A Good Man Gets it Wrong

Pope Benedict has delivered a letter to Catholics everywhere and to other "people of goodwill."

He writes as reported at the BBC:

"Profit is useful if it serves as a means toward an end," he wrote.

"Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty."

He warned that globalisation, properly managed, could "open up the unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale".

But badly directed, it could "lead to an increase in poverty and inequality, and could even trigger a global crisis".

I applaud the good sentiment in these paragraphs but beyond sentiment most of the ideas advocated here are decidedly what helped to create much of the strife we see in the world today.

Of course I am not supportive of fraud or theft. Where I differ with the pontiff is in his declaration that all profit must be pursued with the common good in mind and that profit pursued for profit's sake 'risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.'

It has been said that poverty is the human condition. Or at least it was the human condition until free markets were allowed to operate devoid of tyranny and widespread corruption. What we see now on Earth, in those areas where economic freedom abounds, is people living better than humans have ever lived in the history of this planet. These living standards were not the creation of profit earned for the purpose of the common good, but rather the simple byproducts of profitable operations.

Look at China. It was not until the communist dictators of China relaxed their economic "common good" vice on the people that the economy began to explode reportedly rescuing 1,000,000 Chinese from poverty a month! Similar situations are becoming evident in places such as Vietnam and India.

Foil that with Hugo Chavez' Venezuela where reportedly the "common good" is the goal of his excellency. The economy is in shambles while one by one the nation's industries are being swallowed up for "the people."

I am not suggesting that Pope Benedict is in league with Chavez or that he is anything but a decent, caring man. What I am suggesting is that he has a woefully inadequate understanding of how economies run and how successful ones, regardless of motivation, end up benefiting the weakest among us.

A strong economy and its greed driven profits are much better friends to humanity than is any endeavor undertaken solely for "the common good."