The Time Thomas Sowell Took on the Pope
Few figures in conservativism are more revered than free-market economist, social theorist and philosopher Thomas Sowell. His work has spanned decades and influenced generations.
Sowell has written a nationally syndicated column, authored dozens of books and dazzled television audiences time and time again with his common sense, anti-intellectual approach to political and cultural issues.
The following story is part of The Western Journal’s exclusive series “The Sowell Digest.” Each issue will break down and summarize one of Sowell’s many influential works.
In advance of Pope Francis’ September 2015 visit to the United States, Thomas Sowell exposed the pontiff’s flawed leftist ideas.
From the commencement of his papacy in March 2013, Francis had uttered many noble words about helping the poor.
In an essay titled “The Left Has Its Pope,” Sowell explained the irony in those words. Despite good intentions, the pontiff did not seem to understand the relationship between poverty and economic systems.
“Pope Francis has created political controversy, both inside and outside the Catholic Church, by blaming capitalism for many of the problems of the poor,” Sowell began.
In 2013, for instance, Francis attacked what he called the “new tyranny” of capitalism without restraints, according to CNBC.
“As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems,” the pontiff wrote.
The “absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation” amounts to a straw man. It exists nowhere. Nor does unrestrained capitalism. It never has.
Assuming it did exist, however, whom would Francis trust to bridle this runaway capitalism of his imagination?
“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,” the pope wrote.
In short, Francis looked to government to solve problems supposedly caused by capitalism.
Sowell noted that the pope represents merely the latest in a long line of extreme leftist Catholic leaders.
In the 1980s, for instance, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops published the “Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy.”
Had the publication been rooted in Scripture, Sowell would not have complained. Alas, Archbishop Rembert Weakland confessed that he and his co-authors found their inspiration elsewhere.
“I think we should be up front and say that really we took this from the Enlightenment era,” Weakland said.
On balance, the 18th-century Enlightenment led to greater human liberty in America and elsewhere. In its worst manifestation, however, the Enlightenment also degenerated into the atheistic French Revolution.
Sowell found this deceitful on the part of the bishops.
“To base social or moral principles on the philosophy of the 18th century Enlightenment, and then call the result ‘Catholic teachings’ suggests something like bait-and-switch advertising,” he wrote.
In any event, neither the bishops of the 1980s nor the 21st-century pontiff had the right idea.
“Both the authors of the Bishops’ Pastoral Letter in the 1980s, and Pope Francis today, blithely throw around the phrase ‘the poor,’ and blame poverty on what other people are doing or not doing to or for ‘the poor,'” Sowell wrote.
Herein lay his basic criticism of the pope and his leftist ideas. Poverty, in fact, existed long before capitalism.
“Any serious look at the history of human beings over the millennia shows that the species began in poverty,” Sowell wrote.
Thus, he said, “It is not poverty, but prosperity, that needs explaining.”
Sowell provided the explanation.
“The much criticized market economy of the United States has done far more for the poor than the ideology of the left,” he wrote.
Indeed, conservatives such as Sowell support market economies precisely because they help the poor. No other economic system has lifted so many people out of poverty.
Had Francis merely urged Catholics to treat the poor with generosity, he would have done right.
By blaming poverty on capitalism, however, the pontiff repeated old leftist lies.
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