Sunday, February 9, 2014

Libertarians dispute Pope's economic pontifications

Libertarians become vocal critics of Evangelii Gaudium | National Catholic Reporter - Michael Sean Winters:

January 30, 2014 - "The most interesting criticisms of Pope Francis's apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, have come from libertarians who are closest to the economic views the pope denounced.

"In this document, Francis ... condemned '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'.... He warned against laissez-faire adherents who 'reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control'.... The pope chastised 'the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose.'

"'Speaking for libertarians, my objection to what the pope wrote derives from two things,' the Cato Institute's Marian Tupy said in an interview with NCR. 'First, there is the factual statement. The pope says the world is becoming worse, but that can be measured. In almost 200 pages, he never cites a single study, a single number, to support his claim. Tupy, who wrote an article encapsulating his objections in The Atlantic, cites a host of statistics to support his claim that 'capitalism, compared to other systems, does very well at bringing people out of poverty'....

"A similar critique of Evangelii Gaudium came from the pro-market Acton Institute, which is run by a Catholic priest, Fr. Robert Sirico. In a video discussing Evangelii Gaudium, Sirico posed a series of questions: 'Where are these unhampered markets?' he asked. 'Where is the market absolutely autonomous?' Sirico seems to be suggesting that the pope was creating straw men and attacking them, and expresses the hope that future exhortations will confront the economic questions Sirico poses."

Read more: http://ncronline.org/news/politics/libertarians-become-vocal-critics-exhortation
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