The famous Austrian economist, Joseph Schumpeter, despaired for the future of the free market system. The reason for this despair was that the excess wealth of the system would create educated folks who would turn on the very system that created them. Their education would make them into anti-capitalist ideologues, who would then kill the goose that laid the golden egg. He did not think that those who participated in the creation of such enormous wealth would be in any position to fight back, and this for two reasons: firstly, business people do not tend to be men of letters, so they are unable to mount arguments defending the system; secondly, the job of the business executive is the survival of the company, and thus, he will concentrate on those things required to weather the storm, not be controversial.

The man who is probably the most famous Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises, despaired for the future of the free market system due to envy. Various sectors of society, academic, non-productive, uneducated, etc., would envy the wealth of the producers in society, and end up by finding means to take away that wealth and give it to the lesser productive people, despite the fact that they did not earn it, and therefore, are not entitled to it.

Our present political situation has a combination of both of these views. Both presidential candidates are in favor of redistribution of wealth, albeit one is more open about it. And very few business people are saying “no!” to any of it with a few exceptions, such as the president of BB&T Bank, who wrote an open letter to Congress asking why his totally solvent bank should be punished for the stupidity of the others.

But there is another culprit in this maelstrom. This culprit is the business person. Why? With tongue-in-cheek apologies to neo-classical (mathematical) economic theory, the purpose of a company is not to make a profit. As John Paul II said in Centesimus Annus, a profit is a sign of the health of a company, and therefore is good and necessary. But anyone who has taken a management course knows that the purpose of the company, aside from producing what the customers want, is to increase the wealth of the stockholders. This is different than making a profit, although profit is an integral part of it. Wealth is different than profit. Profit is a short run measurement of the short run health of the company. Wealth, by its very nature is long run. Profit appears on the financial statements of a company in mere money terms, and the accountants who produce those statements do not even take inflation into account. So a company could have an increase in profit, but not an increase in items sold, merely because they had to raise prices to accommodate the fall in the value of the dollar. But executives today are a slave to the profit line in the financial statements. They have a need to impress their boards and stockholders now by sacrificing the long term growth of the enterprise.

Continue reading "Saving the Free Market"

In his weekly column, the National Catholic Reporter’s John Allen notes Pope Benedict XVI’s references to the environment during the recent World Youth Day events in Australia.

Allen writes:

Although the point didn’t get much traction amid the pageantry of World Youth Day, it’s a striking fact that the most frequent social or cultural concern cited by Pope Benedict XVI in Australia was the environment. The pope talked about ecological themes seven times.

[snip]

If there was a distinctive twist to what the pope said in Australia, it was the need for reconfiguration of lifestyles, beyond and beneath policy questions. Repeatedly, Benedict warned against what he called the “folly of the consumerist mindset.”

One sign that somebody was paying attention: the Acton Institute, a Grand Rapids-based think tank with a pro-free market message, put out a press release rejecting impressions that the pope has “gone green” in the secular sense. Benedict wasn’t warning against a climate crisis, the Acton release stated, but a moral crisis.

Allen, the most reliable English-speaking journalist covering the Vatican during my time there, appears to have gotten this one wrong by misunderstanding the point of the Acton press release, which did in fact mention the Pope’s criticism of consumerism, but as a moral problem rather than an environmental one.

More seriously, Allen seems to misunderstand the Pope’s use of environmental issues. The Pope is not interested in the particular issues in themselves; rather he is more concerned with what our use or abuse of the rest of creation says about our relationship with God.

Whatever Benedict’s concerns for the environment may be, it is absolutely clear that he follows traditional Catholic doctrine by placing man at the center of all creation. Here is the key passage that follows the quotation cited by Allen from the World Youth Day welcoming address:

And there is more. What of man, the apex of God’s creation? Every day we encounter the genius of human achievement. From advances in medical sciences and the wise application of technology, to the creativity reflected in the arts, the quality and enjoyment of people’s lives in many ways are steadily rising. Among yourselves there is a readiness to take up the plentiful opportunities offered to you. Some of you excel in studies, sport, music, or dance and drama, others of you have a keen sense of social justice and ethics, and many of you take up service and voluntary work. All of us, young and old, have those moments when the innate goodness of the human person - perhaps glimpsed in the gesture of a little child or an adult’s readiness to forgive - fills us with profound joy and gratitude.

