The Pope is Wrong About Capitalism
His critique misses the mark, Biblically, historically and practically. Christians must understand why.
by Rod D. Martin
October 2, 2015
The Pope’s continued attacks on Capitalism raise important questions Christians should consider. Certainly unbridled human activity of any sort is fraught with sin: it is our nature. But the Pope’s critique misses the mark, Biblically, historically and practically. Christians must understand why.
1. Nothing in human history has done so much to alleviate human poverty and suffering as free market capitalism. Nothing. This shouldn’t even be a controversial statement. Before capitalism took root 250 years ago, the entire world lived in vastly greater poverty than the Pope’s slum-dwelling parishioners in (socialist) Argentina. And they had lived in exactly that level of poverty since at least Noah’s flood.
Were there redistribution schemes in Rome? Pharaoh’s Egypt? Ancient China? Yes there were. Did they lift anyone out of primitivism? No, they did not.
Just as God created the world in several steps, capitalism’s greatest achievements haven’t come all at onc…