I agree there is a lot to be said for ignorance, especially in the clergy. saying capitalism is not an “ism” is however, a syncretization of separated ideas. These things may compliment each other, but economics is certainly not metaphysics, or politics, or morality, or anthropology.
What you claim to be capitalism is another philosophy.
Capitalism is not an ideology cooked up by an academic. It is, precisely as I said, what happens when people are free to engage in labor, industry, and trade.
Why people make the economic decisions they make, when they are free, has been studied and subjected to rigorous rational analysis. The result is Austrian economics.
And Austrian economics is not an ideology. It is a true science, unlike the ideologies of statism and collectivism, which are merely expressions of the will, on the part of some, to steal and to kill.
Most of what passes for “Catholic Social Teaching,” in the realm of economic activity, amounts mostly to whining about the presence of poverty and suffering in the world, in language that is increasingly apt for exploitation by...plunderers and killers—i.e., statists and collectivist.
If the Church, especially Popes, would anchor their “social teaching” firmly in the Commandments—i.e., in sound principles regarding prohibited and praiseworthy actions—rather than painting pictures of DESIRED OUTCOMES, a “better future,” they would be teaching something of great value. What one usually encounters nowadays when the topic is “social teaching” and “social justice” is elaborate Utopian visions, consisting either of Marxism with all the corpses papered over, or nostalgia for everything from the “guild system” to the First New Deal.
BTW: Yes. Francis DOES have a “Marxism Problem.”
The problem is that he fails to condemn Marxism in all its variants and manifestations every time he opens his mouth.
He should never utter a syllable about helping the poor without in the same breath condemning Marxism and all other forms of statism. That he fails to do so renders everything he says fodder for the statists. I do not expect him to understand this. He shows very little, if any, foresight concerning the exploitation of his words by the pro-abortionists, the collectivists, the statists, etc., etc.