Continue reading "Pope Benedict's Human Ecology"

Those who know me are not surprised to learn that I sincerely admired Pope John Paul II for many years. At first, like many Protestants, I saw him only as the pope, thus as a person standing in some kind of opposition to my own Christian faith. After I began to grasp what I believed about the Creed’s affirmation regarding “one, holy, catholic church” I found my heart melted to love all Christians everywhere. It was not hard for me to love John Paul II when I spent time getting to know more about him and spoke with some who knew him. The real clincher was George Weigel’s masterful biography, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1999). Karol Wojtyla loved Christ very deeply and was a monumental figure in the twentieth century. He also genuinely inspired people to live better lives.

John Paul II made his final public appearance two years ago last week, March 30, sitting in complete weakness on the balcony overlooking Vatican Square where thousands expressed their deep love for him. A few days later, on today’s date April 2, he passed into the presence of Christ his Lord. So, this weekend marks the second anniversary of those final momentous hours of this great man’s life. He died, as he had lived, in dependence upon Christ for his hope. (Anti-Catholics will insist that the pope can not be a Christian. My saying that he was a great Christian will invite their opposition. I believe that any fair-minded Christian, who carefully reads the witness that he faithfully bore to Christ throughout his long life, will draw the conclusion that this was a man of true faith.)

I decided to mark this weekend by viewing the superb video: Pope John Paul II. This three-hour feature-length film first aired on television in 2005. It is now available on DVD. It stars Cary Elwes (as a young  Karol Wojtyla in Poland) and Jon Voight (as Pope John Paul II). Voight, who is an Academy Award recipient for a previous film, could actually pass for John Paul II in his features. He also mastered the late pope’s mannerisms well. Both men, in my judgment, do a superb job of portraying John Paul II faithfully in the film. (This film was made with the full cooperation of the Vatican.) It covers the whole life of John Paul II, from his early childhood, through the Nazi occupation of Poland and the the Communist takeover, right down to his final moments on earth.

John Paul was a courageous man, comfortable in himself and calmly assured of his faith. He was a true intellectual and a shepherd who loved people deeply. He often touched the lives of ordinary people with profound humility, as the film magnificently shows, especially in one deleted scene that I wish had been preserved. As I thought again about John Paul II I realized his true power lay in the two things marked his life: His sense of humor and genuine self-effacing manner and his profound intellect joined with a deep and real personal piety. These two qualities are often missing in the role-models evangelicals have provided for their own flocks. This is one reason for John Paul’s universal appeal, as it is with Billy Graham among evangelicals. John Paul lived well and suffered well, providing to many of us a faithful witness to Christ that brings us real hope that God can transform a powerful and prominent man into a truly humble Christian. (Perhaps it would be better to say that he was a truly humble man who happened to become the pope, much to his surprise, and the office never altered who he really was before God.)

Just this weekend a nun in France has reported that she was healed by praying to the deceased John Paul II. This miracle will now be investigated by the Vatican, through a rigorous process of study. Such a miracle becomes necessary in order to beatify John Paul II. This whole process is one that Protestant evangelicals rightly question given the lack of obvious biblical reasons for such a process. This remains one of those aspects of Catholicism that I find unnecessary at the very best.

Regardless of how you disagree with the idea of the papacy, and the present process of beatification, you can not deny the importance of this man to world affairs and religion in the late twentieth century. Whether you know a lot about John Paul II, or very little, you would also do well to see this film. The DVD edition includes some wonderful memories of John Paul II as well as four or five deleted scenes and some excellent cast interviews. (These clips were also worth seeing.) I commend this lavishly produced film to all. It presents John Paul II in a personal and most human way.

John H. Armstrong is founder and director of ACT 3, a ministry aimed at “encouraging the church, through its leadership, to pursue doctrinal and ethical reformation and to foster spiritual awakening.”