jasongpeirce
09-02-2015, 03:25 PM
Why is Pope Francis Channeling Nimrod?
by Jason Peirce (http://www.voicesofliberty.com/bio/jason-peirce/)
http://www.voicesofliberty.com/article/pope-francis-channeling-nimrod/
Everyone knows Nimrod, right? You know, this guy:
file:///C:\Users\Jason\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\ clip_image002.jpg
Oops, not that Nimrod, otherwise known as Elmer Fudd, but irreverently dubbed “Nimrod” by Bugs Bunny!
I meant the historical Nimrod depicted below, overseeing the construction of the Tower of Babel:
file:///C:\Users\Jason\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\ clip_image004.jpg
This is Nimrod from the Book of Genesis — the “mighty hunter” who as the originator of the world’s first centralized, totalitarian government, is also recognized as the world’s first political “tyrant.” Many scholars note that the name Nimrod derives from the Hebrew verb for “rebel.” Indeed, Nimrod, high on hubris, is believed to have constructed the Tower of Babel in rebellion against God. We all know how that ended. For the purposes here, the point is that God was far from pleased with Nimrod’s focus on earthly power.
This brings us to Pope Francis.
Much is already being made of Pope Francis’ scheduled visit to the U.S. in late September, during which he will in unprecedented fashion, deliver a speech to a Joint Session of Congress in D.C. before his later address to the United Nations in New York.
What will the Pope speak about? According to the article “A Call To Virtue” in the Jesuit journal America by the Pope’s advisor Dr. Jeffrey Sachs (who also serves as an advisor to the U.N. and director of the Earth Institute and Professor of Sustainable Development at Columbia University), the Pope is coming to call for Americans to embrace the virtues of Jesus Christ. This is good. But he’s also coming to issue a challenge to the “American idea of God-given rights embodied in the Declaration of Independence.” The purpose of the challenge is because American society is “a society in thrall” with the idea of “unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And, because of “America’s exaggerated defense of liberty at the expense of virtue,” this “thrall” has led to “a crisis of the human spirit” and a “failure to live properly.” In short, Sachs and the Pope apparently attribute all of this to what they erroneously see as “free market capitalism. It’s erroneous because the U.S.’s “defense of liberty” is arguable, and because the U.S. hardly practices free market capitalism. The problem is too little freedom, not too much (more on this later). At any rate, Sachs assures that “Pope Francis is not coming as a scold but as a guide to help us find a solution to the paradox of the poverty of the spirit in the rising sea of affluence.” The Pope’s also coming to address “climate change” (Sachs has long-argued for redistributive global taxes to cut carbon emissions and to fund “a greatly enhanced supply of global public goods”).
What are we to make of all this? In short, Pope Francis is coming to challenge liberty and call for more government (U.S.) and intergovernmental (U.N.) intervention to right the wrongs in the world. He apparently believes government can foster the virtues of Jesus Christ (including humility, love, compassion, justice, and community). But contrarily, government, which necessarily requires force and coercion, is incompatible with the virtues of Jesus, which flow volitionally from the hearts of individuals, not from the force of government. Virtue cannot be coerced. Christ himself might be the first to assert as much.
This brings us to the point of this article. In challenging liberty and calling for more centralized government, Pope Francis is channeling Nimrod. In doing so the Pope has often distorted the teachings of Jesus and exhibited a gross ignorance of basic economics and political economy. This is disturbing because the Pope wields enormous influence and power and is seen by many as God’s moral authority on earth. That the Pope’s intentions may differ from Nimrod’s matters not. According to basic economics and political economy, the consequences of more government will be the same, regardless of the intent of who’s calling for it. All of this begs the question: if Pope Francis cannot be trusted on these issues, how can he be trusted on anything? Let’s examine some of of the Pope’s distortions before answering the question.
