I Like this Pope...capitalism? trickle down?

JANUARY 7, 2014, 2:20 PM

Republicans Respond to the Pope

By TERESA TRITCH

Pope Francis has reportedly struck a chord in Washington with his critique of today’s “impersonal economy.”

Some Democrats see his views, not unreasonably, as lending moral authority to issues at the top of their agenda, including extending unemployment benefits and raising the minimum wage. Republicans, in contrast, find themselves forced to defend their opposition to those policies. But that doesn’t mean they’re ready to reconsider.

The Republican gift for distortion was on display in recent responses to the pope’s comments. Here are a few, contrasted with the pope’s own words:

Newt Gingrich has urged Republicans to embrace the pope’s “core critique,” which he summarized as: “You do not want to live on a planet with billionaires and people who do not have any food.”

Making sure that everyone has enough to eat would be an improvement on the status quo – and as such, would be something for Republicans to aim for.

But the gist of the pope’s comments, it’s not.

The pope called on believers to say “thou shalt not” to “an economy of exclusion and inequality,” because “such an economy kills.”  He pushed them to say, “No to an economy of exclusion;” “No to the new idolatry of money;” “No to a financial system which rules rather than serves;” and “No to the inequality which spawns violence.” And those are only the subheadings.

The pope also called for an end to a system “where the powerful feed upon the powerless” and “as a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.”

He rebuked those who continue to defend “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.” That view, he wrote, “expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.”

And so on.

Rush Limbaugh accused the pope of spouting “pure Marxism.” In fact, the pope is explicit that the perils of today’s capitalism are different from those cited by Marx. “It is no longer about exploitation and oppression, but something new,” he writes. Those who are abused by capitalism are not society’s “underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the ‘exploited,’ but the outcast, the ‘leftovers.’”

Mr. Limbaugh apparently thinks that any critique of capitalism is Marxist. The pope apparently does not.

And then there is Paul Ryan, who basically said the pope doesn’t know what he is talking about. “The guy is from Argentina,” he told the Milwaukee Journal last month. “They haven’t had real capitalism in Argentina.”

Yet Mr. Ryan has tried before to shoehorn his political actions and ideology into Catholic social teaching. When the American bishops criticized his 2012 budget for harming the poor, he responded by saying that the Catholic principle of “subsidiarity,” supports Republican-style small government.

Subsidiarity, which dates from the late 19^th century, is complicated, but it certainly doesn’t read as shorthand for “government should get out of the way” or as a call to tear down social programs that foster greater equality and alleviate poverty.

The catechism on subsidiarity says that “a community of a higher order” – say, the government – “should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order” – say, a family, “depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need” – jobless benefits, anyone? – “and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society” – access to health care, everyone? –  “always with a view to the common good.” (Emphasis added.)

Besides, the pope says the problem today is not government involvement, but lack thereof. Growing inequality, he says:

“… is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules.”

In case that’s not clear, he adds:

“In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.”

That’s not an easy message for anyone to absorb. But apparently it’s especially difficult for Republicans.