The Pope and the scold, Sept 24^th

This morning I watched the Pope deliver an invited address to a joint session of Congress. His audience also included four of the nine justices of the Supreme Court; perhaps the others had urgent business elsewhere. The Pope read his speech in English, a language in which he was clearly not fluent; still, he was certainly understandable. Enough so that when he talked about our responsibility to protect the planet, Senator Inhofe, a leading climate change denier, sat firmly on his hands. The speech was enthusiastically received, Inhofe excepted, of course. This Pope is more concerned with following Jesus than with following rules so naturally that causes him some trouble.

What he had to tell the Congress formed a fascinating contrast with another national leader’s address on May 24^th when Bibi Netanyahu warned of catastrophe if the Iran agreement was not rejected. He claimed there would be a nuclear holocaust if we validated the agreement. His plea didn’t work; the agreement stands. Of course there is still a chance that Iran itself will reject it. Perhaps Netanyahu can wrangle an invitation to address the appropriate legislative body of Iranians about what an awful agreement this is, and encourage the Iranians to reject it. Keep in mind that Israel has never signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and is estimated to have about 80 deliverable nuclear weapons of its own.

The scold in this narrative is none other than Thomas Sowell. He begins his column by claiming that, “The Pope has created political controversy by blaming capitalism for many of the problems of the poor.” That is certainly true; it is true that the Pope said it, and it is a fact. Capitalism is splendid at creating wealth, particularly the unregulated and largely uncontrolled capitalism favored by the right wing in this country. While capitalism is very good at creating wealth, it is not good at distributing it. The obvious result is that it tends to be concentrated in a very few hands.

Sowell claims that, “A scholar specializing in the study of Latin America said that the official poverty level in the United States is the upper middle class in Mexico. The much criticized market economy of the United States has done far more for the poor than the ideology of the left.” Why the comparison with Mexico? Why not a comparison with one of the Scandinavian countries, countries that offer government provided medical care for children born with birth defects which will otherwise probably bankrupt their parents? Our right wing is very concerned with the “pre-born,” the “post-born” is the parents responsibility. Then there is student debt; non-existent in many other countries where higher education is free. There are many other advantages that come from living in a country that controls the distribution of the wealth that capitalism can generate. Sowell will never understand this.