Pope Francis, Capitalism’s Arch Enemy, Condemns Free Market Capitalism -- Again

Pope Francis is again condemning Capitalism. Brad Polumbo calls out the Pope on the absurdity of his criticisms in The Pope Just Called Private Property a ‘Secondary Right.’ He Couldn't Be More Wrong, published for The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). 

I hate to be critical of a fellow champion of Capitalism. But I have to give this article two cheers. Why? Because the author gives the Pope the benefit of the doubt in claiming he doesn’t understand capitalism. Nothing could be further from the truth. Francis thoroughly understands capitalism. 

The subtitle of Polumbo’s article is:

Pope Francis’s criticisms of free-market capitalism don’t mesh well with available facts, empirical evidence, or a basic understanding of how economics actually works.

Polumbo also states:

There’s no doubt that the Pope is a learned man in matters of religion, and he likely has the best of intentions in preaching his collectivist gospel. But his elementary arguments against free-market capitalism are incredibly weak.

Best of intentions? Let’s delve a little deeper into Polumbo’s article. First, Polumbo offers select quotes from Pope Francis. All italics are mine:

“The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has demonstrated that not everything can be resolved by market freedom,” Francis wrote in part of a lengthy religious text. “To care for the world in which we live means to care for ourselves. Yet we need to think of ourselves more and more as a single family dwelling in a common home. Such care does not interest those economic powers that demand quick profits.”

“In today’s world, many forms of injustice persist, fed by… a profit-based economic model that does not hesitate to exploit, discard and even kill human beings,” Francis lamented.

The Pope decried the free-market “dogma of neo-liberal faith” that views “the magic theories of ‘spillover’ or ‘trickle’ ... as the only solution to societal problems.” He went on to write that “market freedom cannot supersede the rights of peoples and the dignity of the poor.”

Francis reiterated his belief that “if one person lacks what is necessary to live with dignity, it is because another person is detaining it.” He concluded that “the right to private property can only be considered a secondary natural right, derived from the principle of the universal destination of created goods.”

Polumbo understands the vital economic, social, and moral role of property rights. 

Pope Francis explicitly argues that property rights are only a “secondary natural right;” superseded by the needs and wants of others. Taken to its logical conclusion, arguing that property rights are second to the needs of others really means property rights aren’t valid at all, because human needs and scarcity of resources are permanent realities.

Right. Without property rights, “human needs and scarcity of resources are permanent realities.” Any Communist dictator proves this point in spades. Polumbo cites Thomas Sowell and Frederick Bastiat in identifying the social and economic benefits of property rights, but also gets to the moral root of those benefits:

Moreover, Francis is wrong philosophically to dismiss property rights as secondary. We would all agree that the right to life is paramount. But property rights are an extension of the right to life—because a man’s right to life necessarily depends on his livelihood.

“The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation,” Ayn Rand once wrote. “Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life.”

Can Pope Francis, the learned head of one of humanity's oldest institutions, really not know the available facts, empirical evidence, basic economics, or philosophical underpinnings of Capitalism, or of the disastrous history of Capitalism’s antipode in practice, collectivism? I think not. And if not, can we credit Him with “the best of intentions?” I think not. 

Can Francis really be ignorant of the available facts, empirical evidence, basic economics, or philosophical underpinnings of Capitalism, or of the disastrous history of Capitalism’s antipode in practice, collectivism? I think not. The Catholic Church, as an institution, has a vested interest in poverty. When the Church ruled for centuries, what we now call the Dark and Middle Ages, poverty reigned. It is only with the arrival of modern capitalism that general living standards exploded. Over the past 250 years, the Church had a front row seat to observe the rising prosperity, backed up by mountains of literature explaining the theoretical and empirical economic causes of the prosperity. How can any Pope deny these facts? Can the learned leader of an institution that has been around for 2000 years and has seen it all really be so ignorant of the reality of free market economics and the bloody record of collectivism? No. So why Francis’ trade against Capitalism? Easy. “The poor” is the Cathloic Church's base. Poverty and Church power are linked.

More fundamentally, poverty and Church morals are linked. If handouts to the poor trumps property rights, then the unearned trumps the earned. If poverty is the standard of morality, where does a social system that diminishes poverty based on individual self-determination leave the Catholic Church? Obsolete. The Church doesn’t care about people who work their way up from poverty. They only care about moving the wealth from those who do to those who don’t. The standard of Catholic moral teaching is self-sacrificial giving. If the ranks of those in need is shrinking, who’s left to give to? Poverty, not prosperity, is the Church’s moral standard. Given Capitalism’s record in practice, where does that leave the centuries of Church moral teaching about giving to the poor? 

Francis is the latest in a line of anti-Capitalist Catholic Popes. His demotion of property rights is not new. When Francis says “the right to private property can only be considered a secondary natural right, derived from the principle of the universal destination of created goods.,” he is reiterating Pope Paul VI in his 1967 Encyclical Populorum Progressio who advanced the totalitarian principle that the “public authorities” must coercively ensure that “created goods should flow fairly to all,” emphasizing that  “All other rights, whatever they may be, including the rights of property and free trade, are to be subordinated to this principle.” 

The Pope does not want to “help” the “underprivileged people.” He wants to preserve their misery and expand their ranks. Poverty is virtue, and the most virtuous act one can perform is to take a vow of poverty. That’s why the Church hates capitalism. That’s why Pope after Pope condemns Capitalism. We can explain how Capitalism works until we’re blue in the face. It doesn’t matter to the Church, and never has. Why? Because it’s not whether Capitalism works or how it works. The problem is that it works--works to facilitate man’s escape from poverty. And they’re smart. They attack capitalism at its root--profit-seeking, property rights, and the ethics of rational self-interest. 

Francis is not ignorant. He’s a Marxist (“the principle of the universal destination of created goods,” or, From each according to his ability, to each according to his need) and a communist (“[W]e need to think of ourselves more and more as a single family dwelling in a common home.”) and an altruist (“[I]f one person lacks what is necessary to live with dignity, it is because another person is detaining it.”). Francis knows exactly what he is saying. And he means it. Francis and the Church are not misguided souls. They are Capitalism’s arch enemies as much as Communism is. This fact must be explicitly acknowledged by Capitalism’s champions. 

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The Illegitimacy of Pope Francis's “Legitimate Redistribution” of Wealth—Natalie Ogle for The Objective Standard

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The Tragedy of Theology: How Religion Caused and Extended the Dark Ages: A Critique of Rodney Stark’s The Victory of Reason by Andrew Bernstein for The Objective Standard