The Pope Misrepresented on Capitalism

You have probably seen headlines about Pope Benedict XVI's book Jesus of Nazareth. (I have it on preorder from Amazon.) I nearly did a post last week about the press reviews of this book. I would bet you that the reporting was way off the mark. Here is a sampling of the stories:

Breitbart: Pope's New Book Criticizes Capitalism

VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Benedict XVI offers a personal meditation on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ in his first book as pontiff, criticizing the "cruelty" of capitalism's exploitation of the poor but also decrying the absence of God in Marxism.

AOL: Benedict XVI Releases First Book As Pope

VATICAN CITY (AP) – Benedict XVI criticizes the "cruelty" of capitalism and colonialism and the power of the wealthy over the poor in his first book as pope released on Friday.

ABC News: Benedict XVI Releases First Book As Pope

Benedict XVI criticizes the "cruelty" of capitalism and colonialism and the power of the wealthy over the poor in his first book as pope released on Friday.

(If you look closely, you will note that all these stories go back to the same source: Nicole Winfield, Associated Press. She appears to be the main source for this analysis.)

As I read these stories, I immediately became suspicious. The criticism all seemed to be about imperialism and colonialism. I saw no condemnation of well-organized capital markets or free exchange of goods. In fact, while capitalists have engaged (and do engage) in imperialism and colonialism, these practices are antithetical to capitalism. They are not free exchange. Imperialism and colonialism are about one nation subjugating another nation through power. Capitalism can create great wealth and power; therefore, it can be one environment in which imperialism and colonialism are possible. But the same is true of the economies of the empires of Ancient China, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the Ottomans. So could the economy of the Soviet Union. The conflation of capitalism with imperialism and colonialism is intellectually dishonest.

I found the idea that Benedict XVI would be so antagonistic to capitalism very odd since he, in many ways, seems similar to John Paul II, who wrote:

Can it perhaps be said that after the failure of communism capitalism is the victorious social system and the capitalism is the victorious social system and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path of true economic and civil progress?

The answer is obviously complex. If by “capitalism” is meant and economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property, and the resulting responsibility for the means of production as well as free creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy,” “market economy,” or simply “free economy.” But if by “capitalism” is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative. (Centesimus Annus, 42)

Could Benedict XVI (even if this is just his reflections) be such a departure from John Paul II? I was immediately suspicious and suspected that the pope was being radically misrepresented. The issue was not the pope but the Associated Press's inept (or willfully dishonest) reporting. That is the bet I was going to make.

Well, my suspicions were right. The word "capitalism" is not mentioned in the book! Father Robert Sirico writes in Does the Pope Blast Capitalism?"

Now, in reading these stories, my first reaction was: What is meant here by capitalism? If by capitalism we mean a system where the elites own the wealth and the poor exist in a servile condition, yes, that sounds cruel. But if we mean the free economy, it is another matter entirely. The free economy (and you can call it capitalism if you want) has been the number one source of material liberation for the poor the world over.

We need only look at the last ten years in China, Eastern Europe, and Asia to see how the free economy has boosted life spans, reduced infant mortality, increased overall health, and fed millions in ways that would be unimaginable under controlled economies. The free economy is a life support system for the whole world. Could the Benedict XVI really be departing from the teachings of John Paul II that economic freedom is but a part of a larger system of freedom and rights that is embraced by the Church?

What a surprise, then, awaited me when I actually received the book. It is not a book about politics, economics, or anything that the press is usually interested in. It is a sophisticated theological and spiritual reflection. Its topic is Jesus. Incredibly, it never uses the word "capitalism" at all.

……

What does the book actually say? While Ratzinger does explicitly criticize Karl Marx's notion of alienation, the word "capitalism" never appears in the text. What does appear is a challenging moral meditation on human solidarity and the centrality of God in human life, including aid to poor people. All this occurs in the course of Ratzinger's discussion of the Good Samaritan. Here he says, in my translation from the Italian:

"The timeliness of the parable is obvious. If we apply it to the dimensions of globalized society, we see how the population of Africa, which finds itself robbed and plundered, is of personal concern to us. So we see how close they are to us; we see also that our lifestyle, the history in which we are also involved, has deprived them and continues to deprive them. In this, above all, is comprised the fact that we have wounded them spiritually. Instead of giving them God, the God close to us in Christ, and thus welcoming from their traditions all that is precious and grand and bringing it to fulfillment, we have brought them the cynicism of a world without God in which only power and profit matter. We have destroyed moral criteria so that corruption and the will to power, deprived of scruples, becomes something obvious. And this pertains not only to Africa.

"Yes, we have to give material help and we have to examine our way of life. But we always give too little if all we give is the material. And do we not also find within ourselves a plundered and martyred man? The victims of drugs, or human trafficking, of sexual tourism, people interiorly destroyed, who are empty even in the abundance of material goods…We have to learn anew from the inside out the risk of abundance (bounty)…"

There is no mention here of economics, politics or specific programs of redistribution, much less any ringing criticism of the free economy. If Ratzinger means to say by this passage that the poor in Africa are made poor by our wealth, that it an empirical claim which can either be verified or falsified by the facts – and none of this would touch on his authority as pope, or Catholic social teaching as such.

But I do not think that is his point, even if it is on the agenda of journalists and editorial writers. Ratzinger's writings are startlingly clear and unambiguous. This is explicitly a spiritual reflection on our own interior disposition toward those who are "neighbors" to us and for whom we have some moral responsibility – not an economic screed.

I haven't yet read the book for myself, but this gives every indication of being yet another example of the exceedingly misinformed and distorted reporting of the press on religious and economic issues. Yet I do not doubt that religionists all across the US and the world have looked at this story as just one more reinforcement for their anti-business prejudices.