[GonzoII]

"Everyone's a critic with 20/20 hindsight.

Believe me, this man is no fool."

This is from 1985:

Market Economy and Ethics By Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger 2 (Holy Father Prophecy?)

[In veno, veritas]

An interesting read, but I think is off on a number of points. First, based on my own reading of Adam Smith, I believe he is dead wrong to say that Smith inaugurated the thought “...that the market is incompatible with ethics because voluntary “moral” actions contradict market rules and drive the moralizing entrepreneur out of the game.” Smith's Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments seem to imply that markets promote moral actions. Second, which is related to the first, the laws of the market are neither good or bad. They are what they are, like the laws of physics. However, which might be what the future pope was trying to describe, an immoral society will result in a poor economy (via the laws of econ). Basically, my (and others) theory is that the market is really based on trust, and good institutions are developed in ways to verify trust. Contrast with O’Reilly’s “system of greed.” Anyhow, the above are the main issues, which get into why I disagree with many other areas.