Maggie's Farm

Pope Francis has claimed he is not a Marxist, but has been vocal in opposing 'unfettered capitalism' without really explaining why unfettered capitalism is a problem, but relying on tropes which really are more about government alignment with business.

Perhaps he is saying 20 century communists hijacked the term, but that's a bit misleading, isn't it? After all, the term was hijacked by Marx when this was fully idealized.

I don't think Marx was hijacking anything, nor do I think the communists are. They are opposed to religion, even if they may like parts of Christian ethic. So I doubt Pope Francis was going that route.

What I think he was doing was naively seeking to say communists want to help the poor, ignoring the methods by which they have implemented their vision, because it does suit his calls so well.

If Pope Francis had said "Communists have utilized a portion of Christian thought to push their agenda, but their agenda as a whole is at odds with the whole of Chrisitan thought," I'd probably be inclined to agree with you.

Based on his commentary, it's clear he's making apologies for the use of force because the root intention is in line with a fundamental Christian ethos.

http://theweek.com/article/index/263985/speedreads-pope-francis-says-communists-are-closet-christians

It seems to me that the Pope himself is confusing Communism with Communalism, since he doesn't seem to differentiate the flaws of Communism from the tenets he says they hijacked.

They are not closet Christians, even in their idealized version. Yes, I agree with you that Marxism (the theory behind Communism, Socialism, etc.) may have a Christian ideal at its core regarding how we should lift up the lowly, but the Pope didn't differentiate. That's his fault, that's his error.

Marxism wasn't hijacked, it was never implementable. The big joke, if you get into a room with economists, is that unlike other theories, Marx never left a blueprint. He ignored the concept of self-organizing behaviors, and called for the centralized implementation of a scheme without explaining how this would happen.
So nothing was hijacked. All that occurred were different people who agreed with Marx trying to implement their schemes using whatever methods they felt could work - and only force works. Even Allende's Chile, which was one of the more peaceful impositions, required force (and sadly force was used to oust him - but this only begs the question of whether there was much difference between the two opposing factions).

Pope Francis' original comments about capitalism were, as you suggest, from Evangelii Gaudium. His recent comment about communists and closet Christians is from a blog post at The Economist.

As you can see from the link above, Pope Francis is poorly educated when it comes to what Capitalism is - suggesting it requires war to survive. As Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Joseph Schumpeter all pointed out, war is anathema to Capitalism. Capitalism requires what Schumpeter called "Creative Destruction", not "Total Devastation".

I agree with everything you wrote, except for your first sentence (though not specifically in reference to Pope Francis). Nothing I wrote is specifically at odds with the rest of your comment.

However, the Pope DID call for reforms and he DID criticize some ideologies without necessarily calling out others. That, alone, is why I feel comfortable saying his viewpoint is naive. His inability to understand the moral underpinnings of Capitalism (the primacy of choice) and the capability of Capitalism to raise up millions of people in a few short years while essentially providing an apology for Communists is, in short, naive. Whether he is a Communist or not is immaterial. It's the positioning of his commentary which is important, and his understanding of the course material he is discussing that is meaningful.

He knows his business well - that it's up to us to help people, that helping the poor is a Christian theme and a righteous motivation. He does not know his economics well at all. Unfettered Capitalism is not the great danger he claims it is, nor is it driven by war. The great danger he alluded to is completely driven by political ties to business interests and so is war. Profits are a side business, the 'reward' for politically motivated behaviors.

You can have profits without the political relationship, but the political relationship helps lock in a form of long term monopoly profits. That is the real issue he should be addressing. Not Capitalism or Communism.

Communism, at its core, is fine. As long as you enter into voluntarily and you are not forced to remain part of the communal arrangement, and are free to leave at any time. Free markets allow for this. Capitalism allows for this. There are plenty of co-ops doing very well in modern society.

I understand the larger motivation of his commentaries (growing up Catholic is a huge benefit here), but he needs to improve his PR and his communication. The message isn't being sent properly, and he doesn't seem to care.


BTW, plenty of CEOs have reached the top being naive and/or uneducated. I've worked for at least one, and I could make a case for several others. My wife makes the same comment to me all the time "you can't be stupid and be successful." Then I remind her of a few of her past bosses, and the discussion ends quickly.

It's easy to destroy a business if you don't care about the message you're sending or how you're running it. If 'getting what's yours' is all that matters, you can reach the top very quickly.

I won't dispute the connection, never did.

I merely said capitalism fails when it comes to war. The idea that destruction is a beneficial concept is anathema to the ideology and implementation.

Connecting the US and GB as warrior nations, and then connecting them to capitalism would mean you're connecting 2 nations with imperial political DNA that have also convinced enought CEOs that joining a corporatist/political can produce some profits (ignoring all the while that others' profits will be impacted negatively, ultimately yielding less for all). This is not capitalism.

It's called capitalism by those who don't know better for one reason. They are unable to fathom how a corporation can exist outside of capitalism. But it can, and often does. Neither the US or GB are capitalist nations. We were much closer to being capitalist nations in the late 1800's. WWI changed everything, WWII changed it even more, and the fear of communism changed it even more.

