Maggie: The Revolution is Behind You.

It's just a song, but it is also a marker of the social evolution that inherently takes place in dynamic, free societies. Schumpeter discussed "creative destruction" in regards to markets, but the same process takes place within the social realm as well. This is especially true in depoliticized markets, where the political power structure isn't used to impede change.

In the debate on gay marriage something is too easily ignored and the conservatives get away with a lie. They claim state power is being used to force change. That is a lie. State power is being used to prevent change. The private sector already welcomes and accepts same-sex relationships to a degree that far surpasses that done by the governmental sector. Civil society accepts gay couples but the legal system rejects them. The change is over. I am reminded of something Garet Garrett wrote. While Garrett was speaking of something else the words apply here: "There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them."

The National Organization on Marriage thinks they are holding the pass against a social revolution that is coming up the road. But they too are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It has already transformed the social arena and all that is happening now is that government is slowly catching up with the change.

Private actions are inherently dynamic and quick to change and adjust according to various signals. Government is slow, ignores such changes, fights the signals or tries to distort them intentionally. And the marriage debate is just another example of this tendency.

But, just as it slaps down the conservative reliance on state power to prevent change in social arenas so does this theory slap down the progressive's dependency on state power to prevent economic dynamism. State power is inclined toward a static society. Power is inherently conservative and resistant to change.

The rotund bigot, Maggie Gallagher, doesn't understand that the revolution is behind her. Her NOM rallies may be funded by the Mormons but the public isn't showing up. The battle is over, Maggie. All that remains is for the state to catch up with society and there is little that will prevent that from happening.

This duet by John Barrowman and Daniel Boys is just another indication of how much society has changed. The fact that two well known British male entertainers sang a love song to one another, and that both are openly gay, just didn't seem to cause a ripple any more. Twenty years ago there would have been lynch mobs clamoring at the door. Yes, Maggie, the revolution is behind you. Get used to it, because you will be gone before it is.

The evolution of toleration in the West.

Have you ever considered why separation of church and state evolved, why we are more religiously tolerant today than in the past?

At one time, church and state intertwined and tolerance was a minority opinion. Even prior to establishment of a Constitutional Republic in the United States, there was quite a bit of church-state entanglement. The results were often bloody and always nasty. Even when only Protestant Christians had their rights respected, these Protestants frequently and repeatedly turned on one another. I have previously written here about how colonial America routinely attacked minority Christian sects, even to the point of killing people for being the wrong kind of Protestant Christian. There was never a Judeo-Christian heritage, because the colonies routinely excluded Jews and Catholics from having legal rights and some colonies refused to allow either to settle there.

Bloody persecution of Christians by Christians in the colonies was mild in comparison to the centuries of bloodshed in Europe over which form of Christianity should be imposed on everyone. Martin Luther explained: “In a country there must be one preaching only allowed.” Other forms of preaching were considered rebellion and Luther spoke of how to deal with such matters: “Let everyone who can, smite, slay, and stab, secretly and openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful or devilish than a rebel.” While the bloody history of Catholicism is well known, mainly due to publishing efforts of Protestants, the genocidal impulse in Protestantism has not been so duly noted.

Luther is a good example of Protestant intolerance. In 1525 he said Catholic mass should be forcibly suppressed as blasphemy. In 1530, he said Anabaptists should be put to death. In 1536, he said Jews should be forced out of the country. His view was that the State should enforce Christian teaching, more particularly Luther’s teachings, by force. “The public authority is bound to repress blasphemy, false doctrine and heresy, and to inflict corporal punishment on those that support such things.”

Most people today have no idea that Europe was plunged into a series of wars, over a period of about 150 years, all between competing sects of Christians intent on wiping out other forms of Christianity. The last such major war was the Thirty Years’ War, from 1618-1648. Direct and indirect casualties in the war amounted to between 15% and 30% of all Germans. In Czech areas, population declined by about one-third as a result of the war and as a result of diseases spread because of the conflict. It is thought that Swedish armies destroyed as many as one-third of all towns in Germany. Estimates are that this period of Christian conflict resulted in the deaths of 7 million people. R.J. Rummel estimates the death toll higher, at 11.5 million. An objective look at the history of Christian conflicts caused Prof. Perez Zagorin to conclude: “Of all the great world religions past and present, Christianity has been by far the most intolerant.” Even Aquinas, held up as an advocate of reason, said that if the state executed forgers it could “with much more justice” take heretics and “immediately upon conviction, be not only excommunicate but also put to death.” Zagorin says: “None of the Protestant churches—neither the Lutheran Evangelical, The Zwinglian, the Calvinist Reformed nor the Anglican—were tolerant or acknowledged any freedom to dissent.” [How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West, Princeton University Press, 2003.]

