Last week, just before the start of the annual shopping orgy by which we celebrate the birth of Jesus, Pope Francis issued an eloquent attack on growing income inequality, the abandonment of the poor and what he called “the absolute autonomy of the marketplace” in modern life.
“The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money,” the pope wrote, warning that under the current system, mankind is being “reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.”
The pope was not attacking capitalism as a whole, only its obvious excesses and imbalance. And it shouldn’t be controversial to hear religious leaders defend the poor and powerless and condemn economic injustice, but apparently it has become so. Ordinary words drawing upon centuries of Christian theology and teaching are now seen as a threat, and many conservatives responded to it aggressively.
Rush Limbaugh, for example, counterattacked with the claim that “This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the pope.” At the conservative American Enterprise Institute, James Pethokoukis claimed that the papal exhortation wasn’t really aimed at us, meaning we Americans.
“Pope Francis’s vision transcends such parochial concerns,” Pethokoukis reassured his readers. “He is a global figure looking at crony capitalism in South America, massive youth unemployment in big-government Europe, tremendous wealth disparities in state capitalist Asia, and deep poverty in Africa.”
The denial is almost comical.
In his commentary, the pope referred to a “deified market” and “the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system,” and that’s a crucial point. We have indeed elevated the “free market” from a theoretical construct into an object of veneration or worship. We have turned the profane into something sacred.
For example, we are taught to believe that the market, like God, possesses perfect wisdom in deciding who deserves to be rewarded with riches and who deserves to be punished with misery. If we are poor, it’s because we deserve to be poor, and if we are rich, it is because we deserve to be. Like God on his throne, the omniscient market has divided the sheep from the goats and its judgment never errs. (Not surprisingly, we are told that most often by those whom the market has anointed as virtuous and deserving.)
Likewise, any effort to interfere with the judgment of the holy market — any effort to lessen the pain of the poor or the comfort of the wealthy — is deemed an act of blasphemy or, to borrow from Limbaugh, “pure Marxism”.
The notion of a “deified market” also assumes that the system exists in some state of natural perfection and that its judgments haven’t already tilted by the hand of man to favor the powerful and disfavor others. Even when that tilt is too obvious to ignore — when Congress slashes aid to feed the poor while protecting taxpayer subsidies to Big Agriculture, or when taxes are diverted to build baseball or football stadiums for wealthy owners — it is justified as government merely affirming the market’s judgment of who should be rewarded, and who has earned further punishment.
“I am far from proposing an irresponsible populism,” Francis wrote, “but the economy can no longer turn to remedies that are a new poison, such as attempting to increase profits by reducing the work force and thereby adding to the ranks of the excluded. I beg the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor! It is vital that government leaders and financial leaders take heed and broaden their horizons, working to ensure that all citizens have dignified work, education and healthcare.”
Again, such words should not be controversial; fairness and justice should be a standard part of our discussions. Instead, we are treated to shallow distractions such as the so-called “war on Christmas,” as if the practice of saying “happy holidays” rather than “merry Christmas” is more insidious than a mentality that drives stores to hike profits by opening Thanksgiving Day, and that pushes people to fight each other over bargain-priced gifts that they will later offer as symbols of love and affection.
It’s hard to imagine more compelling evidence of the sickness that Francis warns against.
