"The Pope's Call For Socialism"

Pope Benedict XVI called Tuesday for a new world financial order guided by ethics and the search for the common good, denouncing the profit-at-all-cost mentality blamed for bringing about the global financial meltdown.

In the third encyclical of his pontificate, Benedict pressed for reform of the United Nations and international economic and financial institutions to give poorer countries more of a say in international policy.

"There is urgent need (for) a true world political authority" that can manage the global economy, guarantee the environment is protected, ensure world peace and bring about food security for the poor, he wrote.

The document "Charity in Truth," was in the works for two years, and its publication was repeatedly delayed to incorporate the fallout from the crisis. It was released a day before leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations meet to coordinate efforts to deal with the global meltdown, signaling a clear Vatican bid to prod leaders for a financially responsible future and what it considers a more socially just society.

"The economy needs ethics in order to function correctly — not any ethics, but an ethics which is people centered," Benedict wrote.

He urged wealthier countries to increase development aid to poor countries to help eliminate world hunger, saying peace and security depended on it. He specified that aid should go to agricultural development to improve infrastructure, irrigation systems, transport and sharing of agricultural technology.

At the same time, he demanded that industrialized nations reduce their energy consumption, both to better care for the environment and to let the poorer have access to energy resources.

Benedict called for a whole new financial order — "a profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise" — that respects the dignity of workers and looks out for the common good by prioritizing ethics and social responsibility over dividend returns.

"It's almost as if the church has so little trust in business leaders that it speaks to the political leaders urging regulation and the consumers urging voting with their buying power," said Hanson, who chaired hearings leading up to a similar U.S. Catholic bishops' statement on capitalism and social justice in the 1980s. (Read Full Article)

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist Adam Smith. It is a clearly written account of economics at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, as well as a rhetorical piece written for the generally educated individual of the 18th century - advocating a free market economy as more productive and more beneficial to society. He was Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. There is an ethical tone to his arguments that is not always shared by those who seemingly subscribe to his free market philosophy.

The work is credited as a watershed in history and economics due to its comprehensive, largely accurate characterization of economic mechanisms that survive in modern economics; and also for its effective use of rhetorical technique, including structuring the work to contrast real world examples of free and fettered markets.

A phrase often quoted and alluded to, it conveys the unintentional benefits stemming from individuals' pursuit of their own wants and needs. An example from the earlier chapters: The Butcher, the Baker, and the Brewer provide goods and services to each other out of self-interest; the unplanned result of this division of labor is a better standard of living for all three.

There are two important features of Smith's concept of the "invisible hand". First, Smith was not advocating a social policy (that people should act in their own self interest), but rather was describing an observed economic reality (that people do act in their own interest). Second, Smith was not claiming that all self-interest has beneficial effects on the community. He did not argue that self-interest is always good but that the alternative is worse: "By pursuing his own self interest he frequently promotes that of society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good". (Read Full Article)

   I have the greatest respect for Pope Benedict XVI but in his call for a new economic order centered on the "greater good" of the people, as I see it, that is a call for socialism. Socialism sounds good on paper but inevitably you end up with an oligarchy like in The People's Republic of China, controlling the personal lives of the masses, not elevating the masses. I agree with the economist Adam Smith, that when people are acting in their own self interests more good is done for society than when the government decides what is in the best interests of society. In my opinion, capitalists with personal  integrity do more for society than a socialist government does, in the long run. I believe God uses the free market "invisible hand" along with the ethics of religion to better society, not socialism.

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