Just during the short reign of England’s Catholic Queen Mary I (1554-1558) some 300 Protestants were burned at the stake for heresy. And in 1572 Catholics in France went on the rampage over a period of several weeks, rounding up and massacring Protestants. Death tolls are uncertain, but believed to range from 5,000 to 30,000. Of course, in the name of Jesus, neither women nor children were spared the sword.

So what were some reasons that traditional intolerance and violence amongst Christians ended? There are several. One is that bloodshed had become intolerable and Christians grew weary of constantly slaughtering one another. While that played a role in the matter, it was not the prime reason.

Other explanations exist as well and each played a role. One is that the Enlightenment took place and there was a burst of rationality on the continent. This rationality not only lead to a rise in scientific progress, but it also meant that more and more Europeans had become sceptical of Christianity. Orthodox Christianity was being undermined from the inside, leading to a diminution of its influence. Within Catholicism, the Scholastic revolution of Aquinas had already revived an interest in reason.

Protestantism, however, was a very different thing. Much of the impetus of the Reformation was to attack these worrisome influences of human reasoning. Luther and Calvin both opposed the use of reason to draw conclusions about truth. Contrary to imaginations of Protestant apologists, the Reformation was the enemy of reason, not an ally. Prof. Frederick Beisner, in his important history, The Sovereignty of Reason [Princeton University Press, 1996], writes:

…The early theology of the Reformation cannot be regarded as the forerunner, still less as the foundation, of modern rationalism. Rather, it is its antithesis, indeed its nemesis, an attempt to revive the spirit and outlook of medieval Augustinianism. Luther’s and Calvin’s aim was to restore this Augustinian tradition—its teachings concerning faith, grace, sin, and predestination—by purging it of all its pagan and scholastic [Thomistic] accretions.

Beisner’s important book shows how the Reformation religions of the Protestants were themselves later reformed. Thomas Hooker, in his work Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie [1593], revived an interest in reason among Protestants. His defense of reason was the “revival of the scholastic, natural law tradition, and in particular that of Aquinas and Suarez, which had been cast overboard by Luther and Calvin.” Hooker influenced one of the great liberals of the Enlightenment, John Locke.

Later the circle of scholars and theologians who had gathered together, under the sponsorship of Lord Falkland, known as the Tew Circle, emphasized reason as well. While orthodox Protestants, they held reason as the only means of understanding religion. In fact, reason was allowed to judge religion and draw conclusions. These men became an influence on the more radical skeptics in the free thought movement later. They argued that faith could only come through reason, not from grace. They opposed the predestination theory of Calvin and Luther, believing salvation was obtained by good works, not by grace, and they believed in toleration of others.

They were followed by the Cambridge Platonists, a group of scholars at Cambridge, who “went several strides beyond Hook and Great Tew in the direction of a greater rationalism. To begin with, they were the first thinkers in the English Protestant tradition to develop a systematic natural theology.” Beisner writes that they “affirmed the principle of the sovereignty of reason. They saw reason as the final rule of faith, a standard higher than Scripture, inspiration, or tradition.” In other words, while the original Reformation was actually a step-backwards for modernity, the Reformation was later reformed by a series of thinkers who reintroduced the hated Aristotelian forms of thinking.

The forefathers of modern libertarianism, the classical liberals, first campaigned for freedom of conscience. They wanted to limit the power of the state because the state was the instrument by which intolerant church policies were imposed on the public. The church, preferring to not have blood on its hands directly, left the killing to the state. So the state imposed theological order at the point of the gun—or more accurately at the time, at the point of the sword. Transgressors would be identified and executed, often at the stake. But what the state was doing was entirely at the behest of the church. The church is pretty much a toothless dog when it doesn’t have access to state power. It can bark but it can’t bite.

As liberalism reduced state power, it directly reduced the ability of the church to impose theological conformity. What we saw, with the unleashing of human reason, was growth in skepticism, a desire for natural, scientific explanations for reality, limitation of the state, and the rise of a depoliticized, or capitalist, market system. As Sir Samuel Brittan put it: "The breakdown of theological authority, the rise of scientific spirit and the growth of capitalism were inter-related phenomena."

