Source: National Review Online<\/a> | Samuel J. Gregg<\/p>\n

<\/a>If there is anyone in the world today who embodies the joy of the Christian Gospel, it is Jorge Mario Bergoglio. And the happiness offered by embracing and living true faith in Christ and His Church (rather than the vapid sentimentalism that often passes for love these days) permeates Pope Francis\u2019s new (and rather long) \u201capostolic exhortation,\u201d Evangelii Gaudium<\/em><\/a>, from beginning to end. Reading the text, one does experience a profound sense of just how life-transforming belief in Christ should be.<\/p>\n

Evangelii Gaudium<\/em> is in many ways a beautiful document. The emphasis upon the Trinity\u2019s most neglected member \u2014 the Holy Spirit \u2014 in the Church\u2019s life is especially inspiring. Then there are the practical insights about how<\/em> to breathe life into aspects of the Church\u2019s evangelical outreach that have long been moribund (as in the content-free homilies routinely endured by many Catholics in Western countries). Also helpful for theological reflection, as well as an outline for an agenda of internal reform, are Francis\u2019s comments on how to develop greater collegiality between Rome and what Catholics call the local churches.<\/p>\n

For all that, however, important sections of Evangelii Gaudium <\/em>will strike many Catholics as less than convincing. To be very frank (which Francis himself is always encouraging us to be), a number of claims made by this document and some of the assumptions underlying those statements are rather questionable.<\/p>\n

Some, for example, will single out the pope\u2019s remark that \u201cauthentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence\u201d (253). As one of the most authoritative Catholic commentators on Islam, Pope Francis\u2019s fellow Jesuit Samir Khalil Samir (who is no knee-jerk anti-Muslim), writes in his 111 Questions on Islam<\/em><\/a> (2002), Westerners who assert that groups like the Taliban are acting in a manner contrary to the spirit of Islam \u201cusually know little about Islam.\u201d In the Egyptian-born Jesuit\u2019s view, \u201cOn the sociohistorical level, from the Qur\u2019an onward, the ordinary meaning of jihad is unequivocal. [It] indicates the Muslim war in the name of God to defend Islam.\u201d Later in the same book, Father Samir underscores that, alongside one tradition in Islam of somewhat limited tolerance towards Jews and Christians (polytheists and atheists aren\u2019t extended the same consideration), there is an equally valid tradition that \u201cprefers the verses\u201d in the Koran and the sunna<\/em> \u201cthat encourage violence.\u201d Both, the Beirut-resident priest adds, are legitimate Muslim readings of Islam\u2019s view of violence. Ergo, we \u2014 and Islam \u2014 have a problem.<\/p>\n

Specialists in Islam will no doubt elaborate on these matters. My purpose, however, is to focus upon some of the many economic reflections that loom large throughout Evangelii Gaudium <\/em>and which are, I\u2019m afraid, very hard to defend. In some cases, they reflect the straw-man arguments about the economy that one encounters far too often in some Catholic circles, especially in Western Europe but also in Latin America.<\/p>\n

Prominent among these is the pope\u2019s condemnation of the \u201cabsolute autonomy of markets\u201d (202). This, he firmly believes, is at the root of many of our contemporary problems, not least because it helps rationalize an unwillingness to assist those in need.<\/p>\n

If, however, we follow Evangelii <\/em>Gaudium<\/em>\u2019s injunction (231\u2013233) to look at the realities of the world today, we will soon discover that there is literally no<\/em> country in which markets operate with \u201cabsolute autonomy.\u201d In most Western European countries, for instance, governments routinely control an average of 40 percent of their nations\u2019 GDP. In many developing countries, the percentage is even higher. How much more of the economy do we really want to put into the state\u2019s hands? Is there no upper limit? In private correspondence with the British-Australian economist Colin Clark, for example, even John Maynard Keynes suggested that the figure of \u201c25 percent [of GDP] as the maximum tolerable proportion of taxation may be exceedingly near the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nor does there appear to be any consciousness in Evangelii Gaudium<\/em> of just how regulated most of the world\u2019s economies are. The rules and regulations that apply, for instance, to economic life in North America and Western Europe are fast approaching the status of beyond counting. The situation in most developing countries is hardly any better. So extensive is the range and scope of regulation that, as I\u2019ve argued elsewhere<\/a>, it is now creating genuine rule-of-law problems in many countries. The amount of regulation affecting developed Western economies is now so great that it is likely that even good judges with no interest in judicial activism are issuing rulings that are ad hoc and arbitrary in nature.<\/p>\n

