doesn’t it give you serious pause that they agree with you?

A few days ago, in another CA thread, I said that the pope did not and would not and could not reject the social teaching in the Compendium. [See, for example, Compendium paragraphs 347 and 424], and that, therefore, Pope Francis could not have knowingly attacked the American Conservative political system, pejoratively known as “trickle-down” economics. American style Capitalism is the most unique, life-affirming, /url]Church supporting, charitable, compassionate, just and productive system of government ever known to mankind. No serious person would dispute the fact that the poor in America have benefited from that system more than any poor class anywhere in any age.

The angels in heaven would be dancing with joy if by some miracle Satan was vanquished and the entire world adopted the American Conservative political system of so-called “trickle-down” economics. Pope Francis knows that, and Rush Limbaugh, who suspected a mistranslation of trickle-down, apparently got it right. See post #257 in this thread.

We also were told the pope attempted to change Catholic teaching on homosexual behavior. Did you believe that as well?​

Oh, so now it’s come to an argument that conservative economics is Catholic moral teaching :nope:

None of us, regardless of political ideology, should be putting it above the Church and to equate our political beliefs as on the same level as our religious beliefs is, quite honestly, bordering on blasphemous. Being a Keynesian or Distributist is most certainly not being a heretic in the Church, but your statement would imply that it is. Republican-based economics are not imprinted in your Catechism, and your Catechism comes before your political views.

Consider the Pope’s actual words instead of telling us what he must be teaching. This, in context, says the exact same thing Rush Limbaugh is so mad about. What Pope Francis said about homosexuals, in context, was NOT what Rush Limbaugh was so mad about. That is the difference. Reading the context makes it clear that Pope Francis is denouncing unfettered capitalism and the idolatry of money that coexists with it.

Edit: Also, no it does not give me pause at all that someone who I may disagree with on moral teachings says X on something other than moral teachings. Actively gay people can be good people at heart and they can also be intelligent, yet they’d quite obviously disagree with me on moral theology. Saying that someone who supports gay “marriage” has no working knowledge of economics, quite honestly, has no logical evidence supporting it.

S7MGS12, not only do you put words in my mouth, you then say the words are borderline blasphemous. Reminds me of the Saul Alinsky school of debate.

It appears as though I hit a couple of nerves; first, your obvious consternation with the undisputable fact that the agenda of the Conservative American Right fits very well into Catholic teaching, and, second, that you are either ultra-sensitive concerning Catholic teaching on homosexuality, or that you don’t understand that teaching. Who said active homosexuals can’t be good-hearted and intelligent? But can we stay on topic, please?

It may help you understand my position if you read my post #495.

 

[Darryl1958]

I’m not sure on what you base that historical progression (from private giving to government)

Many things.
For one, Elizabeth’s rather longish post right here in which she talks about her school colleagues experience in a culture that has not yet advanced to the level of complexity of the developed world.
For another, history. One only has to take note of the differences between the social welfare of the Roman Empire, and that of the post-Roosevelt era to note the difference.
My own historic reference that would invite such a comparison went back to the equality of pioneer hardships, which had a way of leveling pre-existing social class definitions inherent to birth.

or why you seem to expect charities to do better than government in helping people out of poverty. I remain to be convinced (based simply on the track record of large NGOs operating locally and internationally) that the nongovernmental approach is any more efficient.

I doubt that I did seem to expect that they would. I would only note that a society that has seen a decline in the stability of the family as it has would be much less stable than one that has strong family bonds.

Let’s take an example from one sector: religious organizations’ involvement in health care provision did not decline because the government took over the work of charitable organizations, but because the charities could no longer keep up with costs. I have nothing against charitable giving, but I don’t see where they have the capacity to take over what governments do. From what I can see, mismanagement and inefficiency happen in the private-giving world too, not just in government, so I would be really interested in finding out why nongovernmental assistance to the poor should be our goal.

If you don’t see how strengthening the role of family, of church, and the encouragement of strong individuals is of any benefit, then certainly you have no reason to cooperate with the cause that American conservatism is advancing.

I get why it is so important to people that helping the poor be a private venture, but I see no spiritual basis for insisting that it be so.

Faith, hope, and charity, and the greatest of these gifts is love.
It is an integral message of the Bible actually. Some people consider that to be a spiritual sort of thing.

The only nonnegotiable principle here is that the poor ***be helped ***in a manner that is moral, ethical and respectful of human dignity.

That is what I proposed. You rejected everything that I have had to say yet again.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’m conservative, and I will fully admit that the GOP has a “poor problem”. That is to say, the GOP fails to address issues concerning the poor directly much at all. I support most Republican policies, but the Party needs to go a lot further in affirmatively addressing poverty, even if their solution is based on a primarily free market / private charity model.

I would agree with your statement. I would, however, point out that the Dem party has been equally negligent toward the poor who cannot help themselves. Neither party has done anything to aid the poorest for decades other than the Earned Income Credit, and that was decades ago, and Reagan’s.

 

[estesbob]

I would agree with your statement. I would, however, point out that the Dem party has been equally negligent toward the poor who cannot help themselves. Neither party has done anything to aid the poorest for decades other than the Earned Income Credit, and that was decades ago, and Reagan’s.

Which was originally intended to offset the increase in SS# taxes for the working poor. it is the most defrauded tax break of all.

 

[Darryl1958]

I’m conservative, and I will fully admit that the GOP has a “poor problem”. That is to say, the GOP fails to address issues concerning the poor directly much at all. I support most Republican policies, but the Party needs to go a lot further in affirmatively addressing poverty, even if their solution is based on a primarily free market / private charity model.

America has a system of two parties that has developed into two broad ranges of proposals to deal with solutions. At one time, the umbrella organizations of the Democratic and Republican parties covered that broad range of issues with considerable overlap between the two. That has evolved into a more partisan divide in the last 40 years.

It is not that Republicans don’t address the issue of the poor, but that they do so in terms of stressing human excellence and human potential, and enabling freedom in order for the poor to pull themselves up out of poverty. Republicans stress success, and the possibilities that arise when people are empowered to take command of their own lives.

Democrats for their part stress spending money on those who have fallen through the cracks. Failure is a very real option in a free system, so absolute poverty is something that needs to be tended to.

As long as the balance of power is kept relatively equal, neither have a ‘poor problem’, because both together have the fuller answer.

Once the balance becomes skewed, they both have a poor problem. Neither of them are sufficient to reduce poverty without the other.

 

[Lochias]

America has a system of two parties that has developed into two broad ranges of proposals to deal with solutions. At one time, the umbrella organizations of the Democratic and Republican parties covered that broad range of issues with considerable overlap between the two. That has evolved into a more partisan divide in the last 40 years.

It is not that Republicans don’t address the issue of the poor, but that they do so in terms of stressing human excellence and human potential, and enabling freedom in order for the poor to pull themselves up out of poverty. Republicans stress success, and the possibilities that arise when people are empowered to take command of their own lives.

Democrats for their part stress spending money on those who have fallen through the cracks. Failure is a very real option in a free system, so absolute poverty is something that needs to be tended to.

As long as the balance of power is kept relatively equal, neither have a ‘poor problem’, because both together have the fuller answer.

Once the balance becomes skewed, they both have a poor problem. Neither of them are sufficient to reduce poverty without the other.

…this is well said, I think, and describes my views pretty well.