More and more, individuals began to think for themselves regarding religion. And the result was a splintering of the church. Instead of one “holy mother church” sitting astride Europe, numerous sects began to evolve. At first this splintering meant a bloodbath, as each sect tried to jockey for monopoly privileges and access to the swords of the state. This is precisely why the series of religious wars were fought, as an attempt to destroy diversity of thought and impose conformity.

This splintering reduced the power of the church as a whole by spreading it among various sects. No one sect was guaranteed enough power to successful grab control of the state. If it tried, it would face opposition from the other sects, not because they favored freedom of thought, but because they feared repression for themselves. Voltaire [Lettres philosophiques, 1734] noted: “If one religion only were allowed in England, the Government would very possibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people would cut one another’s throats; but as there are such a multitude, they all live happy and in peace.”

We found that in the history of the United States. Prior to the formation of the constitutional union, each state was independent and free. And the states tended to be dominated by one sect or another. Using that dominance, the church would then use state power to oppress other, minority sects. Jews, Catholics, Quakers and Baptists were favored targets of the state sanctioned church.

Yet when the Constitution was written the First Amendment explicitly rejected a church-state alliance. This was not because the majority of founders had seen the light about the evils of a church dominating a state, but rather because none could be sure that their church would be the one that would dominate. No one sect dominated the nation as a whole. While Anglicans dominated Virginia they had no power in Massachusetts. The Congregationalists, who controlled Massachusetts, had no influence in Pennsylvania.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison worked to end state sanctioned religion in Virginia, but only succeeded when other faiths had immigrated to the state in sufficient numbers to undermine Anglican dominance. Freedom of religion came about, not because the various sects had adopted liberal values, but because each of them was unsure they could control the state when it came time to name the sanctioned church.

Capitalism is not just the result of more freedom; it is also the cause of new freedoms. Capitalism undermines the ability of the state to impose conformity. Technology encourages diversity of thought, which challenges any theological claim to monopolize what is true, or good for man.

There is a marvelous section in Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris [1831], where he depicts a printing press. Through the window we see the cathedral. Inside a man is standing. He points first at the press, and then to the cathedral, saying: “this will destroy that. The Book will destroy the Edifice.” Hugo wrote further:

To our mind, this thought has two aspects. In the first place it was a view pertaining to the priest—it was the terror of the ecclesiastic before a new force—printing. It was the servant of the dim sanctuary scared and dazzled by the light that streamed from Gutenberg’s press.

Free speech encourages diversity of opinion and directly leads to the splintering of sects and creeds. Capitalism encourages this process. Prof. Nicholas Wolfson noticed this:

It is no accident that capitalism and free speech are so frequently present together. The free flow of information, ideas and technology is essential in the modern age. We live in an age of information. The computer, the microchip, the fax, television, and cinema have created a universe in which the barriers to information and new ideas fail everywhere. Efforts to restrain free speech limit not only intellectual freedom, but result in a stultified and failed economic system. It is no accident that communism collapsed as this age came to fruition. Communist systems were unable to compete in the new technology and the new economies based upon the computer. The explosive mix of free speech, fax machines, and computers has created a universal knowledge and appreciation of the achievement of democracy and capitalism.

Capitalism also rewarded tolerance. This is important. Merchants found that the most beneficial trade they could make was often with someone of a different faith or creed. Refusal to trade with them meant lost opportunities and foregone profits. Again, Voltaire noticed this:

Take a view of the Royal Exchange in London, a place more venerable than many courts of justice, where the representatives of all nations meet for the benefit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan [Muslim], and the Christian transact together, as though they all professed the same religion, and give the name of infidel to none but bankrupts. There the Presbyterian confides in the Anabaptist, and the Churchman depends on the Quaker's word. At the breaking up of this pacific and free assembly, some withdraw to the synagogue, and others to take a glass. This man goes and is baptized in a great tub, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: that man has his son's foreskin cut off, whilst a set of Hebrew words (quite unintelligible to him) are mumbled over his child. Others retire to their churches, and there wait for the inspiration of heaven with their hats on, and all are satisfied.