Pope Francis and the teachings of Jesus
In May, 2014 Pope file:///C:\Users\Jason\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\ clip_image006.jpgFrancis addressed the United Nations and used the Biblical story of Jesus and Zaccheus (Luke 19: 1-10) to justify the “legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the State.” But the point of the story of Zaccheus, the wicked tax collector, was that Zaccheus had a change of heart after meeting Jesus. Jesus so inspired Zaccheus that Zaccheus voluntarily chose to give back 4-times the amount he defrauded from others, and to give half of his possessions to the poor. Zaccheus voluntarily chose to redistribute his “economic benefits.” Zaccheus was not forced to do so by the government (the “State”). Despite this distinction, Pope Francis reasoned:
“This same spirit should be at the beginning and end of all political and economic activity……This ought to awaken the conscience of political and economic agents and lead them to generous and courageous decisions with immediate results, like the decision of Zaccheus.”
The problem here is that when “political agents” choose to redistribute “economic benefits,” there is nothing “generous” or “courageous” about it, as every “economic benefit” political agents choose to redistribute is coerced from taxpayers — under the threat of fines and imprisonment for non-payment, at that. The tax dollars politicians redistribute do not come out of the politicians’ own pockets. So, Pope Francis is calling for politicians to be “courageous” and “generous” with “economic benefits” coerced from other people. The point is that the virtue of charity cannot be coerced by government. Furthermore, the power of political authority, manifested and expressed through government, fosters vice and moral hazard. Calling for politicians, through government, to be more “generous” and “courageous” with other people’s “economic benefits” is calling for more power for government, which is essentially calling for more vice and moral hazard. Government is the designated social institution of organized force and violence. Surely Pope Francis understands this?
This begs another question, what did Jesus Christ himself feel about government? As Christian scholar Jacque Ellul has noted, for government Jesus reserved “irony, scorn, noncooperation, indifference and sometimes accusation.” I’ve made a similar case here (http://www.voicesofliberty.com/article/4-examples-of-jesus-christs-libertarianism/), using examples from the Gospels. At best, Jesus had no use for government. At worst, Jesus saw government as a mechanism of tyranny and oppression. Jesus did not advocate obedience to government. And after all, Jesus was killed by government. I’ve addressed the other parts of the Bible which do seem to advocate obedience to government, here (http://www.voicesofliberty.com/article/romans-13-not-the-pro-government-passage-statists-claim-it-to-be/).
The point is that Jesus’s “irony, scorn, noncooperation, indifference and sometimes accusation” for government make it all the more curious why Pope Francis sees government as the path to more virtue and a remedy for the world’s ills. Jesus didn’t advocate more government, he advocated the law of love: the Golden Rule. Government necessarily excludes the Golden Rule:
“The State always and everywhere necessarily violates the Golden Rule because the State does to others whatever it wants with impunity, as the State holds a monopoly on the (alleged) legitimate use of force and violence. But said Christ: ‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law of the prophets’ (Matthew 7:12).”
What would Jesus say about Pope Francis’ advocacy for more government?
Pope Francis on Economics: Austerity and Unemployment
On May 1, 2014 Pope Francis spoke in St. Peter’s Square and addressed the protests across Europe over worker’s rights, austerity, and joblessness. Said Pope Francis:
“I think about those who are unemployed often because of an economic conception of society that seeks egoistic profit regardless of social justice.”
Although seeking “egoistic profit” may not be virtuous, it’s not the cause of unemployment. Government intervention and regulation is. “Austerity” happens when governments spend and borrow themselves into bankruptcy. Unemployment generally happens when government taxes business too much, and imposes minimum wage laws which make jobs under arbitrarily-chosen wage levels illegal (unemployment also happens when government and central banks cause recessions — more on this later). Businesses do not benefit when they cannot afford to hire more workers, or when they must cut workers to stay in business, due to government intervention. Furthermore, the more unemployment, the less goods and services the unemployed can buy from businesses. Moreover, businessmen serve the public, not the other way around. As the great economist Ludwig von Mises succinctly noted: “He who serves the public best, makes the highest profits.” It’s about service first. Remember Jesus Christ’s Parable of the Talents (Mathew 25: 14-30).
