I’ve done a lot of writing on the market economy for a Catholic audience, and much of it has been well received. There is a certain audience, though, that seems not to receive it so well. Thus I read around the web an apparent response to this piece of mine, whose title was assigned to me by the editor. My critic writes:

“Voting for Ron Paul in the presidential election as a prudential compromise is one thing. But for a Catholic to declare himself a ‘libertarian’ is quite another, for that involves accepting the principles of libertarianism. How can a Catholic defend the exploitation of women and children by factory owners in ways that even decent Protestants of the 18th century viewed as evil?”

Sure, I’ve already explained the truth behind this exploitation nonsense, and suggested that the silly utopianism here — if it weren’t for the exploiters, women and children would have been skipping through meadows all day! — is an embarrassment to sober Catholicism, but we wind up with this, as if I’d never written a word. (And not just utopianism, but ignorance: any idea what agricultural labor was like for a kid in the eighteenth century?)

I guess you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him read The Church and the Market.

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