Commerce rewards tolerance by increasing the number of trading possibilities. Trade undermines prejudice in all areas: be it religious, ethnic, racial or sexual. Bigotry flourishes when the bigot can pass that cost on to the entire society, but when he must bear the direct costs of his own prejudice he is more reluctant to do so. Some may still prefer to engage in traditional, prejudicial practices, but they are at a competitive disadvantage to competitors who fail to do so. Brittan said: Capitalist civilization is above all rationalist.’ The entrepreneur, as a profit maximizer is forced to ignore the “traditional, mystical or ceremonial justification of existing practices.” This rejection of the traditional, means depoliticized markets are inherently anti-conservative. The gay marriage debate is a good example. Private businesses have largely adopted measures to recognize gay relationships among their employees. It is the political sphere that is behind the times. The state rarely forces change. Most of the time it is an impediment to social changes and only plays catch-up once the cultural revolution is over.

Businessmen, who rely on voluntary exchange, have long been leaders of movements that undermine traditional prejudices. People who trade want more trading options, not fewer. And prejudicial policies limit the number of options available. Henry Kamen, in The Rise of Toleration [McGraw Hill, 1967], wrote:

The expansion of commercial capitalism, particularly in Europe’s two principal maritime powers, Holland and England, was a powerful factor in the destruction of religious restrictions. Trade was usually a stronger argument than religion. Catholic Venice in the sixteenth century was reluctant to close its ports to the ships of the Lutheran Hanseatic traders. The English wool interest spent the first half of the seventeenth century in energetic opposition to the anti-Spanish policy of the government. By the Restoration in 1660 it was widely held that trade knows no religious barriers; the important corollary that followed from this was that the abolition of religious barriers would promote trade.

In his Political Arithmetic, written in 1670 but only published twenty years later, Sir William Petty said “for the advancement of trade… indulgence must be granted in matters of opinion.” Even opponents of trade recognized this true, and said it was one reason to oppose trade. Samuel Parker’s A Discourse on Ecclesiastical Politie [1669], said “tis notorious that there is not any sort of people so inclinable to seditious practices as the trading part of a nation.” The chaplain to the Earl of Berkeley warned, “that the great outcry for liberty of trade is near of kin to that of liberty of conscience.”

Illustrations: 1) Quaker Mary Dyer being sent to her death in colonial America. 2) Painting of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre by Huegenot painter Francois Dubois [ca 1572-84]. 3) Voltaire. 4) Medieval marketplace.

Bigots, boycotts and business.

It is a common myth that bigotry, while endemic in the private sphere, is only eradicated when government’s step in and take action. Yet the history of bigotry shows something else altogether.

During the era of segregation in the American South the Civil Rights movement got a major boost from the Montgomery bus boycotts. Rosa Parks refused to sit at the back of the bus and instead used a seat “reserved” for whites. This act of defiance set off the boycotts. Eventually the federal government stepped in with various civil rights measures and eradicated this example of private bigotry.

But bus seats were not reserved by race at the whim of the bus companies. In fact the companies were compelled to obey various governmental regulations. Bus companies were prosecuted for disobeying the segregation laws. Private companies were forced into accepting racial segregation to please politicians.

The anti-apartheid fighter Helen Susman noted that the South African government had separate schools for the various races and, in addition, separated white Afrikaners from English speaking whites as well. But she said: “Private schools, however, are integrated. Many of the private schools, in fact practically all of them, have not only English and Afrikaner students but students of other races as well.”

Merle Lipton’s exhaustive analysis Capitalism and Apartheid showed that repeatedly the government had to step in and force businessmen to discriminate on the basis of race. Left to their own “profit-seeking” devices they found such bigotry to be contrary to their own self interest.

Today around the world the issue of rights for gay men and women is hotly debated in government. Moves to extend rights to gay couples are fiercely resisted by politicians in almost every country. Almost unnoticed is the fact that business—ranging from multinational corporations to small companies— are implementing policies which recognize gay relationships.

If anything government’s tend to act against bigotry only after the private sector has already stepped in to eradicate it. The nature of politics is inherently conservative and resistant to change. But the private market thrives on innovation and change.

Bigotry like any other action has costs associated with it. And bigots in general don’t like to pay those costs. They much more prefer to pass the costs on to third parties.

In a famous incident in South Africa a local city councillor of the Conservative Party, who opposed the ending of segregation, willingly sold his own home, in a white area, to black buyers. The reason was simple enough. In this case if he refused he had to take the second highest bid instead and the difference between the two bids was something he paid himself. Suddenly when bigotry was costing him directly he no longer advocated racial separation.

It is government intervention which allows bigots to impose their costs on everyone. Take for instance a bigoted employer who prefers not to hire a specific type of person. He has to search through more potential employees to find the one he wants. And if someone, who is highly qualified for the job comes to him—but is a member of the group against which he discriminates—he has to send them away. He loses the opportunity to employ a worker who will bring him benefits and instead has to send them to his competitors.

