Thomas Donlan‘s latest editorial commentary in Barron’s explains how Pope Francis’ recent pronouncements stray from the economic truth.
A genuine, benevolent communist is visiting the U.S. this week, and so is the pro forma communist who is president of China. Most Americans are welcoming Pope Francis without reservation, and greeting President Xi Jinping warily.
But the capitalism and wealth-seeking commenced by the recent string of rulers of China have done more for individual freedom and prosperity than the communal charity managed by the recent string of rulers of the Catholic Church. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are better fed, better clothed, and better housed than hundreds of millions of third-world Catholics.
A modest, incomplete embrace of capitalism changed life for the Chinese in less than 50 years, but Pope Francis and his church remain wary of individualism. He admonished the U.S. Congress, all Americans, and the world last Thursday, “Live as one, to build as one the greatest common good.”
The greatest common good, however, is not found in social unity but in competition among individuals endowed by their creator with rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Pope Francis disagrees. As he said in 2013, “Today, everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless.…As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.”
The laws of competition, however, have provided better lives for the poor as well as the rich where they are allowed to operate.
