The Pope’s Apostolic Confusica

I like a lot of what the new Pope has done. In particular, he’s done a lot to push the Church back to its actual mission of spreading religion and away from being about money and politics. Interestingly, he’s done all of that with only a change in tone too, and without a change in doctrine. His latest issue is a little more troubling however... perhaps.

Last week, Pope Fancis issued an 84-page document called an apostolic exhortation. Think of it as his platform. This seems to be a document aimed at pissing off both sides. For example, he did say that the Church needs to bring more women into decision-making positions with the Church, but he affirmed the Church’s opposition to female priests. In fact, he said it “is not a question open to discussion.” He also affirmed the Church’s opposition to abortion. Both of those will upset progressives.

Pissing off the other side, he wrote what I want to talk about today. Specifically, he wrote about capitalism and poverty and what he said is problematic. Before I tell you my problems with it, however, let me explain what I think he really meant substantively, because when you strip out the ideology, what he says actually makes a lot of sense. Observe:

The Pope’s main concern was about extreme inequality. And you know, I can’t disagree with him. My problem with extreme inequality is that it takes away the stake people feel in society and they start to support radical ideas because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by upending the system. That is why, historically, extreme inequality has led to bloodshed, revolution and typically some form of communism. And in fact, the Pope does note that “unequal distribution of wealth inevitably leads to violence.” So he is being practical in his discussion, i.e. he’s not just saying “it’s not fair.”

And don’t think this isn’t a problem in the US. For decades in the US, any poor person could work their way up to the middle class simply by learning their job, working hard, and staying out of trouble. Those who aspired to more could go further through education or imitative. You could literally go from the assembly line to the boardroom over the course of your life if you proved your merit. Further, the majority of the people who were wealthy earned it by providing some product or service that people needed. They were compensated by the free market and we saw them as heroes for their achievements: they made the world better. The keys were this: (1) wealth was generally earned, (2) political power had little to do with the earning of wealth, and (3) you could work your way up the ladder to each level.

Over the past few decades this has changed. For one thing, the wealthy today rarely earn their wealth through the private market. Instead, they enter the worlds of law or finance, and their wealth comes from the misuse of the legal system to force their way into transactions. In other words, they actually “earn” their wealth by setting up toll booths to clog the free market system, and what they earn is stripped away from companies and people who could otherwise use it invent new products and employ more people. Moreover, their pay does not come from free market mechanisms, it comes from monopoly pricing. Thus, today’s rich make a hell of a lot more money than the rich in the past and they are “earning” it without providing anything useful to society... to the contrary, they are hindering society. Thus, they have gone from heroes to villains.

But this still wouldn’t be a problem if things were going well at the bottom... but they’re not. As I outline in my book, middle class and poor incomes have been sinking badly since the 1970s, even as rich incomes soared (incomes are more unequal today, in the age of Obama, than they’ve been at any time since the age of the Robber Barons). Moreover, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to move up the ladders and to stay on the level you are at. Unlike the past, if you learn your job, work hard and stay out of trouble these days, nothing is guaranteed anymore. Now you need an education, or you will find the ceiling is very low. But even getting an education guarantees you nothing but debt.

The result of this is a poor class who see welfare as their better option and feels entitled because they feel they have gotten screwed by society. You have a middle class that is struggling, which is increasingly turning to “eat the rich” policies, who are also starting to rely on benefits, who see the stock market as fixed, and who see the government becoming a tool for wealth generation on the backs of the middle class who are expected to pick up the tab. That hasn’t led to violence yet in America, but it is the sort of thing that has led to violence elsewhere, and it is the sort of thing which leads people to start supporting destructive policies like increases in welfare for their own class... or worse.

This is why I agree with the Pope’s concerns and why I think conservatives need to start trying to address this issue.

So what is problematic? Well, the Pope’s rhetoric is the problem. He wraps this message in some very anti-capitalist statements. For example, he called capitalism “brutal” and “a new tyranny,” and he complained about “rampant consumerism.” Grr.

First, he’s wrong about consumerism. Consumerism is the ultimate in democracy in action. Consumerism is how billions of humans express their opinions to the businesses and governments around them. It is how we the people reward the good guys who make our lives better and cause the bad guys to fail by ignoring them and their goods. And anything we can do to give consumers more power and more choice, the better. What I think the Pope is really upset about is “materialism,” which is a very different thing. That’s about people choosing stuff over people. He should not be confusing that with consumerism.

Secondly, he’s wrong about “capitalism.” Capitalism is the only way to lift people out of poverty. So attacking “capitalism” is foolish and counter-productive. And again, I think he’s misspoken. I think what he’s really talking about is cronyism, which is obvious from his calls for the reformation of the financial systems.

So the problem is this. Either the Pope simply misused his words or spoken poorly, or he means his rhetoric and is saying something much bigger than what appears to be the substance he intended. If that’s the case, then he’s a fool. If he only misspoke, then that’s fine, except that as someone with this powerful of a bully pulpit, he needs to take more care to speak clearly. His choice of words will wrongly feed statists everywhere. Moreover, for someone whose goal has been to get the Church back to its mission of spreading religion, it’s rather foolish to delve into economic ideology. Further, he offers no solutions by way of guidance. All he says is that unfettered capitalism is bad, but a welfare state is not the answer. So what does he want? It’s not clear.

I get the sense that what he’s talking about is equality of opportunity. He talks about striving to provide work, healthcare and education to all citizens. Those really are the inputs to people living productive lives. In fact, I would suggest that conservatives need a platform that is strong on each of those points: creating jobs and opportunity, improving education, and finding ways to make healthcare cheap and universally available. I also get the sense he’s actually talking about things conservatives should like, and if we could discuss this with him, we would probably find we agree. Indeed, notice that at no point does he call for minimum wages or guaranteed incomes, he never says the government has a duty to hand out these things, and he specifically disdains the welfare mentality.

So ultimately, we probably should be embracing this... BUT his attacks on consumerism and capitalism make it very, very hard to embrace his statement. By saying these things, he has given aid and comfort to people who favor redistribution. He has muddied what he said with sufficient contradictions that it is not possible to know precisely what he wants, which makes it hard to say, “Sure, I agree.” And he has wrongly attacked the very tools it will take to make his goals possible. Frustrating.

Thoughts?