The Pope Hates Money? No

Sometimes people say the stupidest things, especially when they talk in thoughtless bumper-sticker speak. The headlines say the Pope did that this week, but he didn't. Actually, what he said was interesting. Let’s discuss.

For generations now, people on the left and religious figures have referred to money as “the root of all evil.” St. Francis of Assisi called money “the devil’s dung.” And in so doing, these people showed that they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of money and they utterly devalue the ability of individuals to save for their futures.

Why do I say that?

Think about what money represents. To these leftists, money represents some evil tool invented by capitalists to represent wealth, which they then use to deny poor people a share of wealth, but that’s bunk. What money really represents is stored value of a person's own labor. To understand this, think about how one gets money. One gets money by trading their labor, or the product of their labor, for an agreed upon amount of money. In other words, you provide services (or trade goods you acquired or made) to a buyer, who gives you money, i.e. you sell your labor. The more labor you sell, the more money you get. Simple.

Now consider what would happen if there was no money. Rather than getting paid in money, you would need to find someone whose labor you wanted and who just happened to want yours in return. Then you would need to agree upon a rate of exchange. And once one party provided as much labor as the other person needed, the exchange would stop, whether the other party had more labor to give or not. Not so simple.

This is also fraught with problems. For one thing, without money as a convenient means of exchange, the value of your labor would be a lot lower because you could only trade it to certain people... fewer buyers, lower prices. And the costs of finding those people would be prohibitive for most people. Indeed, what exactly can most people provide that others would want and how would you find someone who needs your services as much as you need theirs? This would make people vulnerable to exploitation by the predatory rich, who can afford to hire desperate laborers they don’t need. Moreover, the rate you get for your labor would not be based on some fair market value for labor, it would be skewed heavily toward the party that holds the upper hand. For example, suppose you are selling fruit you have grown. You need someone to fix your tractor or you will lose your ability to keep making fruit. If the man you found who can fix your tractor can wait, he's going to get a heck of a deal on your labor as you become increasingly desperate to unload your fruit before it spoils and becomes worthless.

The result of all this is that a world without "evil" money would be a world of utter poverty and hopelessness, a world where few could sell their skills and those that could would find that their labor is worth far less than in our market-based society. This would be a world where the rich could easily exploit the have-nots and could buy armies of labor at slave rates, and where anyone with a sharp trading sense could exploit anyone against whom they had the upper hand. So how evil is money really? And how stupid are those who rail against money?

Anyway, this stuff should be obvious to anyone who stops to think even for a few minutes. So I was not pleased to read a headline that said that the new Pope had “railed against money” and “advocated a cooperative society.” Ug. Anyway, I decided to look up what the Pope really said and, surprise, it has again been distorted. What the Pope really said was this:

“When money becomes an idol, it controls man’s choices. It makes him a slave.”

In other words, the Pope isn’t anti-money, he’s anti-money-worship or anti-obsession with money. Those are actually conservative values. In fact, unless you’re part of the “God wants you to have an SUV” crowd, most religious conservatives claim to value charity and want everyone in society to value things like faith and family higher than money. They just don’t whine stupidly like leftists that one needs to live in poverty to achieve that.

In terms of what the Pope said about cooperatives, it was essentially similar. He said, that:

“Money at the service of life can be managed in the right way by cooperatives, on condition that it is a real cooperative where capital does not have command over men but men over capital.”

In other words, money is fine when it is put to good uses and when it isn’t a tool to give people power over others. Again, outside of knee-jerk talk radio, I doubt very many conservatives would disagree with that... if we are to be believed about loving individual rights and freedoms rather than concentrations of power. (Knee-jerk talk radio seems to worship macho corporate power acting in the most abusive way.)

This is a message conservatives should embrace and enhance. In fact, rather than buying into the headlines and continuously trying to define Catholicism as an enemy of conservatism, and thereby teaching headline-only-readers to see Catholicism as a leftist force, why not embrace the Pope's comments thusly:

"The Pope himself has embraced the power of capitalism to raise humanity, provided that money is used to serve the rights, freedom and dignity of individuals rather than as a force for control by a concentrated power. We should be working toward a society that is more free, more respecting of the rights and dignity of individuals, and in which our economy is given the freedom to let all who work keep the benefits of their labor so they can employ their neighbors and make a richer, stronger society."

Thoughts?