In short, true “social justice” would entail the removal of the barrier of government so people could freely associate in mutually beneficial exchanges, whether in labor, or goods and services. “Social justice” cannot be coerced in the form of higher taxes and minimum wages, or the redistribution of “economic benefits.” Free markets unite people. Government intervention divides people. Surely Pope Francis understands this? (see more Mises quotes)
Pope Francis on Economics: Money
Pope Francis has also exhibited confusion and hypocrisy on the topic of money. During a September, 2013 visit to Sardinia, Pope Francis blasted the global economy and the “god called money” while urging the unemployed in the audience of a crowd of 20,000 to fight for work. Before calling on a prayer for “work, work, work,” Pope Francis asserted:
“We don’t want this globalised economic system which does us so much harm. Men and women have to be at the centre (of an economic system) as God wants, not money… The world has become an idolator of this god called money… It is not (only) a problem of Italy and Europe … It is the consequence of a world choice, of an economic system that brings about this tragedy, an economic system that has at its centre an idol which is called money…”
Pope Francis indeed makes a strong point on the love of money as vice. But note that after ripping the “god called money” he then called a prayer for people to work. Why do people work? To make money.
Speaking of money, Pope Francis is the face of the Vatican, the net worth of which is estimated to be some $10-$15 billion. The Church has never been shy about fund-raising, nor about passing around the collection plate every mass. Pope Francis also presided over the renting-out of the Sistine Chapel to Porsche (the automaker) for a Porsche “tour event.” What would Jesus think about all of this? Speaking of the Vatican, Pope Francis will also reportedly address immigration in his upcoming visit to the U.S., and urge the U.S. to “open its doors” to all who wish to immigrate in. Is Pope Francis also willing to “open the doors” of Vatican City – a walled, heavily-secured, independent, sovereign state in the middle of Rome – to all who might want to immigrate there?
Pope Francis on Economics: The “tragedy” of the economic system and the “powerful feeding on the powerless”
Pope Francis is correct that the “globalized economic system” is a “tragedy.” But it’s not a tragedy because of too much liberty, as he suggests. Rather, it’s a tragedy because it’s a system dictated by government and central bank cronyism, characterized by fiat-moneyed, inflationist, fractional reserve policies, the effects of which redistribute wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthy, driving “inequality.”
Speaking of “inequality,” in his first apostolic exhortation Evangeli Gaudium from November, 2013, Pope Francis addressed economic “exclusion,” the “inequality gap,” and stated that “inequality is the root of social ills” while railing against the “new tyranny” of the “powerful feeding on the powerless.” I share his outrage on “the powerful feeding on the powerless.” But again the problem is that Pope Francis attributes this to a lack of state control” and the “absolute autonomy of markets.”
The “powerful feeding on the powerless,” happens because there is not enough freedom, not too much. Freedom breeds competition, and competition in the business of goods and services is good for the poor and middle class, as competition brings down the prices of goods and services, and quality up. Naturally, the powerful (corporate big businesses) don’t want lower prices. So the powerful corporations lobby government for policies which raise prices. In other words, “exclusion” and the “inequality gap” and the “powerful feeding on the powerless” happens because government protects and shields the powerful from competition, which also stifles entrepreneurship and innovation. This is characteristic of crony-capitalism, which is far closer to fascism than free market capitalism. In a free market capitalist system, government would not protect the powerful and no business would be bailed out. Too-Big-To-Fail would not exist. The powerful would be competing against each other to serve the people. If the powerful could not give the people what the people demand in the free market, the powerful would fail and be powerful no more. In free market capitalism, where business serves the people, the people have power.
