Suppose that you hear someone declare that capitalism produces “an economy of exclusion and inequality” and that “such an economy kills.” You might well decide that there’s no point in arguing with someone who so embodies Mises’ “anti-capitalist mindset.” The world is full of such people and they seldom show any openness to counterarguments.

The speaker in question, however, is Pope Francis, whose pronouncements on a wide range of issues command attention simply because of his position as leader of the world’s one billion Roman Catholics. His writings, especially the encyclical Laudato si, put him far into the “progressive” camp, and those who seek to further expand the state’s control over economic life find his views to be useful.

Still, the pontiff has called for dialogue on the issues of poverty, consumerism, environmentalism, business, the family, and so on. Taking him at his word, the Independent Institute has produced a book that responds to his call and his beliefs. Edited by Wake Forest University economist Robert Whaples, Pope Francis and the Caring Society offers seven fine essays by scholars who share the pope’s Christian convictions but disagree with his ideas on how best to advance them.

Bergoglio’s story / If those of us who favor a minimalist state want the pope to understand us, it’s important that we understand him. His ideas may be mistaken, but he holds them for a reason. His background has a great deal to do with that.

Born Jorge Bergoglio in Argentina in 1936, Pope Francis’s views were shaped by that nation’s unhappy experience under Peronist rule. In his foreword to the book, the late Michael Novak observes:

As the twentieth century began, Argentina was ranked among the top fifteen industrial nations, and more of its wealth was springing from modern inventions rather than farmland. Then a destructive form of political economy, just then spreading like a disease from Europe—a populist fascism with tight government control over the economy—dramatically slowed Argentina’s economic and political progress. Instability in the rule of law undermined economic creativity. Inflation blew to impossible heights.

Rather than grasping the connection between economic suffering and the dirigiste policies of the governing regime, most Church leaders looked at places like Argentina and condemned what was left of laissez faire. Collectivism was in the ascendancy in the first half of the twentieth century and the Catholic Church was seduced by it. Three years before Peron seized power in Argentina, Pope Pius XI wrote in his 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo anno, “The right ordering of economic life cannot be left to a free competition of forces. From this source, as from a poisoned spring, have originated and spread all the errors of individualist economic teaching.” That assault on economic liberalism was the foundation for the Church’s social teaching for decades until Pope John Paul II had some good words for market competition and the pursuit of profit in the 1980s.

The future Pope Francis thus grew up believing that capitalism was the big problem. It causes a huge gap between the few rich and the many poor and it leads people astray with the “consumerist” impulse. In 1998, he compiled a book following the visit of John Paul II to Cuba in which he declared, “No one can accept the precepts of neoliberalism and consider themselves Christian.”

Upon becoming pope in 2013, Francis did not retreat in the least from his long-standing opposition to economic liberalism. As Pepperdine University economist Andrew Yuengert writes in his chapter, “Francis’ account of markets is entirely negative: a healthy social order must put markets in their place, reducing their outsized influence on consumer choices, government policy, and labor markets.”

Francis has, Yuengert notes, injected a previously unknown cynicism into the debate over the free market by questioning the motives of market proponents. He casts arguments for competition as “mere cover for exploitation.” The people who argue for laissez faire cannot be trusted because they have been warped by greed. One must wonder how serious the pope really is about engaging in dialogue with those who disagree with him when he impugns their motives.

In his essay, Acton Institute scholar Samuel Gregg writes that Pope Francis reflects the “us versus them” politics of Peronism and adds that Argentina’s miserable attempts at economic liberalization in the 1990s no doubt further soured him on pro-market thinking. While the pope repeatedly attacks laissez faire concepts, he apparently finds nothing to reproach in progressivism. Gregg writes, “In the numerous addresses, press conferences, and interviews Francis has given since becoming pope, it is difficult to find any criticism of left-populist policies that comes close to matching his impassioned denouncements of market economies.”

Gregg is disturbed by the pontiff’s deep hostility toward people who argue that what the poor need is less government help, not more. Business interests and market advocates, in Francis’s eyes, “are dishonest and offer only sham arguments and slanted analysis.” How, Gregg asks, can he expect to have true dialogue with those whose integrity he has repeatedly and publicly attacked? Moreover, by demonizing business, the pope increases the likelihood that revolutions such as we have seen in Bolivia and Ecuador will completely shut out market competition and saddle the people with thoroughly dictatorial regimes.

Poverty and capitalism / Business and economics professor Gabriel Martinez of Ave Maria University quotes from Francis’ encyclical Evangelii gaudium to show that he knows the political terminology and can use it as well as any leftist politician:

Some still defend theories of “trickle down” which suppose that all economic growth, favored by market freedom, manages to provoke by its own power greater equity and social inclusion in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses an artless and naïve trust in those who hold economic power and in the sacralized mechanisms of the ruling economic system.

