Salvatore Padula

What word did I miss? In the first sentence I said "the effect." Did you miss a word?

I thought one of us did. It's why I asked.

I'd be suprised to find that the living conditions of the poor decline as they become less poor.

Depends on the poverty measure. The poverty gap, which averages across individual distances from the poverty line, is unresponsive to transfers among the poor. It's possible for the poverty gap to decrease if a poorer individual were to make a transfer to someone who was less poor to begin with. In this case, "poverty" drops, yet someone suffers a decline in living conditions.   

As to the point that there are other social and economic indicators of well-being, of course there are. If you could provide any data showing that standards of living are crumbling among the world's poor I'm open to argument, but living standards generally correlate to positively to income.

Still looking and mulling it over. 

SalvatoreP&JofE

About other indicators of well-being, first, I shan't contest the Pope was wrong on incomes and the impact of the crisis. Interested in why he brings it up. He’s concerned about poverty and inequality, which he hints at by speaking of “imbalance,” and whether the poor are worse off.

It's helpful to know not only how much one has in one’s pockets, but also how one spends it. Consumption figures offer some perspective on poverty and inequality. In the US and elsewhere, consumption inequality is lower than income inequality and grows more slowly than the latter.  

Second, is the Pope so wide off the mark in his assessment, if one were to look at other indicators? Looked at poverty stats. Whether it’s the proportion of people below the poverty line, how far below a society is from the line, or a measure of poverty’s severity (squared poverty gap),  some optimism is in order. In all developing regions, except E Europe & Central Asia, poverty abated between 2008-2010. Nonetheless, hard to believe the sharpest downturn since the Great Depression has not exacted its toll on the world’s poor.

Salvatore Padula

Why can't the effect on the poor of a financial crisis be measured in terms of income? Income seems to be the criterion most suited to measuring a financial crisis (along with wealth.) 

Did you miss a word here? You do mean using income to measure the effect of a financial crisis, right? Hence the graph James linked to in #268, which shows the incomes of developing countries, measured in terms of per capita GDP, remain basically flat from when the crisis hit in 2008 to its trough in 2009.

Anyway, income is just one measure of well-being. There are other social and economic indicators that tell us how the poor were affected by the crisis.

How about simply "wrong"? In this matter. In this rather important matter.

The Pope is neither Evil Incarnate--Destroyer of Markets--nor Error Incarnate--Perverter of Poverty Indices.

Severely Ltd.

Would a social plan as you define it imply_a_surety of_purpose_that_could_lead_to_a tyranny of the majority?

It could.

Michael Novak asks whether there can really be a common good that rides roughshod over the choices of free persons for themselves. At the same time, he asks how social life is possible when we all have our particular ends. So distinguishing between the common good as a social plan vs a social order is helpful.

He sees the practical common good as a moving target. In a pluralistic society, it takes shape as people choose to employ their resources and creativity and strive for ends as they see fit. Those ends that cannot be realized alone prompt them to associate, coordinate, and cooperate with others. His point is that striving together is itself rooted in and originates in the exercise of personal freedom. The common striving happens because we choose to, not because we have been told to--by a majority, a few, or the one--for the good of all.

Obviously, Novak's just one philosopher, but he's an example of how Catholic social thought can be consistent with a defense of markets and pluralism.

On the underscore use, guilty as charged on another thread. In my defense, 

what he said.

Franco's comment suggests a notion of the common good either as a bundle of concrete goods provided by the state or as some pre-determined state plan for the collective. We can see why someone who esteems liberty and personal responsibility would reject that. You hint at something different, however, by mentioning the rule of law.

Would people accept the proposition that the state is responsible for the common good if it were understood as "a social order rather than [a] social plan"? 

A social plan "requires ... each individual [to] submerge his will and actions into an imposed and overarching design." A social order instead "implies a set of rules and institutions within which each individual is left free to pursue his own choices and develop as a human being, as long as he abides by such rules."

Midget Faded Rattlesnake#314

This whole conversation leaves me wondering if perhaps the Pope should just have Hernando de Soto over for tea.

Not a bad idea, especially since de Soto has some convincing anti-Marxist street cred that might resonate with Pope Francis, who knows and rejects leftist repression and violence. De Soto has survived assassination attempts and the bombing of his Institute for Liberty and Democracy's Lima office by the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (the Shining Path revolutionaries). They can have some yerba mate tea together.

Severely Ltd.#273

Do any Catholics here feel any obligation to tell your priest ... [o]r write a letter to a bishop? Is that a ridiculous gesture from a Catholic's point of view?

Would it comfort you to hear most Catholics probably don't know about the speech? I think a sad reality of the Church is many don't actually know her doctrines. Many Catholics go on their merry way ill-informed about the news and unformed in doctrine. 

The Catholics here are self-selected. We're probably the junkies, who track the news and get riled about issues one way or another. Speaking for myself, I don't believe the speech is a game-changer. Left-tilting Catholics who've read it will be affirmed in their views and mostly ignore it; right-tilting Catholics will react with dismay. The real fight's on the ground, as Joseph Stanko said, for laity to make the case to others about the morality of free markets. To make the case entails speaking and doing.

My sense is the younger generations entering seminaries and the priesthood are a reason for optimism. I believe there's a hankering among them for a return to orthodoxy and fidelity.

I hate to agree that the Pope misidentified the causes of the GFC, but I do.

As to his charge about ideologies that "uphold the absolute autonomy of markets," I agree with all who pointed out that a system with absolute autonomy exists nowhere. That's what I meant with my first comment on this thread that the Pope presents a caricature of capitalism. The most generous reading I can make of his remark is that maybe he intended to pose the caricature in order to warn us what to avoid.

I think the best we can hope for from Pope Francis on economic matters is not to give aid and comfort (a phrase you used earlier) to ideas and policies inimical to free enterprise. He has enough on his plate. I'm fine leaving it to other leaders, Catholic or not, to make a full-throated defense of free markets and to denounce statism. Local bishops might be more important players in this regard.

Nifty idea. Michael Novak's The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism and Free Persons and the Common Good. Fr Robert Sirico's Defending the Free Market.

For Pope Francis, perhaps something related to Latin America. Hernando de Soto's The Mystery of Capital is all I can think of. And JPIIs Centesimus Annus. Every Catholic in a position to influence public opinion ought to read or re-read the encyclical.

Call the Midwife is a lovely drama series set in the 1950s East End. 

James Of England #243

I really did think that there was an element of Catholic teaching that said that laymen took the lead on economics, business, and political science.

Sounds right.

Are you saying that the regulation of international finance including, as I understand the Pope, a greater ability for states to default on their debt, is in fact within the faith and morals jurisdiction of the clergy?

It's reading too much into the Pope's speech to claim it argues for international financial regulation and allowing states to default on their debt. He kept it general, "... there is a need for financial reform along ethical lines that would produce in its turn an economic reform to benefit everyone." The statement is so bland as to be unobjectionable. Perhaps you disagree.

On your larger question, it shouldn't be out of bounds for clergy to preach on justice and what it demands from us in actual life--for state or individual debtors to keep their obligations and pay off debts; for bankers/borrowers not to misrepresent their assets and liabilities; for creditors to forgive debts, in whole or in part, for humanitarian or even business reasons.

As a Catholic, who thinks free enterprise and markets are the path out of poverty for individuals and societies, I really and truly hope so.