But the “tragedy” of “the powerful feeding on the powerless” also goes back to money. Money arose as a means of exchange – money in-and-of-itself is not the problem. The problem is government which controls and inflates money. This is what Pope Francis will not address. Government and central bank control of money and inflation is the greatest mechanism of social injustice and exploitation in the world. The long, strong precedence of Catholic thought on money (Bishop Nicolas Oresme, Pope Innocent III, St. Thomas Aquinas, etc.) shows that government control of money and inflation is not only economically unnecessary, but that it also fosters vice, redistributes from the powerless to the powerful, and insidiously destroys the spirit of the people. It is disturbingly curious that Pope Francis does not address this. The case for sound, honest money is made throughout the Bible:
“Diverse weights are an abomination to the Lord, and a false balance is not good” (Proverbs 20:23)
“You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length, weight, or volume. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin…” (Leviticus 19:35-36)
“Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water” (Isaiah 1:22)
and this:
“So when the money failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, ‘Give us bread, for why should we die in your presence? For the money has failed’” (Genesis 47:15).
Money “fails” and people are hurt when government controls money. Where is Pope Francis on this?
Pope Francis and Economics: What free market?
Furthermore, what nation is the Pope referring to, where “absolute autonomy of the marketplace” exists, where the state cannot “exercise any form of control”? Surely not the U.S. The problem for the U.S. and Europe is that there is too much control and not enough autonomy of the market, what with central bank (Federal Reserve) control of the fiat-money supply and interest rates, and government control of business through regulation and executive order. In the U.S., it was the Fed which pumped the economy full of cheap money and manipulated interest rates, and the government which helped blow vulnerable Americans into the 2000’s housing bubble which exploded into the 2008 Great Recession, in which the banks were bailed out by the government while the people got stuck with the bill. Talk about “the powerful feeding on the powerless.” Government, which stifles free association and mutually beneficial exchanges while fostering vice and moral hazard, is “the root of social ills,” not “inequality.” Yet Pope Francis calls for more government. The Pope’s even gone so far as to comply with the draconian U.S. global tax collecting scheme known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (I’ve covered FATCA here (http://www.voicesofliberty.com/article/pope-francis-tax-collector-for-the-u-s-government/)).
Pope Francis and “climate change”
Now, what about “climate change”? Let’s go back to Sachs’ article “A Call to Virtue” from May, 2015. It foreshadowed the Pope’s June, 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si,” in which the Pope called for a “revolution” to help combat climate change. “Laudato Si” was presumably inspired in part by the April, 2015 Vatican workshop on climate change after which Sachs, in tandem with the U.N., decided to move forward with the “New Sustainable Development Initiative.” The initiative will be taken up at a December, 2015 U.N. conference in Paris, roughly two months after the Pope’s visit to the U.S. this September, which itself falls closely on the heels of what is now being touted as President Obama’s “11-Day Climate Change Tour.” Clearly there is coordination here.
Whatever the case, the most efficient remedy for environmental issues would be to further develop and better enforce private property rights, and to remove the barrier of government to unleash entrepreneurship and innovation (I’ve provided details on this in the sources). Yet, here again Pope Francis calls for more government. This reminds me of the 1990 article “After Communism” in The New Yorker by the widely-read and influential socialist economist Robert Heilbroner. In it, Heilbroner conceded that “Mises (the great free market economist) was right” about socialism – that socialistic government intervention is unworkable because it destroys prices and private property. Yet inexplicably, Heilbroner then called for a revival of socialism. Most interestingly relevant is how Heilbroner proposed to revive it. As Dr. Gary North recently explained:
“He (Heilbroner) then called for the next phase of socialism, one which will be based on environmentalism, not economic theory. He said that only by mobilizing the masses behind the idea that the government should intervene in order to save the environment, could socialism once again gain a hearing. Otherwise, the movement was dead.”
In Closing
So, back to Nimrod and Pope Francis. Nimrod is remembered as a terrible tyrant, driven by evil intent. On the other hand, by all accounts Pope Francis is believed to be a wonderfully good and decent man, driven by good intent. But what it comes down to is this: intent doesn’t matter. The consequences of more government will be the same, regardless of the intent of who’s calling for it. Thousands of years of history, economics, and political economy have proven as much.
Government, as it grows, allegedly to serve and protect the people, is akin to the “false prophets” Jesus warned of:
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them” (Mathew 7: 15-20).
