The Pope recently chided the world for the worshiping of
“the God of money.” The under tone of
the comments were a criticism of capitalism. The Pope was right that worshiping
money for the sake of money is to have an empty life. But the Pope was wrong
when he said “"We don't
want this globalised economic system which does us so much harm. Men and women
have to be at the centre (of an economic system) as God wants, not money.”
"The world has become an idolator of this god called money," he said.
This argument is too simple and could easily be heard by any two bit dictator
of the world rousing the people’s ire.
The
greatest way to end poverty is to unleash the human desire to take care of
one’s self through the creation of products and services to be used by fellow
humans. Capitalism is the answer to the world’s woes. To say that the worker is
the where we need to focus is wrong. We need to nurture the free exchange of
goods and services by individual and every size business. When we nurture
business we create jobs. When we create jobs we need workers. To say you
support workers but demonize the people that create work is a circular argument
that ends the same, no work or workers.
Money is
not evil. The pursuit of money is not evil. Money is simply the mechanism used
to exchange goods and services in a market. The more money you make the better
off your circumstances. The Pope needs money to travel. Nothing is free. So the
idea that the pursuit of money is the problem in the world is a really disingenuous
argument to create envy among the people. The Pope seems to want to blame
capitalism and the pursuit of money as the reason for poverty in the world. The
reason for poverty in the world is government control of the economies of the
poorest nations. Show me a poor country and I will show you a corrupt
government. Socialist, communist, and dictatorships are the cause of poverty.
Any attempt to control people and markets smothers the economy.
There are
greedy people in the world and they are usually found in those corrupt
governments. There are some captains of industry that are greedy but in America
most contribute to the many charities and causes that help the less fortunate.
It is their choice to do so and that is the way it should be. To take their
hard earned money under the guise of “fairness” is the real greed. That is what
corrupt governments do.
The Pope
needs to be a promoter of capitalism around the world if he really wants to
help the workers of the world. To stoke the fire of envy in the world is below
the dignity of his position. The Catholic Church has a history of keeping
property in the ownership of the Church. One of the many reasons Priests were
forbidden to marry has roots in keeping property in the “family.” In the 9th
century priests that were married willed property to their wives and in 1123
celibacy was made was made official. Was that dictate out of greed? Why not
share the accumulated property of the church? Why not sell the Vatican and its
furnishings to give to the poor?
I am not
trying to bash the Catholic Church. I was raised catholic and we had family
friends that were priests. But the Pope needs to nurture the spirit of the
human condition which is fed through freedom, the dignity of work and the
ability to be compassionate. The most compassionate people are those that have
succeeded through a capitalist economy. The Pope needs to support capitalism
and the pursuit of a better life for all and that requires money…
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