By Luis Rivera III
In this solid interview Walter Block addresses the views espoused by Pope Francis in regards to politics and economics. Block claims that the Pope makes an error in his assesment of economic and political systems. In this interview Block begins by defining terms – he bifurcates the corporatist system and laize faire economics or capitalism.
Block’s statements are geared toward statements such as these from Pope Francis, in which Francis according to Block misidentifies the systems in place.
“Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.”
Block echoes the words of Franz Oppenheimer when he distinguishes the market/”laize faire capitalism” and government intervention – corporatism is a form of government intervention. Oppenheimer, before him seperated the two the following way:
“There are two fundamentally opposed means whereby man…is impelled to obtain the necessary means for satisfying his desires. These are work and robbery, one’s own labor and the forcible appropriation of the labor of others…I propose…to call one’s own labor and the equivalent exchange of one’s own labor for the labor of others, the ‘economic means’…while the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the “’political means.’”
Block implies that due to the Pope being born and raised in Argentina, he might be more prone than someone from another country to confused corporatism with the market. Had a particuilar northeast newspaper interviewed Block, the headline would be something like “Block is against Argentinians.” However, with an honest interviewer no such incident takes places.
12:18 pm on January 5, 2015