So, why is Pope Francis channeling Nimrod? Let us know what you think in the comments section.
by Jason Peirce (http://www.voicesofliberty.com/bio/jason-peirce/)
http://www.voicesofliberty.com/article/pope-francis-channeling-nimrod/
Everyone knows Nimrod, right? You know, this guy:
file:///C:\Users\Jason\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\ clip_image002.jpg
Oops, not that Nimrod, otherwise known as Elmer Fudd, but irreverently dubbed “Nimrod” by Bugs Bunny!
I meant the historical Nimrod depicted below, overseeing the construction of the Tower of Babel:
file:///C:\Users\Jason\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\ clip_image004.jpg
This is Nimrod from the Book of Genesis — the “mighty hunter” who as the originator of the world’s first centralized, totalitarian government, is also recognized as the world’s first political “tyrant.” Many scholars note that the name Nimrod derives from the Hebrew verb for “rebel.” Indeed, Nimrod, high on hubris, is believed to have constructed the Tower of Babel in rebellion against God. We all know how that ended. For the purposes here, the point is that God was far from pleased with Nimrod’s focus on earthly power.
This brings us to Pope Francis.
Much is already being made of Pope Francis’ scheduled visit to the U.S. in late September, during which he will in unprecedented fashion, deliver a speech to a Joint Session of Congress in D.C. before his later address to the United Nations in New York.
What will the Pope speak about? According to the article “A Call To Virtue” in the Jesuit journal America by the Pope’s advisor Dr. Jeffrey Sachs (who also serves as an advisor to the U.N. and director of the Earth Institute and Professor of Sustainable Development at Columbia University), the Pope is coming to call for Americans to embrace the virtues of Jesus Christ. This is good. But he’s also coming to issue a challenge to the “American idea of God-given rights embodied in the Declaration of Independence.” The purpose of the challenge is because American society is “a society in thrall” with the idea of “unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And, because of “America’s exaggerated defense of liberty at the expense of virtue,” this “thrall” has led to “a crisis of the human spirit” and a “failure to live properly.” In short, Sachs and the Pope apparently attribute all of this to what they erroneously see as “free market capitalism. It’s erroneous because the U.S.’s “defense of liberty” is arguable, and because the U.S. hardly practices free market capitalism. The problem is too little freedom, not too much (more on this later). At any rate, Sachs assures that “Pope Francis is not coming as a scold but as a guide to help us find a solution to the paradox of the poverty of the spirit in the rising sea of affluence.” The Pope’s also coming to address “climate change” (Sachs has long-argued for redistributive global taxes to cut carbon emissions and to fund “a greatly enhanced supply of global public goods”).
What are we to make of all this? In short, Pope Francis is coming to challenge liberty and call for more government (U.S.) and intergovernmental (U.N.) intervention to right the wrongs in the world. He apparently believes government can foster the virtues of Jesus Christ (including humility, love, compassion, justice, and community). But contrarily, government, which necessarily requires force and coercion, is incompatible with the virtues of Jesus, which flow volitionally from the hearts of individuals, not from the force of government. Virtue cannot be coerced. Christ himself might be the first to assert as much.
This brings us to the point of this article. In challenging liberty and calling for more centralized government, Pope Francis is channeling Nimrod. In doing so the Pope has often distorted the teachings of Jesus and exhibited a gross ignorance of basic economics and political economy. This is disturbing because the Pope wields enormous influence and power and is seen by many as God’s moral authority on earth. That the Pope’s intentions may differ from Nimrod’s matters not. According to basic economics and political economy, the consequences of more government will be the same, regardless of the intent of who’s calling for it. All of this begs the question: if Pope Francis cannot be trusted on these issues, how can he be trusted on anything? Let’s examine some of of the Pope’s distortions before answering the question.
