Replies

As Rush’s brain dead example of the iPhone shows, there is plenty to dislike in the modern market “systems”, which are already shaped by the governments into something antithetical to free exchange. I agree with His Holiness, and I never attempted to twist what he said.

"Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly home - less person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the sur - vival of the ttest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of peo - ple nd themselves excluded and marginalized: 46 without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape" the pope's translated words….sounds pretty much like liberation theology that is spouted by the latin american wing….sorry doesn't work for me

" 46 without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “throw away” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “ex - ploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”.54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about great - er justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been conrmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selsh ideal, a globalization of indifference has devel - oped. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us." more of the same…. and I will quit with that