Another claim made by Evangelii Gaudium <\/em>that warrants scrutiny is that certain ideologies \u201creject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control\u201d over the economy (56). But outside the minuscule world of anarcho-capitalists (who exert zero influence upon public policy), this simply isn\u2019t the position of those who favor free markets today (let alone past advocates like Adam Smith). It\u2019s one thing to be skeptical of the efficaciousness of various, even many, forms of government intervention into the economy, and quite another to reject any form of regulation whatsoever.<\/p>\n

Alongside these comments, we find Francis critiquing those who \u201ccontinue to 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.\u201d Such a view, the pope adds, \u201cwhich has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and na\u00efve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system\u201d (54). More generally, the pope states, \u201cWe can no longer trust in the unseen forces and the invisible hand of the market\u201d (204).<\/p>\n

There are several problems with this line of reasoning. First, opening up markets throughout the world has<\/em> helped to reduce poverty in many developing nations. East Asia is a living testimony to that reality \u2014 a testimony routinely ignored by many Catholics in Western Europe (who tend to complain rather self-centeredly about the competition it creates for protected Western European businesses and other recipients of corporate welfare) and a reality about which I have found many Latin American Catholics simply have nothing to say.<\/p>\n

Second, it has never<\/em> been the argument of most of those who favor markets that economic freedom and free exchange are somehow sufficient to reduce poverty. These things are certainly indispensable (witness the failure of planned economies to solve the problem of scarcity), but they\u2019re not enough. Among other things, stable governments that provide infrastructure, property arrangements that identify clearly who owns what, and, above all, the rule of law are just as essential.<\/p>\n

It hardly need be said that rule of law (mentioned not once in Evangelii Gaudium<\/em>) is, to put it mildly, a \u201cchallenge\u201d in most developing nations. The lack of rule of law not only ranks among the biggest obstacles to their ability to generate wealth on a sustainable basis, but also hampers their capacity to address economic issues in a just manner. Instead, what one finds is crony capitalism, rampant protectionism, and the corruption that has become a way of life in much of Africa and Latin America.<\/p>\n

Far from insisting that the invisible hand (a metaphor employed by Smith that merits a separate discussion in itself) is somehow enough, many market-oriented scholars have been underscoring for several decades the vital importance of values and institutions in explaining the causes of economic growth and decline. Nobel-laureate economists such as Edmund Phelps and Douglass North have deepened our knowledge of how the values, expectations, beliefs, rules, and informal protocols that define a given economic culture help determine (1) whether a country can break the bonds of poverty, or (2) whether it goes from wealth to seemingly perpetual decline (Pope Francis\u2019s native Argentina being the 20th century\u2019s Exhibit A of such decline), or (3) whether it simply enters a state of prolonged stagnation like Japan in the 1990s and 2000s or much of Western Europe today.<\/p>\n

Lastly, there is the issue of redistribution. In numerous places, Francis calls for a more equitable distribution of resources within and between societies. He quotes, for instance, the bishops of Brazil to the effect that \u201chunger is the result of a poor distribution of goods and income\u201d (191).<\/p>\n

Of course, Catholicism has, from the very beginning, emphasized that private property is not absolute. It has also always affirmed that the state has a role to play in ensuring a more just distribution of wealth. To this, Francis adds that some people today find any mention of the distribution of income to be \u201cirksome\u201d (203).<\/p>\n