I'm not sure why we felt mimicking portions of communist thought would help us defeat communism, because while it led to a temporary reprieve, it was clearly never defeated, and we're much weaker now because of it.



BTW, Pope Francis' comment on 'closet Christians' would have been acceptable to me if he used it to describe those holding pure Marxist positions. That is, the original ideology. Because that was really a core value of the original Marxist view, though he despised religion. Yet he despised it because he felt religion was in cahoots with capital. Now what are we seeing? Quite the reverse...

As a result, I see naivete in Pope Francis' comment not just in terms of his understanding of capitalism, but also in his ability, or lack thereof, to differentiate Marxism from communism or even socialism.

I was merely questioning whether there is much difference between either side which thinks they need to utilize force to get what they need.

Certainly there were political and ideological differences.

But in the end, neither side was comfortable letting the native processes work themselves out and both used armed coercion.

Whether Chile did better with Pinochet (and that's highly questionable, depending on how you define 'better' - perhaps economically, but not so much with regard to human rights) isn't a rationale for his armed force being 'better' than Allende's.

It's that reason which leads me to the conclusion neither was preferable, both in many ways similar.

I didn't profess sympathy for Allende. I merely stated that the methods used, on either side, were hardly justifiable.

I think my cred in terms of despising communism is fairly evident. Just because I happen to think there is more than one way to handle a situation does not mean I necessarily have sympathy for the loser in that particular situation. There's no question Allende got what he deserved, given his methods. But then you have to wonder were all the bodies in the aftermath justifiable?

You may think so. I don't. That's all.

I have a different view. I think at the corporate level 'systems theory' works just fine. It's not a bad thing to teach or even necessarily learn.

At a macro level, however, it's very problematic, and I agree with your premise regarding the Socialists and Communists trying to utilize it to order society.

Today, here in the US, Behavioral Economics is being twisted to do the same thing. A classic example from Freakonomics is the study which was designed to give children free books at an early age because studies had shown that homes with books had higher achievers. This kind of classic "Correlation is Causation" error is repeated time and time again in social policy circles. Behavioral Economics is, in reality, not a horrible thing, except when it's used poorly or like a sledgehammer.

Very few of us, including Libertarians like me, would be opposed to taxing vices. We'd likely opposing taxing them punitively, but taxing them to a small degree is going to prevent some people from taking their use to an extreme or causing themselves severe physical harm. I'd argue we shouldn't engineer social policy in this way on a large scale, but there are actually some long run benefits to the concept in very specific cases. That is a good application of Behavioral Economics.

At this point, I'd add I've always felt Behavioral Economics actually grew out of the Austrian School of Economics, because the basic premise of the Austrian School is that people make decisions based on particular needs (not necessarily rational ones). Pure Austrians would stipulate any intervention in the price mechanism would lead to unintended consequences and misallocation of resources. But sometimes the unintended consequences are good. The downside, of course, is the money goes to the government, and generally speaking we see this as a 'bad'.

It's here that Schumpeter's views on the future of Capitalism are worth noting. Schumpeter was mildly related to the Austrian School, as a supporter of free markets. But he was not as deeply ingrained as others. Schumpeter, I believe, answered your question about why corporations allow the Left to undermine our economy.

He pointed out that as corporations become more deeply involved in politics, the relationship undermines the necessary freedoms which allow them to be flexible and act properly in a free market.

However, the relationships with politics creates a limited form of monopoly profits. The corporations get the regulations they want which guarantee them a perceived higher income level 'now'. Schumpeter pointed out this may seem all well and good, but in the long run it requires more regulations, more laws and eventually freedoms are undermined.

The corporations become willing and naive partners in the drive toward a Socialist-style outcome because they seem to believe they are 'saving' the free market simply because they still exist.

But the existence of a corporation does not, in any way, prove a free market, or even a market, exists. It's no surprise there are precious few corporations giving money to Libertarian causes. We don't oppose corporations, but we do oppose their cozy political relationships.

Leftists assume Libertarians are naive, that the corporate relationship necessitates a cozy political relationship, and our support of corporations means we are simply shifting blame to government.

However, we are not. We do blame government, but we also blame greedy business people who think government provides income, and can assure income. In the short run, perhaps it seems that way. In the long run, the Leftists win because either the corporations fall in line to save their skin and a pseudo-Socialist (fascist) arrangement is reached, or the Leftists convince enough people that corporations are evil and manage to get a punitive ruler in place to 'make things right' (can you say Bill di Blasio?).

Because they don't view it as communism if it benefits them. And in benefiting themselves, many people feel that is capitalism.

In reality, it is just a form of fascism, which is tightly related to socialism.

Remember how closely the businessmen of Nazi Germany protected the ruling party? Because it benefited a cozy few.

In the near term, it will end badly. In the long run, I suppose we are likely to learn some useful lessons from all this. Hopefully we'll put those lessons to good use.