Martinez contends, however, that this passage should not be read as showing the pope’s implacable hostility to economic freedom, but rather that he opposes the use of market theory “to justify indifference”—the view that “eventually the poor will be alright if we leave then alone; the market will take care of them.”

Martinez argues that Francis is concerned that if markets are not kept under control, the result will be control by “the winners,” which is to say that the masses will be kept under the heels of economic oligarchs. (In that, he sounds much like Franklin Roosevelt.) What the pope evidently doesn’t understand, and unfortunately Martinez fails to stress, is that the solution to the problem of domination by business oligarchy is not a powerful state, but a state where the laws and the people guard against the abuse of governmental power for private ends.

The solution to business oligarchy is not a powerful state but a state where the laws guard against the abuse of governmental power for private ends.

In their chapter “Pope Francis, Capitalism, and Private Charitable Giving,” Independent Institute senior fellow Lawrence McQuillen and Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation research associate Hayeon Carol Park push back strongly against the pontiff’s belief that a strong state is necessary for the poor to advance. Infinitely better than a redistributive state, they argue, is a state that gets out of the way of wealth creation and private redistribution. Further, voluntary charity is morally worthy conduct, which cannot be said of coercive welfare systems. They write:

Voluntary giving is not the charitable “giving” the pope often speaks of. The pope instead emphasizes governmental redistribution and a large role for international organizations in facilitating transfers. Unfortunately, the approach he advocates generally results in more human suffering, not less, thus undercutting his call for help for the poor.

McQuillen and Park go further in criticizing the pope’s stance in favor of redistribution by noting that he never identifies actual programs that succeed in bringing about social justice. Francis is guilty, they maintain, “of the vice of vagueness, which is no substitute for knowledge and leaves the pope espousing nothing but what he sees as good intentions.” They point the pontiff to scholars such as Peter Bauer and Dambisa Moyo who have made strong cases against reliance on government and international aid programs.

Property and the environment / Pope Francis has also had much to say about the environment. Emeritus economics professor A.M.C. Waterman of the University of Manitoba examines the pontiff’s “green” positions.

Francis blames pollution on a “throwaway culture” and advocates reliance on renewable energy sources and recycling. He also rails against “disproportionate” growth of cities. To ease pressure on the environment, the pope wants people to adopt a new lifestyle; once we are free from “the obsession of consumption,” we will supposedly enjoy cleaner and happier lives.

Waterman examines various claims the pope has made where he undermines his arguments with hyperbolic rhetoric. For example, Francis complains that many of the world’s poor suffer from the lack of clean water (which is true), but blames “the deified market” for it. Waterman responds, “Economists know that it is not ‘despite its scarcity’ but precisely because of that scarcity that water should be ‘subject to the laws of the market.” He asks the pope to consider that capitalism is capable of providing the infrastructure for water that the poor in Africa, Asia, and South America so desperately need.

Philip Booth of the Institute of Economic Affairs argues that Pope Francis misses the importance of property rights in alleviating poverty and solving conservation problems. He wants the pontiff to learn more about the benefits of laissez faire, writing:

Economies broadly based on the principles of economic freedom and private property are more likely to prosper. And as countries become more prosperous, they tend not only to adopt technologies that are less resource intensive per unit of gross domestic product, but also to value environmental goods more.

Booth also suggests that Francis familiarize himself with the work of the late Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom, who argued that communities are well able to create systems from the “bottom up” to deal with social and environmental problems.

Conclusion / The book’s final chapter, by Allan Carlson of the International Organization for the Family, examines the pope’s declarations about the economics of the family. Again we find that Francis can’t resist attacking capitalism, stating that the social degeneration of the family begins “when human beings tyrannize nature, selfishly and even brutally ravaging it.” Carlson writes, “Francis despairs over consumerist cultures that pressure young people ‘not to start a family’ by simultaneously denying them stable economic ‘possibilities for the future’ while presenting them with too many options.”

Carlson takes the pope to task for paying no attention to the need for property rights if families are to enjoy security and well-being. That’s right, but I think Carlson ought to have devoted a few paragraphs to the harm that government welfare programs have done to the family.

Will this book have any effect on the renewed leftward drift of the Roman Catholic Church? Efforts at getting Church leaders off the belief that statism is necessary for a good, fair society have been ongoing for decades with little apparent success. Still, because Pope Francis has said he wants dialogue, we perhaps have a unique teachable moment. Congratulations to the Independent Institute for an admirable effort to take advantage of this moment.