Personally speaking, I don\u2019t find discussions of wealth distribution to be bothersome at all. Catholics, other Christians, and other people of good will should, in my view, enter enthusiastically into such debates. Because it is precisely through these conversations that it can be pointed out that \u2014 as Evangelii Gaudium <\/em>seems, alas, unaware \u2014 many poverty-alleviation methods that involve redistribution (such as foreign aid) are increasingly discredited. As the economist and historian of the Federal Reserve Allan Meltzer put<\/a> it, one of the 20th century\u2019s economic lessons is that \u201ctransfers, grants and redistribution did little to raise living standards in Asia, Latin America and Africa.\u201d In other words, the standard wealth-redistribution policies that are often regarded as indispensable to poverty alleviation have failed<\/em> to achieve their goals. Hence it behooves all Catholics to ask ourselves why <\/em>such approaches have failed if we\u2019re going to have a serious conversation about wealth and poverty in the modern world.<\/p>\n

My critique is by no means intended to imply that all of Pope Francis\u2019s observations about economic life are na\u00efve or simply mistaken. As it happens, he says several things that will resonate with those who favor free enterprise and markets. The pope states, for instance, that welfare projects should be seen as \u201ctemporary responses\u201d (202) and warns against the \u201cwelfare mentality\u201d (204). Evangelii Gaudium <\/em>extols \u201cfree\u201d and \u201ccreative\u201d work (192). Francis also affirms that business \u201cis a noble vocation\u201d that serves \u201cthe common good by striving to increase the goods of this world and to make them more accessible to all\u201d (203).<\/p>\n

Likewise, the pope\u2019s warnings about, for example, the tendency for even many Christians to immerse themselves in a culture of prosperity for its own sake are well taken. In his own lifestyle, Pope Francis has long been a living reproach to those who think salvation is to be found in the possession, use, and accumulation of stuff. Equally important is Evangelii Gaudium<\/em>\u2019s reference to the way in which \u201cdebt and the accumulation of interest\u201d make it \u201cdifficult for countries to realize the potential of their own economies and keep citizens from enjoying their real purchasing power\u201d (56).<\/p>\n

And yet for all these and other observations, it is difficult not to come away from reading Evangelii Gaudium <\/em>thinking that there are just too many unexamined assumptions about the economy that have made their way into this document. Indeed, towards the end of his more direct economic observations, the pope seems to indicate his awareness that some of his thoughts about poverty and economics will generate criticism. \u201cIf anyone feels offended by my words,\u201d he says, \u201cI would respond that I speak them with affection and with the best of intentions, quite apart from any personal interest or political ideology\u201d (208). Instead, Francis writes, he is concerned with ensuring that people don\u2019t succumb to the type of self-enclosed individualism that produces injustice and ultimately kills the soul.<\/p>\n

I myself take no offense from Evangelii <\/em>Gaudium<\/em>\u2019s observations about poverty and the economy. In fact I admire Francis\u2019s determination to ensure that we don\u2019t lose sight of the material misery in which far too many people continue to live. His words are also a powerful reminder that Christ\u2019s commandment to love the poor is truly non-negotiable for any serious Christian.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, as Francis himself writes, \u201cIdeas disconnected from realities give rise to ineffectual forms of idealism\u201d (232). And attention to particular realities about economic life is precisely what\u2019s missing from parts of Evangelii <\/em>Gaudium<\/em>\u2019s analysis of wealth and poverty. If we want \u201cthe dignity of each human person and the pursuit of the common good\u201d to be more than what the pope calls a \u201cmere addendum\u201d to the pursuit of \u201ctrue and integral development\u201d (203), then engaging more seriously the economic part of the truth that sets us free would be a good start.<\/p>\n

Everyone would gain \u2014 and not least those who endure poverty.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Samuel Gregg is research director at the Acton Institute and author of, among other books, <\/em>Becoming Europe<\/a> and <\/em>Tea Party Catholic<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: National Review Online | Samuel J. Gregg If there is anyone in the world today who embodies the joy of the Christian Gospel, it is Jorge Mario Bergoglio. And the happiness offered by embracing and living true faith in Christ and His Church (rather than the vapid sentimentalism that often passes for love these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1784],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13089"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13089"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13090,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13089\/revisions\/13090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}