Pope Francis and the teachings of Jesus
In May, 2014 Pope file:///C:\Users\Jason\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\ clip_image006.jpgFrancis addressed the United Nations and used the Biblical story of Jesus and Zaccheus (Luke 19: 1-10) to justify the “legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the State.” But the point of the story of Zaccheus, the wicked tax collector, was that Zaccheus had a change of heart after meeting Jesus. Jesus so inspired Zaccheus that Zaccheus voluntarily chose to give back 4-times the amount he defrauded from others, and to give half of his possessions to the poor. Zaccheus voluntarily chose to redistribute his “economic benefits.” Zaccheus was not forced to do so by the government (the “State”). Despite this distinction, Pope Francis reasoned:
“This same spirit should be at the beginning and end of all political and economic activity……This ought to awaken the conscience of political and economic agents and lead them to generous and courageous decisions with immediate results, like the decision of Zaccheus.”
The problem here is that when “political agents” choose to redistribute “economic benefits,” there is nothing “generous” or “courageous” about it, as every “economic benefit” political agents choose to redistribute is coerced from taxpayers — under the threat of fines and imprisonment for non-payment, at that. The tax dollars politicians redistribute do not come out of the politicians’ own pockets. So, Pope Francis is calling for politicians to be “courageous” and “generous” with “economic benefits” coerced from other people. The point is that the virtue of charity cannot be coerced by government. Furthermore, the power of political authority, manifested and expressed through government, fosters vice and moral hazard. Calling for politicians, through government, to be more “generous” and “courageous” with other people’s “economic benefits” is calling for more power for government, which is essentially calling for more vice and moral hazard. Government is the designated social institution of organized force and violence. Surely Pope Francis understands this?
This begs another question, what did Jesus Christ himself feel about government? As Christian scholar Jacque Ellul has noted, for government Jesus reserved “irony, scorn, noncooperation, indifference and sometimes accusation.” I’ve made a similar case here (http://www.voicesofliberty.com/article/4-examples-of-jesus-christs-libertarianism/), using examples from the Gospels. At best, Jesus had no use for government. At worst, Jesus saw government as a mechanism of tyranny and oppression. Jesus did not advocate obedience to government. And after all, Jesus was killed by government. I’ve addressed the other parts of the Bible which do seem to advocate obedience to government, here (http://www.voicesofliberty.com/article/romans-13-not-the-pro-government-passage-statists-claim-it-to-be/).
The point is that Jesus’s “irony, scorn, noncooperation, indifference and sometimes accusation” for government make it all the more curious why Pope Francis sees government as the path to more virtue and a remedy for the world’s ills. Jesus didn’t advocate more government, he advocated the law of love: the Golden Rule. Government necessarily excludes the Golden Rule:
“The State always and everywhere necessarily violates the Golden Rule because the State does to others whatever it wants with impunity, as the State holds a monopoly on the (alleged) legitimate use of force and violence. But said Christ: ‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law of the prophets’ (Matthew 7:12).”
What would Jesus say about Pope Francis’ advocacy for more government?
Pope Francis on Economics: Austerity and Unemployment
On May 1, 2014 Pope Francis spoke in St. Peter’s Square and addressed the protests across Europe over worker’s rights, austerity, and joblessness. Said Pope Francis:
“I think about those who are unemployed often because of an economic conception of society that seeks egoistic profit regardless of social justice.”
Although seeking “egoistic profit” may not be virtuous, it’s not the cause of unemployment. Government intervention and regulation is. “Austerity” happens when governments spend and borrow themselves into bankruptcy. Unemployment generally happens when government taxes business too much, and imposes minimum wage laws which make jobs under arbitrarily-chosen wage levels illegal (unemployment also happens when government and central banks cause recessions — more on this later). Businesses do not benefit when they cannot afford to hire more workers, or when they must cut workers to stay in business, due to government intervention. Furthermore, the more unemployment, the less goods and services the unemployed can buy from businesses. Moreover, businessmen serve the public, not the other way around. As the great economist Ludwig von Mises succinctly noted: “He who serves the public best, makes the highest profits.” It’s about service first. Remember Jesus Christ’s Parable of the Talents (Mathew 25: 14-30).
