The Vatican’s assault on capitalism (part 1) — VOICES for REASON

A BBC story accurately summarizes a central theme of the latest encyclical (the highest form of Catholic teaching) emanating from the Vatican:

The letter, addressed to all Catholics “and people of goodwill”, reminds them of their moral duties in financial dealings.

“Profit is useful if it serves as a means toward an end,” he wrote.

“Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.”

He warned that globalisation, properly managed, could “open up the unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale”. But badly directed, it could “lead to an increase in poverty and inequality, and could even trigger a global crisis”.

The whole encyclical — all 144 pages of it — blames the profit motive for all the world’s problems, and calls for a worldwide redistribution of wealth by a world government as the solution.

A few thoughts:

• Why on earth do people take the economic advice of the Pope seriously? What is the Catholic Church’s record on economics? Creating and sustaining a Dark and Middle Ages? The Pope has about as much credibility dispensing advice on how to improve our economic lives as he does dispensing advice on how to improve our sex lives. (For more on this last, by the way, see “Of Living Death,” Ayn Rand’s essay on a Papal encyclical on sex, in The Voice of Reason. The essay was originally given as a lecture, available here.)
• There is one thing we should take seriously about this encyclical, which is that the seethingly anti-capitalist Vatican is an authority on the consistent application of religion to life. Those on the right who believe that it is possible to defend capitalism while putting faith before reason and by advocating self-sacrifice, not self-interest, as the essence of morality — let’s just say they have a lot of explaining to do, and I don’t hear any explanations.
• Yet again, the anti-capitalists cash in on the idea that capitalism has failed. We have to keep explaining that it was anti-capitalism, the mixed-economy, that failed. This is another failure of the right, very much related to its embrace of religion, religious morality, and the religious view of human nature (original sin).

I highly recommend reading the encyclical, especially if you are of the belief that religion and capitalism go together. But before you read it, there’s another essay you should read first, one that penetrates to the core of the Vatican’s assault on capitalism, and explains what it reveals about the true soul of the Catholic Church.

I will reveal this essay in my next post.