In a free market the cost of his bigotry is paid entirely by him. So bigots prefer to have laws which require their competitors to act in the same manner. Now the competition can’t hire the workers, which the bigot dislikes, either. When the government gets involved the bigot is able to pass on some of the costs of discrimination to his competitors as well.

That is certainly what the white trade unions found to be true in South Africa. When mining companies were left to seek a profit they preferred to hire the best workers at the best wage, regardless of race. To prevent this from happening job reservation was imposed by the state. Farmers, who supported job reservation, when it came to urban jobs, successfully fought off similar measures when it came to jobs in rural areas.

The law prevented black farm workers from seeking out higher paying jobs in the city. This forced up wages in the city—making the racist trade unions happy—and forced down wages in the rural areas keeping the farmers happy. Meanwhile farm workers were paid less and business had to pay more for urban workers. The use of politics allowed bigots to pass the costs on to unwilling third parties.

Bigotry, like anything else, is price sensitive. People want less of it when they pay the cost themselves. So contrary to widespread opinion it is government intervention which is necessary to allow bigotry to flourish. And it is markets which act constantly to undermine it.

Medieval thinking permeats Papal book.

In a couple of weeks the English edition of Pope Benedict's new book is to hit the market, itself a bit amusing, since he has a little hissy fit in the book about markets.

Catholicism is often a religion that is firmly stuck in medieval thinking. Even now there is no shortage of Catholics, especially those of the Mel Gibson variety, who have a perception of Jews firmed rooted in the thinking of the Dark Ages. And the reality is that Catholic thinking regarding economics has hardly made any progress at all. I am aware there are some market advocates who are intent on selling the theory that the Vatican is a champion of markets but this does not seem to be the case and never has been. It appears to me, at least, more an attempt for them to reconcile their religious presumptions with their economic knowledge than a useful analysis of what Vatican officials actually think.

Benedict doesn’t even seem to grasp the fundamental nature of markets in any sense of the word. He writes: “Confronted with the abuse of economic power, with the cruelty of capitalism that degrades man into merchandise, we have begun to see more clearly the dangers of wealth and we understand in new way what Jesus intended in warning us about wealth.”

Of course it should be noted that the man lives in a palace, is chauffeured around the world, has servants, cooks and I sincerely doubt he ever scrubs his own toilet. Whatever dangers wealth provides it apparently doesn’t touch him and his jewels, his limos, and his palace. I know that Catholics will argue these things belong to the church. But surely if wealth is dangerous it is dangerous to the church as well as to businessmen. Throughout history the Papal power has quite voraciously accumulated wealth for itself while preaching to their followers that wealth itself is inherently bad.

Many people do take Papal discussions seriously. And while I sometimes attended Catholic Mass as a child I was not raised a Catholic and these day I’m a proud secularist without the tinge of religion. But I always found it odd that we should give any credence to Papal discussions on economics. And I did so for the same reason that I thought it absurd to listen to self-proclaimed celibates regarding sex.

So, this man who has comforts in life far beyond those of even many millionaires, is preaching to the world about the dangers of wealth. A man who has never had to earn a living in the marketplace preaches about the evils of markets and a man who allegedly has never had sex is considered a major authority on human sexuality. It is hard for me to take any of that seriously.

That the man gets his facts wrong is hardly surprising. It wouldn’t be the first time. According to the Washington Post: “Benedict decries how the wealthy have ‘plundered’ Africa and the Third World both materially and spiritually, through colonialism. He criticizes lifestyles of the wealthy, citing ‘victims of drugs, of human trafficking, of sexual tourism, people destroyed on the inside, who are empty despite the abundance of material goods.”

His caricature of the wealthy is as crude as the traditional Catholic caricature of Jews. The only difference is that many people think it fine to resort to such offensive attacks on the wealthy of the world.

If the wealthy plundered Africa through colonialism why was Africa richer then, than it is today? Don’t assume I support colonialism. I don’t. It was stupid and costly. It did some dumb and dangerous things. It established centralized governments and drew nonsensical borders both of which created the incentives for continual conflict. But the reality is that much of Africa was better off under colonial rule than they are today. What was poured into those countries from the West exceeded what was taken out.