In short, true “social justice” would entail the removal of the barrier of government so people could freely associate in mutually beneficial exchanges, whether in labor, or goods and services. “Social justice” cannot be coerced in the form of higher taxes and minimum wages, or the redistribution of “economic benefits.” Free markets unite people. Government intervention divides people. Surely Pope Francis understands this? (see more Mises quotes)
Pope Francis on Economics: Money
Pope Francis has also exhibited confusion and hypocrisy on the topic of money. During a September, 2013 visit to Sardinia, Pope Francis blasted the global economy and the “god called money” while urging the unemployed in the audience of a crowd of 20,000 to fight for work. Before calling on a prayer for “work, work, work,” Pope Francis asserted:
“We don’t want this globalised economic system which does us so much harm. Men and women have to be at the centre (of an economic system) as God wants, not money… The world has become an idolator of this god called money… It is not (only) a problem of Italy and Europe … It is the consequence of a world choice, of an economic system that brings about this tragedy, an economic system that has at its centre an idol which is called money…”
Pope Francis indeed makes a strong point on the love of money as vice. But note that after ripping the “god called money” he then called a prayer for people to work. Why do people work? To make money.
Speaking of money, Pope Francis is the face of the Vatican, the net worth of which is estimated to be some $10-$15 billion. The Church has never been shy about fund-raising, nor about passing around the collection plate every mass. Pope Francis also presided over the renting-out of the Sistine Chapel to Porsche (the automaker) for a Porsche “tour event.” What would Jesus think about all of this? Speaking of the Vatican, Pope Francis will also reportedly address immigration in his upcoming visit to the U.S., and urge the U.S. to “open its doors” to all who wish to immigrate in. Is Pope Francis also willing to “open the doors” of Vatican City – a walled, heavily-secured, independent, sovereign state in the middle of Rome – to all who might want to immigrate there?
Pope Francis on Economics: The “tragedy” of the economic system and the “powerful feeding on the powerless”
Pope Francis is correct that the “globalized economic system” is a “tragedy.” But it’s not a tragedy because of too much liberty, as he suggests. Rather, it’s a tragedy because it’s a system dictated by government and central bank cronyism, characterized by fiat-moneyed, inflationist, fractional reserve policies, the effects of which redistribute wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthy, driving “inequality.”
Speaking of “inequality,” in his first apostolic exhortation Evangeli Gaudium from November, 2013, Pope Francis addressed economic “exclusion,” the “inequality gap,” and stated that “inequality is the root of social ills” while railing against the “new tyranny” of the “powerful feeding on the powerless.” I share his outrage on “the powerful feeding on the powerless.” But again the problem is that Pope Francis attributes this to a lack of state control” and the “absolute autonomy of markets.”
The “powerful feeding on the powerless,” happens because there is not enough freedom, not too much. Freedom breeds competition, and competition in the business of goods and services is good for the poor and middle class, as competition brings down the prices of goods and services, and quality up. Naturally, the powerful (corporate big businesses) don’t want lower prices. So the powerful corporations lobby government for policies which raise prices. In other words, “exclusion” and the “inequality gap” and the “powerful feeding on the powerless” happens because government protects and shields the powerful from competition, which also stifles entrepreneurship and innovation. This is characteristic of crony-capitalism, which is far closer to fascism than free market capitalism. In a free market capitalist system, government would not protect the powerful and no business would be bailed out. Too-Big-To-Fail would not exist. The powerful would be competing against each other to serve the people. If the powerful could not give the people what the people demand in the free market, the powerful would fail and be powerful no more. In free market capitalism, where business serves the people, the people have power.
