by Robert Gore
Pope Francis has been in the news lately with blistering criticisms of capitalism. According to a New York Times‘ article:
Pope Francis does not just criticize the excesses of global capitalism. He compares them to the “dung of the devil.” He does not simply argue that systemic “greed for money” is a bad thing. He calls it a “subtle dictatorship” that “condemns and enslaves men and women.” “In Fiery Speeches, Francis Excoriates Global Capitalism,” July 11, 2015
As far as SLL knows, the Pope has never defined the capitalism he condemns, so SLL will do it for him. Here is the definition from Webster’s Third New International Dictionary: “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision rather than by state control, and by prices, production, and the distributions of good that are determined mainly in a free market.” It’s not a perfect definition, it omits the term “voluntary exchange,” but voluntary exchange is the necessary foundation of free markets so this definition will suffice. Importantly, the definition notes that economic decisions are made by “private decision rather than by state control.”