What is worse is that Benedict is giving comfort to every tyrant and despot in Africa. Men like Mugabe have used the “colonial” card constantly. Mugabe destroys his own people and the claims that “colonialism” is to blame. It is pure rubbish. Colonialism in Africa died decades ago. Nor does it explain why former colonies around the world do extremely well for themselves. Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, were all under colonial rule. The miseries in Africa are, for the most part, inflicted by dictators and Benedict has just handed those monsters another tool to use to oppress their own people. He is not only economically illiterate but foolish.

What Benedict ignores is that the funds that were poured into Africa came from one set of pockets and the wealth that was taken out was placed into another set. Colonialism did redistribute wealth but it was from the pockets of taxpayers in the colonial powers and into the pockets of the owners of those enterprises favored by the governments. That is not a feature of capitalism but mercantilism. Plundering “wealth” from Africa is like taking away the sight of the blind. It had no wealth to speak of.

It surely was a odd form of plundering. Colonial powers walked into a region where the average life span was abysmally low and where the accumulated wealth of the average person was a hut, some crude utensils and not much else. Medical care didn’t exist only attempts at using magic. There was no infrastructure of any kind in most of Africa. There certainly were some areas that had trade and so forth. But the standard of living was shockingly bad.

What was taken out? For the most part resources that weren’t being used by the locals. The indigenous people were not engaged in a diamond trade that was stolen from them. The gold mines were not ripped from their possession. Even Mugabe’s hated “white farmers” of Zimbabwe cleared land that had not been farmed before and created the farms that fed the nation well until Mugabe nationalized the farms and imposed famine on his people.

Africa is not poor because it was “plundered” as the Pope seems to fantasize. It was poor long before the first colonial power appeared on the scene. Wealth began dramatically increasing for the “poor” during the colonial era. After “liberation” most African countries went backwards in economic terms with poverty increasing. Only in recent years have there been a few bright spots on the African continent.

Oddly those bright sparks seem to be in nations that implement policies more in line with capitalism. The anti-capitalist nations are the ones with the worst poverty. If capitalism is impoverishing Africa the Pope will have to explain why the most capitalist countries in Africa are prospering.

Benedict’s idea that the wealthy are plundering the Third World through drugs, human trafficking, sex slavery and the likes sounds he’s been watching too many late night American TV dramas. I’m surprised he didn’t say that the wealthy are drugging people and harvesting their kidneys.

The reality is that the wealthy of the world don’t rush off to the Third World to sell cocaine to people who have no money. Very, very, very few people engage in “sex tourism”. And last I heard one of the prime locations for “sex tourism” was the impoverished, Third World city of Amsterdam.

Benedict decries the “cruelty of capitalism”. The rich in the non-capitalist world, outside the tiny ruling elite, do less well than the middle class in the West. The poor of America live lives that would be considered upper middle class in much of the Third World. Western trade with the Third World is relatively small and ought to be increased. Trade produces wealth, it doesn’t destroy wealth. Free trade requires an exchange where all parties to the exchange benefit otherwise they would not make that change. And what the people of Africa want is more trade not less. There is more support for capitalism in the typical African village then there is in the College of Cardinals.

Benedict seems to believe that wealth is a zero sum game. That the only way for one person to gain wealth is for another to lose it. Consider that at one point virtually the entire world was poor. If wealth is merely a redistribution of existing wealth then how did wealth come into existence in the first place? Wealth is created and the creation of wealth must always precede the distribution of wealth.

Americans don’t have automobiles because they plundered them from Third World indigenous peoples, as Marxist and the Pope would like to think. They have cars because individuals discovered how to produce cars and then established factors in the West to produce those cars. And what started as a luxury in the West is now a relatively common sight in the Third World.

On more than one occasion I’ve driven though one of the vast rural settlements of Africa. And while the homes might be extremely modest, even poor, by Western standards I was surprised at how many cars were parked outside. And the more insecure the property rights the worse the home and the better the car. When governments, such as Mugabe’s, routinely destroy these settlements, people don’t invest in housing but will invest in property they can move, such as a car.

This is not to say there has been no injustice done by individuals from the West to individuals in the Third World. But the “West” as some sort of collective entity has not. Nor have the “wealthy” as some collective entity. Again this sort of crude thinking should have died with the Dark Ages. If Mr. Bernstein acted badly his actions were attributed to Jews as a collective body. If Cecil Rhodes acted badly it is the fault of the West or the “wealthy”. This sort of scapegoating is beneath the Pope. It is the sort of thinking that oppressed Europe for centuries. It is crude, cruel and just plain stupid.

Photo: The little Vatican trinket in the photo is a model of a church made from gold and platinum. What was the danger of wealth again?