But the “tragedy” of “the powerful feeding on the powerless” also goes back to money. Money arose as a means of exchange – money in-and-of-itself is not the problem. The problem is government which controls and inflates money. This is what Pope Francis will not address. Government and central bank control of money and inflation is the greatest mechanism of social injustice and exploitation in the world. The long, strong precedence of Catholic thought on money (Bishop Nicolas Oresme, Pope Innocent III, St. Thomas Aquinas, etc.) shows that government control of money and inflation is not only economically unnecessary, but that it also fosters vice, redistributes from the powerless to the powerful, and insidiously destroys the spirit of the people. It is disturbingly curious that Pope Francis does not address this. The case for sound, honest money is made throughout the Bible:
“Diverse weights are an abomination to the Lord, and a false balance is not good” (Proverbs 20:23)
“You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length, weight, or volume. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin…” (Leviticus 19:35-36)
“Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water” (Isaiah 1:22)
and this:
“So when the money failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, ‘Give us bread, for why should we die in your presence? For the money has failed’” (Genesis 47:15).
Money “fails” and people are hurt when government controls money. Where is Pope Francis on this?
Pope Francis and Economics: What free market?
Furthermore, what nation is the Pope referring to, where “absolute autonomy of the marketplace” exists, where the state cannot “exercise any form of control”? Surely not the U.S. The problem for the U.S. and Europe is that there is too much control and not enough autonomy of the market, what with central bank (Federal Reserve) control of the fiat-money supply and interest rates, and government control of business through regulation and executive order. In the U.S., it was the Fed which pumped the economy full of cheap money and manipulated interest rates, and the government which helped blow vulnerable Americans into the 2000’s housing bubble which exploded into the 2008 Great Recession, in which the banks were bailed out by the government while the people got stuck with the bill. Talk about “the powerful feeding on the powerless.” Government, which stifles free association and mutually beneficial exchanges while fostering vice and moral hazard, is “the root of social ills,” not “inequality.” Yet Pope Francis calls for more government. The Pope’s even gone so far as to comply with the draconian U.S. global tax collecting scheme known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (I’ve covered FATCA here (http://www.voicesofliberty.com/article/pope-francis-tax-collector-for-the-u-s-government/)).
Pope Francis and “climate change”
Now, what about “climate change”? Let’s go back to Sachs’ article “A Call to Virtue” from May, 2015. It foreshadowed the Pope’s June, 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si,” in which the Pope called for a “revolution” to help combat climate change. “Laudato Si” was presumably inspired in part by the April, 2015 Vatican workshop on climate change after which Sachs, in tandem with the U.N., decided to move forward with the “New Sustainable Development Initiative.” The initiative will be taken up at a December, 2015 U.N. conference in Paris, roughly two months after the Pope’s visit to the U.S. this September, which itself falls closely on the heels of what is now being touted as President Obama’s “11-Day Climate Change Tour.” Clearly there is coordination here.
Whatever the case, the most efficient remedy for environmental issues would be to further develop and better enforce private property rights, and to remove the barrier of government to unleash entrepreneurship and innovation (I’ve provided details on this in the sources). Yet, here again Pope Francis calls for more government. This reminds me of the 1990 article “After Communism” in The New Yorker by the widely-read and influential socialist economist Robert Heilbroner. In it, Heilbroner conceded that “Mises (the great free market economist) was right” about socialism – that socialistic government intervention is unworkable because it destroys prices and private property. Yet inexplicably, Heilbroner then called for a revival of socialism. Most interestingly relevant is how Heilbroner proposed to revive it. As Dr. Gary North recently explained:
“He (Heilbroner) then called for the next phase of socialism, one which will be based on environmentalism, not economic theory. He said that only by mobilizing the masses behind the idea that the government should intervene in order to save the environment, could socialism once again gain a hearing. Otherwise, the movement was dead.”
In Closing
So, back to Nimrod and Pope Francis. Nimrod is remembered as a terrible tyrant, driven by evil intent. On the other hand, by all accounts Pope Francis is believed to be a wonderfully good and decent man, driven by good intent. But what it comes down to is this: intent doesn’t matter. The consequences of more government will be the same, regardless of the intent of who’s calling for it. Thousands of years of history, economics, and political economy have proven as much.
Government, as it grows, allegedly to serve and protect the people, is akin to the “false prophets” Jesus warned of:
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them” (Mathew 7: 15-20).
So, why is Pope Francis channeling Nimrod? Let us know what you think in the comments section.